EcoSort
Dispose right, feel bright: Elevating your impact with waste disposal
Dispose right, feel bright: Elevating your impact with waste disposal
3 weeks
2 Product Designers
Research
UX
UI
Figma Prototype
Our task for our final project in COSC 25.01 – Introduction to UI/UX Design – was creating a digital application that helps people make better environmental choices. I collaborated with my co-designer throughout the design process. All of the research analysis, features, wireframes, visuals, and interactions highlighted were designed by me.
1.
Dartmouth's recycling company only recycles 100% non-contaminated recyclables that it receives and everything is contaminated due to poor waste sorting habits at Dartmouth
2.
There is a disconnect between students knowing what they need to do and doing it
3.
Confusion regarding disposal locations results in all items being thrown into the trash.
4.
Students believe that as an individual they do not make enough of an impact to properly dispose of items
5.
There is little motivation to properly dispose of waste; however, Dartmouth students love and are highly motivated by free food
Students don't have enough incentive to dispose of their waste correctly
Increasing Dartmouth’s waste accumulation, causing environmental harm
Leads to contaminated recyclables and more items in the trash
Dartmouth then ends up having to throw away all of their recyclables due to contamination
How might we ensure correct and easy disposal of dining service waste?
EcoSort is a mobile, augmented reality app designed to help Dartmouth students to dispose of their waste correctly using a Dartmouth Dining Services coupon reward system.
After finishing a meal, students can quickly scan their waste, and EcoSort will use color-coded indicators to guide users in correctly sorting each item into the appropriate bin.
To come up with a solution for this problem, we created empathy maps, a user persona, user journey maps and did some initial brainstorming...
We were not satisfied with what we had come up in the first brainstorm so we brainstormed another time....
Using the Crazy 8s method, I sketched out 8 features from our brainstorming parking lot that would be implemented into our prototype
After ideating and sketching our ideas, we decided that we wanted to focus on these features which would ultimately inspire our final designs:
QR code scan
AR waste disposal guide
Dining Dollars coupon wallet
Leaderboard page
AR correct bin highlight
Coupon barcode
Tanigble waste saving metrics
Then, we created solution sketches and took them to grey scales, and after some prototyping we had a semblance of what the product might be like.
Users liked our initial design but we still had some improvements to make:
First, we added some detailed instructions for our users on the AR...
Second, we displayed the user’s most commonly misplaced item to help fix bad disposal habits...
Third, we reorganized the awards tab to be more intuitive
We integrated our changes and worked a little UI magic, coming up with a brand style.
We started out with a green color scheme... in the end, we actively chose to stray away from green as we wanted to stick out from other environmentally oriented apps. We chose dark blue to be our main color, and it was complemented well with the bright yellow accents.
Finally arriving at...
Opening and Login Screens
Loading
Login
Scan your garbage to see correct disposal
Main Screen
Scan location QR code
and verify location
Hold up waste for
disposal sorting
Check out the leaderboard and compete
against the Dartmouth community
Win coupons through completion of
different disposal challenges
Today's Challenges
How to obtain them!
Collect them!
Look at your profile to see all
the good you’ve done!
The goal of Ecosort is to encourage Dartmouth students to sort their trash in the correct bins so that Dartmouth can recycle their plastic properly. The students will be motivated to continue to use our product with the coupons and free food that reward proper waste sorting. We received very positive feedback from the students that we interviewed and tested our product with.
This project was both a challenging and rewarding experience. While working on a tight deadline of 3 weeks, I learned how to prioritize features to produce a product that addressed the pain points of the users. I enjoyed the process of creating a solution for Dartmouth's recycling issue and was excited about integrating design and sustainability.
If I had more time with this project, there are a few key areas I would focus on:
If this app were developed, see how users actually interact with it! Do we need to change metrics for what’s been saved, or what we give rewards for?
User testing with a focus on UI
