One case study. No menu. Suspiciously little patience.

I hid the entire incredibly awful website just to be able to show you

Human attention is limited. So this homepage does one thing: it walks you through one project, one decision at a time.

GF

Original promise

See your money through the lens of sustainability.

Green Filter / shopping first / finance later

Green Filter App

A sustainability companion that helps people make greener shopping and finance choices with practical, real-time guidance.

The sharper product thesis

Do not ask people to research sustainability. Put the useful evidence inside the decision they are already making.

Ziran was not a landing page

It was the research instrument hiding in plain sight.

The live Ziran survey introduced the study in Chinese, promised anonymity, estimated five to seven minutes, and asked students to choose an animal to represent themselves before getting serious.

Choose an animal. Then discuss capitalism.

63

questions

Money, shopping, nature, AI, climate anxiety, trust, and the slightly inconvenient reality of everyday decisions.

5-7

minutes

Short enough to finish between classes. Long enough to discover that sustainability is not one tidy opinion.

100%

anonymous

The survey asked for honest attitudes, not a polished performance of being a good environmental citizen.

The findings changed the product

The answer was not a wiser chatbot. It was better placement, better evidence, and fewer decisions.

Evidence 01

Price, photos, and reviews dominated shopping attention. Sustainability information hidden in a side panel was often missed.

Put the signal beside the price.

Show one plain-language impact cue in the price and variant area. Expand only when the user asks for evidence.

Evidence 02

63% wanted to see which products were most polluting so they could avoid them. Testers repeatedly used Find Alternatives.

Alternatives beat open-ended chat.

Keep a persistent one-click comparison under Add to Cart. Chat becomes a secondary Why? layer, not the main product.

Evidence 03

Health and safety scored 4.20 across personas, ahead of climate and pollution at 4.00. ESG terminology often meant very little.

Lead with health, origin, and safety.

Ingredient risk, product origin, labor conditions, and factory evidence open the door. Carbon accounting comes after relevance.

Evidence 04

48% could not name a trusted brand, and students questioned whether AI information could be shaped by politics, business, or their own data.

Show receipts, not authority theatre.

Every claim needs a source, date, confidence level, and a visible route to the underlying company or product evidence.

Evidence 05

96% of students use smartphones. Slow Wi-Fi, old laptops, and dying batteries disrupted prototype sessions.

Mobile-first means lightweight-first.

Ship a fast decision layer with progressive detail. Do not make the user download the entire climate crisis before buying shampoo.

Evidence 06

The Ziran survey began by asking participants to choose an animal. Research also suggested that cuteness can support retention, but AI must disclose itself.

Cute, personal, and obviously a machine.

Let the user choose an animal guide. Keep the personality. Label the AI clearly and never imitate human certainty.

What people actually said

The shortest quotes made the clearest roadmap.

One command at a time is enough.

Anonymous survey participant on preferred AI behavior

It gives me more choices.

Prototype tester after seeing alternative products

I just look at the price.

Prototype tester describing the real shopping hierarchy

The inconvenient conclusion

Shopping is the wedge.

Saving and investing remain the long-term idea, but the product should first solve the moment users already understand: Should I buy this, why, and what is the better alternative?

The product sequence

Shop, save, invest. Not three equal tabs. A trust ladder.

01

Win the shopping moment

Flag the risky product, explain why in one sentence, and show a credible alternative that still meets price and quality needs.

02

Build a useful history

Turn individual choices into a lightweight monthly record. Not a guilt dashboard. A memory of what changed and what it meant.

03

Earn the right to discuss investing

Once users trust the product and understand company evidence, connect spending patterns to company governance, ownership, and investment choices.

The point, with receipts

Green Filter should not be another place to learn about sustainability. It should be the layer that makes hidden product consequences impossible to ignore.

Specific evidence. Opinionated decisions. Tiny animal guide.

The magnificently overgrown website still exists at /theoldpage.