Zerolytics

Financial institutions are facing increasing pressure from stakeholders to prioritize ESG factors. Investors need reliable climate risk forecasts to make informed CapEx decisions and assess the long-term viability of sustainability commitments. Zerolytics offers science-based models for benchmarking and predicting climate risk.

My Role

As UX designer, I led the product team to (1) identify our target user (2) understand which analytics and predictions were most useful, and (3) design the product interface.

I recruited 20 people across Norwegian asset management firms, from analysts to CEOs, through referrals, cold calls, and LinkedIn. I interviewed them to understand who makes climate investment decisions and how. The causal-loop diagram above maps the systemic issues I found. It also shows where Zerolytics can create change.

Below is my mental model of the reporting hierarchy in the largest Norwegian asset management firms. This understanding identified portfolio analysts as the best user fit for the Zerolytics offerings.

Open-ended interviews revealed strong skepticism of current climate scoring tools. Analysts don't trust "black-box" algorithms. They prefer to do the heavy lifting themselves to understand the calculations, despite the time it takes.

1 Analysts want to see the logic behind AI assessments. UX must allow for easy source material access.

2 Construct UI around information hierarchy, from "at a glance" to "in-depth analysis."

3 Analysts don't need day-to-day changes in climate risk from news analysis. Tuck these away and provide an instant at-a-glance view, with warning bells when necessary.

I held weekly feedback meetings with analysts to understand if and when they would use the features I designed. I narrowed down features to the below.