CASE STUDY · UX STRATEGY
Climate Rewards Web App
Defining the 0→1 product experience for Carbon Mutual, a platform that rewards eco-conscious behavior through a digital currency called Carbits.
Early-stage UX strategy and product definition · October – December 2025
ROLE
Sole UX Designer
TYPE
0→1 Product Strategy
TIMELINE
Oct – Dec 2025 · Part-time
FOCUS
Strategy, Personas, IA
OVERVIEW
About this project
Carbon Mutual is a pre-seed Toronto startup building a platform that rewards individuals for making low-carbon choices. Users earn "Carbits" (a digital reward currency) for verified sustainable actions. They can then redeem Carbits at partner businesses.
I joined as the sole UX designer via a Riipen work-integrated learning engagement. My work was primarily strategic: defining the product structure, user personas, core flows, and feature scope before the development team began building.
ROLE
UX Design Specialist (sole designer, working directly with the founder)
TEAM
Founder (John), 4 engineers, 1 sustainability market researcher (Bri)
TIMELINE
October – December 2025, part-time (~300 hour engagement)
WHAT I OWNED
UX strategy, user personas, information architecture, feature scope, core flows
THE PROBLEM
Making sustainable behavior actually rewarding
For most consumers, sustainable choices are invisible, the carbon impact of any one decision is hard to measure, and "doing good" rarely comes with a tangible benefit. Carbon Mutual's vision is, if you reward the right behavior immediately and visibly, people will change their habits.
The design challenge: how do you translate an abstract, invisible thing (like carbon impact) into a product experience that feels motivating, credible, and easy to use for everyday people in Toronto?
Problem 1
Carbon impact is invisible and hard to feel
Users have no way to see or measure the impact of their daily choices. Numbers like "2.3kg CO₂e saved" mean nothing without context, comparison, or a reason to care.
Problem 2
Sustainable behavior lacks real-time incentives
Choosing a low-carbon option often costs more or takes more effort. Without immediate, tangible rewards, there's no reason to change entrenched habits.
Problem 3
Too many possible features. So who do we design for first?
There are hundreds of sustainable behaviors we could reward. Without a clear target user and prioritized feature set, the product would try to be everything and succeed at nothing.
PRODUCT DIRECTION
Defining the core loop first
Before any screen design, I worked with the founder to answer one question: what makes someone come back tomorrow? The answer became the behavioral engine the entire product is built around.
Every screen and feature decision flowed from this loop. If a feature didn't support one of these five stages, it didn't belong in the MVP.
KEY DESIGN CHALLENGE
The hardest decision: what to prioritize first
One of the biggest tensions in this project was scope. There were dozens of sustainable behaviors we could reward such as biking, transit, thrift shopping, local grocers, reducing household waste, supporting family-owned businesses, and more. The founder initially wanted to support all of them.
When I pushed on who the first 500 real users would actually be, we had to get specific. I worked with the founder and Bri (our market researcher) to narrow the feature list using the persona work and the Toronto launch research.
THE DECISION
We narrowed to two priority behaviors for the Toronto pilot: biking and transit (streak-based, GPS verifiable) and thrift store and local eco-shop purchases (receipt scan verification).
These two covered both target personas, required the least complex verification infrastructure for V1, and had clear, immediate redemption value for Toronto early adopters. Everything else moved to a Phase 2 backlog.
This scope decision shaped the entire product structure. It defined which earn flows to design, which partner categories to show, and what the redemption marketplace should prioritize.
USER RESEARCH
Who we were designing for
Rather than design for "anyone who cares about sustainability," I worked with the founder and Bri to define two specific early adopter profiles. These personas shaped every product decision from which merchants to partner with, to what the Dashboard needs to show, to how Carbits should be explained.
The guiding question for each persona: would they realistically shop at our partner merchants? If the answer was no, the rewards loop would fail before it started.
