Liminal

Liminal uses eco-friendly burial suits that utilize cutting edge technology and environmental practices to change the way people approach end-of-life ceremonies. Through research, testing, and User Experience methodology, we re-branded an existing mushroom suit company to bridge the disconnect between users and their environment.

Liminal uses eco-friendly burial suits that utilize cutting edge technology and environmental practices to change the way people approach end-of-life ceremonies. Through research, testing, and User Experience methodology, we rebranded an exsisting mushroom suit company to bridge the disconnect between users and their environment.

Roles — research, UX, testing, web design, brand identity

Collaborator — Sean O'Leary

Tools — Illustrator, Photoshop, Webflow

Timeframe — 5 weeks

Timeframe — 11 weeks

Problem

The current state of funerals and burials is expensive and detrimental to the environment. While there are a number of options available that are considered eco-friendly, sustainable, and cost effective, they do not have nearly as much market reach and are often considered unpalatable. Our challenge was to make alternative burials more approachable, incorporating alternative burial into established customs and traditions while gaining the user’s trust.

Traditional burials methods are not conducive to the changing environment and are costly. According to the CDC, on average humans carry over 200 toxins and chemicals in their bodies. Most of these come from environmental factors such as tobacco use, pesticides, flame retardants, etc. So how do you ensure that these toxins aren’t reintroduced into the ecosystem when a body is buried or cremated?

Traditional burials methods are not conducive to the changing environment and are costly. According to the CDC, on average humans carry over 200 toxins and chemcials in their bodies. Most of these come from environmental factors such as tobacco use, pesticides, flame retardants, etc. So how do you ensure that these toxins aren’t reintroduced into the ecosystem when a body is buried or cremated?

Background

Burial ceremonies in the United States are becoming more diverse. While casket burial and cremation are options most people are comfortable with, these methods are quickly becoming unsustainable. We took this opportunity to repackage a niche burial method to be presentable to a diverse audience: mushroom burial suits. Through research, testing, and User Experience methodology, we branded a hypothetical mushroom suit company to bridge the gap between users and this incredible technology.

Return back to the Earth with Liminal.

We spent the first month taking the time to research and conduct in-person pitches, online forms, and in-depth interviews. Our thoroughness led us to coming into contact with over 100+ respondents. This information provided us with key findings that enabled us to take our next steps in building out Liminal to make it accessible and an attractive burial alternative.

We spent the first month taking the time to research and conduct in-person pitches, online forms, and in-depth interviews. Our throughness led us to coming into contact with over 100+ respondants. This information provided us with key findings that enabled us to take our next steps in building out Liminal to make it accessible and an attractive burial alternative.

Process

We began with research into the state of alternative burials, identifying and analyzing competitors, learning about the science that makes green alternatives work, and understanding the legal boundaries surrounding how people are buried. We also conducted quantitative and qualitative research to learn what potential customers have experienced. Through a survey of 86 participants and 4 in-depth interviews, we distilled our audience down into two archetype personas: a primary and secondary who have similar but differing needs. Our research findings could also be placed into six main categories for our users' needs, which we used to inform how technology was incorporated into solving our challenge.

A sampling from our 15 question survey. We wanted to make sure there was a potential customer base for non-religious and/or non-traditional burial alternative. We also sought to understand how attached people are to traditional and conventional methods:

Key comments and concerns we used to find our six areas of focus for our user needs:

Our users' most important needs that informed our design choices

User Personas

We discovered two main personas for Liminal. They are a results of a mixture of our 5 in-depth interviews, 80 plus respondents to our online survey and 20 in-person questionnaire results. Below are the persona and our Primary Persona's, Jessica, Empathy Map:

Visual-tone Survey

We compiled 12 images that represented different aspects of death and asked users what tone they best responded to:

Moodboard

Below is the moodboard that is a direct manifestation from our visual survey. The tone is emits organic energy that radiates with cool hues. Although, nature's greens and blues emit an unexpected warmth that makes this technology feel more approachable. Macro photography alludes to the biological nature of the suit's roots while also giving a nod to the amazing marriage of nature and technology that is science is born from. Simple shapes reinforce the math and sciences, while also discreetly reminding us all of sacred geometry and how we are all one.

Style Guide, lllustrations and Photo Treatment

How we turned our visual responses, moodboard, and research into a brand. We picked a slightly organic serif as our logo. Reflecting how we are taking a topic that is hard to navigate and making it feel softer and connect it to a better, greener future. We then used a sans-serif to let the information be clear and feel trustworthy. Photos have a warm tint overlay and geometic elements that play off them, echoing the scientific roots the suits come from. Illustrations are hand drawn in order to keep the human element the main focus.

To turn our objective into a reality we started with wireframing our knowns thus far. Our visual responses coupled with our main research helped us re-envision end-of-life ceremonies and advertise it to the eco-friendly, non-religious consumer base it would be primarily directed at. We aimed to make the idea of a mushroom suit seem like a great idea to multiple audiences as well as positioning it as the most responsible and sensible option for the environment through our website and advertising.

Wireframing

Taking our six touch points, we made a wireframe that we thought fulfilled our users' needs as well as making it accessible. After we did user testing we found that there needed to be a few tweaks and minor adjustments made for our high fidelty website.

High-fidelity Website Mockup

Using our design system and frame work we created a website that best utilized user needs to convey our message.

Advertising

Billboard advertising in urban areas that get people's attention with their tranquil, trustworthy tone.

Post Mortem

This project comes at a time when Washington is only one of a handful of states in the United States that offer green burials. Hopefully, pioneering technologies like this is a way to slowly start normalizing the unusual and changing the status quo. If we were to continue we would further user testing, refine and build out our website to multiple pages, as well as generate more personas to include a growing demographic for mushroom burial suits.