UX Design Case Study for a Bootcamp
Recycing in Texas is not an easy task. You have to look up where to go and seperate it (even then you have no idea if you even did it right) all on your own. I knew I couldn't be the only one getting frustrated with the process, so I decided to dig a little deeper into how this process could be made easier for people.
Users need a way to bring their recycling to the recycling centers with little to no contamination, so that when it is sent to a sorting center, it will be recycled, and not thrown into the trash.
UX/UI Designer
8 months
Pen & Paper
Figma/Figjam
Optimal Sort
Google Drawings
Lucid
Survey Monkey
The statistics on recycling proved that the issues in the recycling industry were worse than I thought.
of items that can be recycled are put into the incorrect bin
of Recycling is thrown away
of what gets put into recycling does not belong there
Another issue within the recycling industry is that there are not many resources out there currently. Some of the few that I found were iRecycle and RecycleCoach.
This app helps you find a place to recycle nearby, based on what type of materials you have.
This app encourages the community to work together to improve the recycling process in their area.
Now that I had a better understanding of what the problems were in the recycling industry, I wanted to get some opinions from real people that either have recycled, stopped recycling, or even did not recycle to investigate why people recycled and what the biggest frustrations are. If you would like to see a copy of the full script, click here.
Enjoy making a difference in their community
Do not trust the recycling process
Feeback on their recycling would be helpful
To dive even deeper in the minds of our users, Sara was crafted.
Age: 30
Career: Doctor
Location: Manhattan, New York
Due to her job, Sara is very busy and relies on convenience quite often. Sara is interested in starting to recycle, so that she can make a positive impact in her community.
Getting into Sara's shoes, we wanted to think about a task that she would complete while using RecycleItz. Sara has made the decision to start recycling. Her goals are to know where and how to recycle.
While going through the app, it is inevitable that Sara will go through lots of emotions. This is a model that represents what some of those emotions might be.
Now it was time to start thinking about what the flow of this application would be. The first step in Sara's journey is to search for recycling locations near her. A user flow of what this process looked like was crafted. If you would like to take a look at the other user flows that were created for this app,click here.
Before getting into the detailed wireframe screens, it was important to create a skeleton of what the app would contain. This site map continued to get iterated on, throughout the design process.
The design process started with sketching. Since Sara lives in the city, the map feature was an important one to get right. Below are some sketches exploring the map feature.
Low-fidelity Wireframes The design process started with sketching. Below are some sketches exploring how the map feature might work.Those sketches were then transposed into Figma, so they would be easier to understand prior to doing usability testing. If you would like to see the prototype that was used for the testing, please click here.
Usability tests were conducted with 5 participants to see if the application was functioning in a way that made sense to people. If you would like to see the full script of the usability testing, please click here.
People were clicking on connect with others to get to the community initiatives section
People were looking for “where is my recycling” in the Profile section
Add other options to confirm recycling is correct, other than confirming with a photo
The UX Design process is not always a linear one. After the testing was done, we had to return to the create section of the timeline, to make those iterations and improve on the design itself.
One of the major issues with the prototype was that people were clicking on connect with others to get to the community initiatives section.
2 versions of a the home screen were created to see what type of design people preferred for this type of application.
Preferred by 40%
Preferred by 60%
Due to the results of the preference testing, an illustration approach was used for the design of this app.
One of the most challenging parts of this project was the learning of UI Design. The Splash screen and Onboarding screens all had to be updated. The illustrations needed to look like they all belonged to the same family.
One of the most important parts of the design process is making iterations. They were made throughout the creation of RecycleItz. Things had to change everytime new information was figured out. Going back to Sara learning where to go in order to recycle, the map feature had several changes made to it.
