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(02)

One Pixel of Truth

Project type

Product Design, B2B Platform UX, Fashion-tech & Sustainability

Project role

Lead Product Designer, UX Research, IA, UI Design

Date

2026

Overview

Fashion's sustainability gap.

Sustainable sourcing lives in bookmarks, spreadsheets, PDFs and DMs. Designers can't confirm what's real, certified mills stay invisible, and every cycle re-litigates the same questions.

10%

Of global carbon emissions fashion's share

Competing, fragmented certification standards

20+

Documented sourcing frictions

RESEARCH

How we discovered the problem

Phase 1

Discovery interviews

DESIGNERS, MATERIAL SUPPLIERS, SUSTAINABILITY EDUCATORS

“Designers rely on fragmented tools: spreadsheets, Pinterest boards, group chats”

20+

Sourcing barriers

Phase 2

Affinity synthesis

Interview responses coded into themes

“Common frustration across all user groups: no centralized, trusted source”

Core problems

Phase 3

Competitive review

4 platforms audited: Common Objective · CFDA · Fashion for Good · Nona Source

Identified gap — “no unified, standardized database exists”

Unified databases

Eight problems, three clusters

Cluster A · Trust

Unverifiable claims

Supplier transparency gaps

Opportunity

Verified credentials, cited at source

Cluster B · Access

Fragmented sourcing

Siloed value chain

Weak incentives

Opportunity

One searchable surface, shared

Cluster C · Standards

Inconsistent certifications

Limited education

No standardized data

Opportunity

One comparable rating framework

Aligning user needs with shared goals

Cluster A · Trust

For designers

No single place to verify claims; emerging designers least of all.

For suppliers

Verified credentials go unseen; responsible mills stay invisible.

For brands

No standard way to compare; greenwashing risk only grows.

The overlap

One verifiable record per material.

Trust between designers and suppliers

Data-driven decisions

Less research friction

Measurable impact

Product-market fit

The need to verify is the reason to standardize.

Process

Building for impact

Research and interviews pointed the same direction: designers didn’t trust the sustainability claims they found, the data they needed sat scattered across suppliers and PDFs, and no standard existed to compare materials against.

Every tier below is a building block toward the same end. A more sustainable industry for designers, brands, and suppliers working from one trusted source of truth : verification first, then the community, intelligence, and integrations that scale it.

Foundation

Aspiration

P1 · Must have

Foundation

Database

Compare

Certifications

Suppliers

Decision

Trust is the product. Nothing ships until a material can be verified.

P2 · Nice to have

Enhancement

Reviews & ratings

Educational hub

Decision

Peer opinion waits for verified data to attach to.

P3 · Delightful

Innovation

AI matcher

Trend dashboard

Decision

No automation before transparency. AI is only as trusted as the database.

P4 · Can come later

Ecosystem

Workspaces

Integrations

Decision

Solve one designer before a whole supply chain.

The principle

Each layer buys the credibility the next one needs.

From research to design

How might we make a verified sustainability claim something a designer can trust at a glance?

01

Cluster A · Trust

We heard

"Half of what I read could be greenwashing. I have no way to check."

Implication

Every claim must be cited, sourced and time-stamped. No floating scores.

02

Cluster B · Access

We heard

"I have a spreadsheet, a Pinterest board, and a group chat. That's my sourcing tool."

Implication

Consolidate discovery into one searchable surface.

03

Cluster C · Standards

We heard

"I know GOTS is good. I couldn't tell you what's behind the badge."

Implication

One comparable score — certifications as evidence, not the summary.

One comparable score; certifications as evidence, not the summary.

—

Brand concept — why Pixel & Co

pix·el /ˈpɪksəl/ · noun — the smallest unit of a picture

A single addressable point of truth

Sustainability isn't a slogan, it's resolution. The more verified pixels in view, the clearer the picture the industry can act on.

A material

→

A data point

→

A pixel

01 · For designers

A single unit of trust.

02 · For suppliers

Visibility at the pixel level.

03 · For the industry

A shared resolution.

— · The & Co.

We're not alone.

Testing & iteration

Six problems, one number.

Testing confirmed the structure and exposed the message. Every task succeeded, but no participant could name the mission. Six usability problems shared one root cause: the interface had no place for value to appear.

The gap

What users saw

A working system

Find, compare, explore. Task success high, hierarchy sound.

The gap

What users missed

The mission

Verified sustainability; invisible behind the feature set.

“It feels like a project management tool. I don't immediately see the sustainability angle.”

Usability participant · representative of 6 sessions

From six problems to one metric

The concept that emerged

Pixel Sustainability Index

One verified score from 0 to 100, standing on six categories of evidence. The number carries the value proposition; the pillars carry the proof, cited sources, certificates and audit records, one click away.

In conclusion

Testing didn't ask for more features. It asked for one number.

Collapsing six problems into one verifiable metric turned a project management platform into a sustainability trust system.

The Work

Six screens, one mechanic.

01 / 06

Screen 01

Public homepage

01Headline anchors on one pixel of truth, not a feature list.
02Designer-first CTA leads straight into Explore materials.
03Social proof is the verified-supplier count, not vanity metrics.

01 / 06

Screen 01

Public homepage

01Headline anchors on one pixel of truth, not a feature list.
02Designer-first CTA leads straight into Explore materials.
03Social proof is the verified-supplier count, not vanity metrics.

02 / 06

Screen 02

Designer dashboard

01Quick search sits above the fold for an instant restart.
02Project strips pair each PSI with its percent-complete.
03Recent activity cuts the cost of context-switching.

Reflection & next steps

The insight

Sustainable sourcing is a systemic problem, not an individual one.

The goal for Pixel & Co is to close the trust gap for one designer making one decision. Holding that trust at scale requires alignment across designers, suppliers, manufacturers and certifiers; which makes the long-term product less a database than the connective tissue between them.

What I'd do next

01 · PSI