Duration
March 2022 - May 2022
Team
Myself, Anna Sharfman, Cristian Lopz, Katherine Cimini
Tools
Figma, Adobe Illustrator
RecycleFund is an app designed to encourage communities in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas to increase their recycling efforts.
Users need to find recycling centers because they want to improve the environment and earn cash for items they no longer use.
We believe that by developing an app that will help locate recycling centers with a reward system for people that recycle, we will achieve getting more people motivated to recycle. We will know this to be true when we see an increase in the data on the number of people that went to their nearby recycling location.
As the experienced designer for this project, I was responsible for both strategies and visual design.
I interviewed 5 people to understand why and what challenges they face when they recycle.
Questions
1. Do you recycle? If so, how often?
2. Do you get money from recycling? If so, how much on average?
3. Why do choose to recycle?
4. What would make you recycle more often?
5. Is recycling more of a chore to you or something you enjoy?
Key insights derived from the interviews
A survey was conducted using qualtrics with 65 people to identify how often, why and if they have some knowledge on how to recycle.
out of 65 people are in agreement that they recycle often.
out of 65 people are in a disagreement that they know of locations to go to recycle electronics (batteries, old TVs, etc.)
out of 65 people are influenced to recycle because they want to help the environment.
Key insights derived from the interviews
With a competitive analysis, we can establish what makes our product or service unique.
Creating personas helps to understand who our product’s users are, what their goals and frustrations are, and for what purposes they will use the product. The result should be believable people with their own experiences and values.
To outline all necessary functionality I created a simplified flow diagram of the main tasks the user can do.
Once the user flow was complete, I started by defining the typography, color, icons, illustrations, and buttons.
Once I organized all my insights from the define phase, I began to build my mid-fidelity wireframes, using my user flow and style tile as a guide.
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Here are some of the final design screens.
These on boarding screens offer a brief introduction to the app's features for new users. Emphasizing the key functions is crucial to ensuring users understand the core capabilities of the app.
Users have the option to sign in if they are already registered or sign up if they don't have an account.
Users have access to tips on recycling.
The user can edit their profile information, add a payment method, enable notifications, and get in touch with support.
The recycling center locations need to scan the user's QR code for points redemption, or alternatively, users can scan the QR code on their receipt after recycling items.
Users can search for the nearest location that accepts a specific item they want to recycle.
Users will be more engaged in recycling items because they will be using a reward system to recieve points for every item they recycle in order to redeem their points for some cash back or gift cards.
After the visual design was completed we tested the prototype with 5 people to see how user-friendly the app is. The test was conducted over Zoom video calls where the participants were given the following tasks while we observed how thy navigated through the app.
Tasks
1. Can you find tips about knowing your plastics?
2. Can you find a recycling center that accepts car batteries?
3. Can you add your credit card to your Profile?
4. Can you redeem your points in Rewards as cash back with the option of 1-3 business days?
Suggestions to make the experience better
The suggestions from the usability testing were considered and the following changes were made.
Changed the design of the reward bar to be more detailed. The new bar shows different sections of each 100 points out of 500 points, so they can see how far they are from reaching their
next 100 points.
Removed the back arrow feature as users cannot navigate back after redeeming their points. Added a new button labeled 'My Activity' to allow users to access a screen displaying their recycled item data. Additionally, modified the color of the 'Redeem Points' button to grey when disabled, indicating that users currently have no points available for redemption.
Added more space in between the heart and share button, so they are not too close to each other and the user won’t have trouble pressing one button. I also moved up the body text and left-aligned the title.
