Redesign the promotional website to raise awareness for the issue of rational land use.
Disfactory is a project co-developed by the Earth Citizen Foundation and g0v volunteers, aiming to make it easier for people to report illegal factories and promote reasonable land use. Through this platform, users can easily take photos to report nearby illegal factories.
Who is g0v and CET?
g0v is a decentralized civic technology community initiated in Taiwan. Transparency of information, open results, and collaborative efforts are at the core of the community's values, utilizing the power of the masses to care about public affairs. Projects created in g0v are all run by proactive civics who have different talents and skills. Recently, they have built incredible projects like: COVID vaccine maps, cofacts – disinformations identification platform, and HackFolder – a collaborative note platform for different online documents.
The Earth Citizen Taiwan is an environmental non-profit organization in Taiwan, focusing on industrial pollution, climate change, and energy transition. It is the first environmental protection foundation established through crowdfunding and relies solely on public donations rather than government funding. The Foundation conducts research, proposes solutions, and encourages rational and constructive dialogue to mobilize citizen power and take effective action to achieve environmental change in individual cases and policy-making.
Hackathons are held every 2 months by g0v to gather people in order to make progress on their projects together.
What is Disfactory?
Disfactory is a project directed by CET and executed by a group of volunteers who are passionate about gathering people's talents and changing government policies through action. Many factories are illegally built on farmlands in Taiwan, but it takes a lot of effort to report them to the government. By developing this platform, our engineers have made it easier for citizens to report nearby illegally built factories by taking photos.
Design Challenge
The design challenge of this project is that, although the About page has encouraged many people to use the system, we have found that there should be a better way to communicate the issue, making it easier for people to understand. Therefore, we started a redesign project with the goal of making people more willing to learn about the issue. Increasing the frequency of system usage is no longer the top priority.
I had so much fun every Wednesday gathering with creative people at CET's office <3
How we collab?
We gather every two weeks at the Earth Citizen Foundation's office and online meeting room to discuss project progress and how we can collaborate better. We use various online tools to synchronize our ideas, and we make the meeting records public for those who want to participate. (I have attended 16 meetings so far!)
As a UI/UX designer on the team, I work with professional copywriters and issue leaders to plan and communicate objectives. By understanding the core issues, I can choose UI components more clearly and work with front-end engineers to research technical feasibility. This helps us achieve the best information communication effect on the website.
Design Decisions and Outcomes
The old version consists of the current number of reported factories, the number of people who attended this action, and a section for people to look up if there are any illegal factories in their area.
The new version enhances the importance of the issue by allowing visitors to read our stories immediately upon entering the site.
The old version educated visitors about the system and game process, and showed the percentage of reported and unreported factories to encourage usage.
The new version provides a shorter user guide and introduction to our system and game. We removed the percentage of reported/unreported factories infographic, as it is more important to introduce our purpose than to encourage visitors to play.
In the old version, the infographic gained too much attention from visitors, so we decided to remove it to simplify the understanding of the land usage issue.
We added a new section to address the concerns of new visitors regarding the proper use of their data and the anonymity of reporters. This was done to increase the trust of users in the new reporting system.
Takeaway
Being a part of this project has been a heartwarming experience for me. It's amazing to see how everyone involved is so dedicated and passionate about making a positive impact on society. As a first-time design volunteer, I was excited and a bit nervous to contribute my skills to this project. However, being in this supportive and collaborative environment has made me feel confident and motivated to create meaningful designs that align with the project's goals. I truly believe that design has the power to bring positive change, and I am grateful for this opportunity to make a difference in the world.
👇Check this link to play with the actual webpage!👇
