New From Seventh Generation: Create A Virtual Tree with Your Own Green-Friendly Ingredients.
September 25, 2008 by Guru
Filed under eco & sustainability
The point of all this creativity is to emphasize the importance of knowing and showing what’s inside the products we use. Seventh Generation makes safe, non-toxic products for your home and family and their site is rich with widgets, tools and blogs like Ask Science Man and Inspired Protagonist in support of eco-education.
The virtual tree builder lets visitors select a tree shape and type in whatever ingredients they choose. The site then searches the internet for your choices and you can watch the tree bloom with branches that include images of your selected ingredients. You can then save your tree to a virtual forest, watch video clips detailing Seventh Gen’s manifesto and scan a label reading guide that includes downloadable widgets for your mobile devices. If you name your tree, Seventh Generation will send you coupons and special offers.
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Guru’s Note: The essence of doing Usability Testing is to try to break the site. That’s why I couldn’t resist trying to break my virtual tree. So I entered ingredients like: Parabens, SLES, SLS, talc, phenonip and that old reliable Phthlates. I just wanted to see if they would let me build a toxic tree or if they would send me a Red Alert. It turns out: neither. The first time I tried it, I got a simple message saying: Ingredients not found. The second time, the tree just vanished, never to return.
Guru’s Note #2: Given my proclivity toward playing with widgets, especially do-gooder green widgets, and given the sudden profusion of such things, I’ve decided it’s time to cry foul. Shouldn’t there be some point to these Gidgets (green widgets) beyond being semi-engaging and merely seeming green? When I heard about Seventh Generation’s new tool, I thought it would really be a tool . . . that is, something that would help me find healthier household products. I thought that when I entered my favorite ingredients in my Virtual Tree, the tree would be ‘blooming’ not just with pictures of orange slices and olive oil, but with actual products created from those ingredients. I thought I could find out about new products and maybe even order them. I was even ready to accept a tree ablaze with only Seventh Generation products. But instead, nada. Thanks to my choice of favorite green ingredients, the Guru of New Tree was laden with glossy graphics of Lemon Drop Martinis and Mai Tais decorated with Hibiscus petals.
I understood it as a playful way for people to build a tree out of what’s inside of them. There is other information on the site about what’s inside of Seventh Generation and its products. This puts a positive spin on consumer activism. I like it.
I agree, Kelly — it is playful. And (as I said above) I think the Seventh Generation site is awesome, chockful of great tools, blogs and information. I simply think the Virtual Tree tool could be improved and made more useful and compelling, not merely fun.
As a market researcher, do a ton of green projects and I hear a lot from consumers about ‘greenwashing’ — also concern that the trendy-ness of Gidgets and the avalanche of eco promos, sites and advertising is going to negatively affect progress. That people will think green is a fad, not a new way of living and behaving.
I wish I had been able to create a Toxic Tree — which would have shown me ‘YUCK!’ just how dreadful the source and effect of Parabens, SLES, the dyes, etc. Then I could compare those ingredients to my favorite Meyer lemon household product.
Thanks for reading and commenting.