Design Project 1 | Composite Character Profiles

Composite Character Profiles

Sara the Stay-at-Home Mom

• Age: 45
• Cooking/Frying Oil consumption: Low - Intermediate - Extensive
• Segmentation: Well-educated. Needs to be more rounded/aware of the environmental implications of their actions and behaviors.
• Gender: Female
• Behavioral: Serves her family fried food at least twice a week. She is very much set in her habits unless incentivized to do otherwise.
• Psychographic: Curious and willing to change their behavior given appropriate incentives.
• Interests/Hobbies:
• Watching cooking shows and reading through cookbooks to learn new recipes at home and enjoy.
• Enjoys the company of her friends and neighbors over a cup of coffee/tea.
• Life Goals: Provide her children with all they need to achieve what they aspire to in life. This includes serving them the foods they want/crave.
• Pain points: Does not know how to dispose of used frying/cooking oil appropriately. Takes the easy way out and pours it into the drain.
• Key Attributes: Wants to be more health-oriented with what she serves/cooks to her family. Has a hard time doing so and uses the easy way out of this by using pre-made/pre-fired/pre-cooked meals that contain considerable amounts of saturated fats.

Benjamin the Environmental Scientist

• Age: 30
• Cooking/Frying Oil consumption: Low - Intermediate - Extensive
• Segmentation: Well-educated. Very much conscious of the environmental implications of their actions and behaviors.
• Gender: Male
• Behavioral: Tries to avoid using large quantities of frying oil to lessen the impact of their consumption on the environment. Also does so to better his and his family’s health. They recently purchased an air fryer to help with such a goal.
• Psychographic: Keen to broaden their knowledge horizons, especially concerning the environment and environmental care. He is very much invested in purchasing household consumables in reusable containers and limits his purchases to grocery stores that allow it.
• Interests/Hobbies: Hiking, outdoor camping, and traveling to remote destinations (ones with scenic views and abundant greenery. He also enjoys participating in events where he volunteers to clean up beaches, rivers, and ponds that have been heavily polluted by human behavior.
• Goals: Leave the world in a better environment than he found it to be during his lifetime.
• Pain points: He is unaware of a safe disposal method for his used frying oil. His only incentive is not to harm the environment with his actions.
• Key Attributes: Environmentally aware, committed to creating change in the world, and diligent.

Jack the Junk Food Lover

• Age: 25
• Cooking/Frying Oil consumption: Low - Intermediate - Extensive
• Segmentation: Ignorant consumer
• Gender: Male
• Behavioral: Indulges in various fried food at home and from fast food restaurants. Organizes parties with a lot of fried finger food. Usually, he would dispose of the used oil in the trash, using a powder sachet that solidifies the oil into a blob-like jelly piece.
• Psychographic: Cares more about the convenience of his behaviors and does not care about the environment's wellbeing.
• Interests/Hobbies: Enjoys organizing home parties. Travels abroad to attend international entertainment events. Watches competitive sports games. Participates in online gaming competitions.
• Goals: Seeks to enjoy his food without running into much hassle to dispose of the waste created during the preparation of the food that they cooked. In other words, they will not want to be involved in recycling and composting activities because of the effort involved.
• Pain points: Cleaning their workstation after finishing up with their frying activities. Getting rid of the oil they have used.
• Key Attributes: Loves consuming fried foods, lazy, couch potato, environmentally unconcerned.

Fred the Frugal/Win-Win Consumer

• Age: 40
• Cooking/Frying Oil consumption: Low - Intermediate - Extensive
• Segmentation: Very cost-aware consumer
• Gender: Male
• Behavioral: He tends to minimize his weekly grocery bills and, as a result, reduces his total waste output. This includes frying oil. Nonetheless, whenever they have used frying oil they need to dispose of, they tend to throw it into the trash or down the sink. They do so as it is more convenient and hassle-free. It is worth noting that Fred lives in a city where trucks dedicated to collecting such waste are available; however, he does not use their services often as he does not see where the value proposition is.
• Psychographic: Fred is very conscious of the way and the things he spends his hard-earned money on. He tries to save as much as he can and does not spend money unless it is being spent on things they see necessary. Moreover, Fred’s spending patterns are influenced when financial/material incentives are available. In other words, they will tend to spend and consume more, given appropriate compensation.
• Interests/Hobbies: They like spending their time reading blogs concerned with frugal living, watching ‘Do-It-Yourself’ YouTube videos to save up on furniture and house services, and enjoys collecting ‘savings’ coupons from newspapers.
• Goals: Aims to reduce waste output, be more environmentally conscious, save more money where possible, and find a win-win solution to discard his used frying oil.
• Pain points: The recurring purchase and disposal of frying oil frustrates Fred. He would want to reuse the oil they have used but refrains from doing so due to specific health concerns. Alternatively, they would want to dispose of it in a more appropriate environmental manner; however, they would expect to be financially rewarded in some capacity.
• Key Attributes: Willing to be more environmentally responsible, given appropriate incentives. Would be open to exploring solutions for waste management that guarantee a ‘win-win’ situation. Pays close attention to his expenditures.