Taiwan · 2023 to 2025 · MA interaction design · National Cheng Kung University
GreenFilter 綠濾
What if the world behind a product were as visible as its price?
A master's research project by Kris Haamer at National Cheng Kung University. I built and tested an experimental browser extension with students across Taiwan to explore how product origins, labor, environmental claims, and alternatives could enter everyday shopping.
Interface in use · TaiwanParticipant screenshots from the Green Filter testing archive. This is a research prototype, not a commercially deployed service.
876
eligible survey responses
Students across Taiwan; research participants, not product users.
32
moderated prototype sessions
Face-to-face tests across seven universities.
7
expert interviews
Sustainability, finance, policy, and technology perspectives.
Survey research, 32 moderated tests, interaction design and a published Chrome extension.Research ↗
Finding
Three audience segments changed the approach to sustainability recommendations.Results ↗
Beyond the checkout
Every object has a history.
E-commerce makes the transaction easy to see. The materials, working conditions, and ecological consequences behind an object are harder to find. Green Filter explored what happens when that missing context becomes part of the interface.
01 / Visibility
What does a price leave out?
Objects carry histories of materials, work, production, transport, and disposal that rarely appear at checkout.
02 / Agency
Who is responsible for changing the system?
Better information for individuals matters, but it cannot replace collective decisions and institutional accountability.
03 / Trust
Who decides what counts as sustainable?
AI can help someone ask better questions. It does not make uncertain or contested evidence certain.
Research system
From fieldwork to the shopping page.
Expert interviews, a 63-question survey and real shopping sessions came before the interface decisions.
01
Frame the system
Connect ecology to everyday financial behavior.
Reviewed sustainability, finance and purchasing behaviour with seven experts.
Literature review + 7 expert interviews
02
Map the people
Study attitudes before inventing the assistant.
Ran a 63-question mobile survey, with 876 eligible final responses.
Put the intervention inside a real shopping decision.
Tested the Chrome extension on Momo product pages in 32 moderated sessions.
32 moderated sessions + 100+ anonymous self-tests
The published research archive documents the process, methods, results, testing notes, and limitations in public. Image source: Green Filter research methodology.
01
Shop
Understand the product, company, materials, origin, and alternatives.
02
Save
See how repeated choices shape money, resources, risk, and personal impact.
03
Invest
Recognize spending as support for the companies and systems behind the product.
The product thesis
Shopping can become the first lesson in investing.
Green Filter calls this “Shopping-as-Investing.” The phrase reframes a purchase as more than consumption. Purchasing directs money to companies and supply chains, but it is not the same as owning shares or changing policy. The prototype used that connection to ask what buyers can see and how much power a single transaction really gives them.
Behavioral segmentation
Three shopping attitudes.
K-means clustering revealed three distinct shopping attitudes.
Values-led
n=278
Eco-Friendly
Product implication: Offer depth, provenance, and the ability to compare impact without hiding practical product quality.
Undecided
n=356
Moderate
Product implication: Make the better choice easy to understand, easy to compare, and compatible with price and convenience.
Cost-first
n=242
Frugal
Product implication: Lead with total value, durability, safety, savings, and lower-impact alternatives at a realistic price.
The personas were derived from response patterns rather than invented demographic profiles. Image source: Green Filter survey results.
What students asked for
What information mattered?
63%
Avoid the most polluting products
41%
See where a product comes from
40%
Understand how it was produced
25%
Receive a monthly eco-score
One project, four surfaces
Four connected touchpoints.
01
greenfilter.app
Public research archive
The complete thesis became a navigable public website rather than a PDF hidden in a university repository. Methods, charts, quotes, testing notes, limitations, and conclusions remain open for inspection.
A Traditional Chinese entry point explained the research, collected anonymous student responses, and supported field recruitment across Taiwanese universities.
The extension inserted product analysis into Momo, close to a real purchase decision. It surfaced sustainability signals, company context, and alternative products without requiring the user to start from a separate research tool.
The web prototype allowed deeper questions after the first signal: ingredients, materials, carbon, labor, company behavior, alternatives, and the relationship between spending and investing.
Testing changed what appeared first, how evidence was explained, and whether the interface offered a possible action.
01
Placement
Make the missing context visible at the moment of choice.
In real shopping journeys, price, photography, and reviews drew attention first. The browser extension needed to enter that existing hierarchy instead of sending people away to read a report.
Place the first insight close to the product and its price
Let people inspect the evidence without losing their place
02
Language
Explain what the evidence means, without hiding its source.
An ESG label alone did not tell participants what they needed to know. A useful summary had to connect materials, production, labor, and environmental claims to sources that could be checked.
Lead with one legible observation rather than an unexplained score
Make provenance, uncertainty, and deeper context available
03
Agency
A better choice has to remain a real choice.
Participants found comparable alternatives more actionable than a warning on its own. Price, availability, safety, and practical product quality remained part of the ecological decision.
Compare alternatives on familiar attributes as well as impact
Offer a next action rather than a moral verdict
04
AI's role
Let AI translate the evidence, not become the authority.
The prototype used conversation for deeper questions. The more useful starting point was a concise explanation in context, with a path back to the underlying information.
Show an immediate, source-linked insight before asking people to chat
Keep uncertainty visible and human judgment in the loop
What testing changed
What testing found.
ESG terms confused participants. Some mistook the interface for an ad.
Observed
Price, photos, reviews, and specifications took attention first.
What it meant
Sustainability cannot expect a separate attention budget. It must work with the hierarchy of commerce.
Design response
Move the signal beside the price and connect greener choices to cost, quality, and availability.
Observed
The extension was sometimes missed or mistaken for an advertisement.
What it meant
An intervention can technically exist on the page while remaining behaviorally invisible.
Design response
Clarify ownership, use a recognizable entry cue, and make the first benefit visible without an extra click.
Observed
ESG labels were recognized but poorly understood.
What it meant
Institutional language can signal importance while failing to support a decision.
Design response
Replace jargon with a plain statement, a visual level, and a short explanation of the evidence.
Observed
Concrete alternatives were the most actionable feature.
What it meant
People can act when the product preserves choice instead of ending with a warning.
Design response
Keep one-click alternatives persistent and compare the practical attributes that already matter.
Observed
Carbon, labor, ingredients, and disposal information created surprise.
What it meant
Hidden product histories can change how familiar objects are understood.
Design response
Reveal one material fact at a time, then allow the user to inspect the full lifecycle and sources.
Outcome and limits
What came out of the research.
The extension and research are public. Spending changes remain unmeasured.
What the project established
Young adults do not need more guilt. They need better leverage.
Students already understood that money has environmental consequences. The missing layer was practical control: trustworthy signals, comparisons, alternatives, and an interface that arrives before the purchase is complete. The project reframed sustainability from a moral lecture into product intelligence that can support agency.
What remains open
The hard work is data quality, integration, and trust at scale.
A production system still needs reliable product passports, source provenance, data freshness, uncertainty handling, platform partnerships, mobile integration, and governance against greenwashing. These are product and institutional problems, not details an interface can hide.