🚲
Eco-active Audrey
21 · University student · Downtown Toronto · bikes to campus, thrifts, volunteers in climate clubs
GAMIFICATION
STREAKS
SOCIAL PROOF
Earns Carbits by biking (streak tracking) and thrift shopping (receipt scan)
Redeems for transit credits and local café discounts
Motivated by visible proof her lifestyle matters and wants to see and share impact
21 · University student · Downtown Toronto · bikes to campus, thrifts, volunteers in climate clubs
🛍️
Local Shop Lover Lena
33 · Small business employee · Hamilton · supports local grocers, ethical boutiques, family businesses
SIMPLICITY
TRANSPARENCY
COMMUNITY
Earns Carbits by shopping at local partner stores (receipt scan + local vendor map)
Redeems for discounts at partner stores or donates to sustainability projects
Motivated by her spending supporting local businesses and skeptical of greenwashing
MARKET RESEARCH
Grounding the design in real Toronto context
Bri (our sustainability market researcher) created a Toronto Launch Strategy that gave the design work a real foundation. I used this research directly to inform the product's merchant categories, earn actions, and neighborhood targeting for the pilot.
Key insights from the Toronto Launch Strategy
PILOT NEIGHBORHOODS
The Annex · Queen West · Kensington Market · Leslieville · Yorkville
PARTNER CATEGORIES
Zero-waste stores · Thrift shops · Eco boutiques · Independent grocers · Co-ops
EARLY ADOPTER PROFILE
Eco-conscious students · Young urban professionals · Community-minded local shoppers
TORONTO GREEN ECONOMY
$6.55B sector · 60,000+ jobs · 430+ green companies · strong municipal support
This research confirmed that the two priority behaviors we chose (biking and thrift/local shopping) matched the habits of our target neighborhoods and early adopter profiles. It also gave us the partner category list for the Earn and Redeem pages.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Structuring the app around the core loop
With personas defined and scope narrowed, I mapped the app's information architecture, the 5 core sections and how they connect. Every section maps directly to a stage in the behavioral loop.
🏠 Home Dashboard — Carbit balance, impact summary, CO₂ avoided, next action nudge
💳 My Carbit Card — digital wallet, transaction history, barcode for in-store scanning
Carbon Mutual App
🌿 Earn Carbits — priority actions, category browse, partner map, receipt scan
🎁 Redeem — spend Carbits (partner discounts) vs support partners (donations)
👤 Profile / Settings — account info, linked data sources, privacy controls
5 core sections, each mapped to a stage in the Action → Proof → Reward → Motivation → Repeat loop
The key structural decision here was separating the Redeem page into two tabs: Spend Carbits (earn partners who offer discounts) and Support Partners (organizations who accept donations but don't issue Carbits). This distinction came directly from the founder and shapes how the network grows in two directions simultaneously.
OUTCOME
What I delivered
Defined the core behavioral loop (Action → Proof → Reward → Motivation → Repeat) through 1-on-1 sessions with the founder
Created 2 user personas (Eco-active Audrey and Local Shop Lover Lena) informed by the founder's vision and Bri's market research
Mapped the full information architecture across 5 core sections, with clear rationale for each section's role in the product
Narrowed feature scope from 10+ possible behaviors to 2 priority actions for the Toronto pilot through persona alignment and market research
Defined the Earn/Redeem distinction (spend vs support partners) as a structural product decision
Produced early-stage concept screens for Dashboard, Carbit Card, and Profile to establish visual direction
Where the project ended
My engagement concluded before full hi-fi screens were completed for the Earn and Redeem flows. Those two pages are the core of the behavioral loop and were the natural next step; the scope conversation with the founder was still being finalized when my contract ended.
The strategic foundation (personas, IA, core loop, feature scope) was delivered and handed off to the development team.
REFLECTION
What I'd do differently
The biggest thing I'd change: I would have pushed for a defined scope agreement earlier in the engagement. I spent a lot of time checking in with the founder to stay aligned rather than proposing a specific direction and defending it. There's a version of this project where I say "here are 2–3 options, which one?" instead of waiting for clarity that kept shifting.
I'd also have started the Earn flow wireframes much earlier or even a rough lo-fi sketch, before doing any visual work on the Dashboard. Having one polished screen while the core behavioral screens were still undefined created an imbalance that made it harder to hand off a coherent picture to developers.
This project taught me that 0→1 product design is less about designing screens and more about making decisions under ambiguity, and being the person who moves things forward rather than waiting for clarity that never fully arrives. That's the skill I'm actively building and why I'm drawn to early-stage environments where that kind of thinking matters most.