Ecopass
An individual academic project that focuses on exploring how to help and encourage people to build up better recycling habits.
User Research | UX/UI Design | Wireframing & Prototyping | Usability testing
Project Overview
The project was inspired by the news about the increasing of trash(masks, medical equipment) ending up in the sea during COVID. After researching about the inefficient using of the recycling system, I started to deep into this problem and analyzing about how to help people to build up their recycling habits.
How might we help and encourage people to build up recycling habits more efficiently?
Problem
People fail to recycle the recyclable wastes and produce more recyclable wastes at the same time.
Solution
Designing an app that educates users on how to distinguish recyclable trash and helps them build up a good recycle habits
Design process
Recyclable wastes are increasing
The production of plastic keeps increasing and more plastic is used during the pandemic, and the number of plastic waste increased due to the high demand for masks, protective gear, and even online purchases. The global pandemic has sped up the manufacturing of plastic. At the same time, people are struggling with how to distinguish recyclable and non-recyclable materials from their purchases.
User Research
Before brainstorming the solution, I started by sending out 20+online surveys and invited 8 of the particiants to a deeper user interviews.
I mainly focus on two large groups: the Teenagers & the Young Adults. Since they order food delivery and shop online the most, and those activities can produce a lot of recyclable trash.
Survey result
100%
Frustrating on distinguish unknown material
50%
Recycle only 1 time a week
40%
Just throw all the trash into garbage chute
Users frustrated with how to distinguish recyclable wastes
The online surveys showed that most participants are frustrated with how to distinguish between recyclable and non-recyclable trash. They ended up just throwing all the trash into the garbage bin.
Half of the interviewees barely do recycle and are frustrated with doing it.
Interviews
8 particpants, who online shopping/order food delivery the most, were invitied to do an interview.
And here are their thoughts and pain points about recycling.
I don’t know how to distinguish unknown materials for recycling.
Different cities have different rules on recycling.
I always get confused about how to distinguishing the wastes and then feel tired to do it.
User Journey map
When trying to understand more about what frustrated them the most, I created a user journey map to empathize with users from their perspective.
And the main pain point for users is that they lack knowledge on how to distinguish recyclable objects and they don't want to spend too much time searching related information.
Insights
Lack of knowledge
From the research, I noticed that most people lack an understanding of distinguish recyclable objects. And they got frustrated when they got confused on how to distinguish.
Lack of motivation
Motivation is one of the thing encourage people to recycle, otherwise, the trash people produce will end up in the landfill.
Competitive analysis
To empathize
When trying to understand more about what frustrated them the most, I created a user journey map to empathize with users from their perspective.
Personas
Empathy map
Storyboard
Sitemap
Userflow
Design system
Wireframes/mockup
Link to prototype on Figma
What I learned
This is the first time I redesigning an old project I did in the past, changing and makeover the whole solution.The process led me to think deeply about how can I solve the problem from another perspective by adding a new function. For example, the old solution is creating a way to educate the users about recycling entertainingly. The app is mainly focused on providing mini-games about recycling and providing a recorder for user to record their recycle habit. The result doesn’t work well during user testing. Most participants don’t feel educated during playing the games. After researching again, I got inspired by object identity function by Google lens and the camera sorting from a Hackathon project by Risi, Daniel, Hassan and Wei Liu. During the redesign, I realized my creativity was stuck in the word “entertainingly” last time. A different perspective helps me to rethink and get improve this time.
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