Crowdsourcing sustainability platform which makes recycling and upcycling easier.

Team: UX Researcher, UI Designer, 2 Engineers, Project Manager.
My role: concept, market research, user research, prototype (2 week hackathon, 2021).

Process

Context

Although 75% of America’s waste is recyclable, we only recycle around 30% of it.

Sustainability is a concept recognizes that the environment is an exhaustible resource. This concept is related to the development of products, goods, and services that involves meeting our present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to fulfill their own needs. It is important to use the environment and its resources rationally and protect it for the good of the Earth, our environment, humanity, & all living things.

Challenge

Goals

Conscious consumerism.

• Spread awareness about climate change issue
• Offer an accessible way which can be used by any average New Yorker to help fight climate change
• Promote and incentivize recycling behavior
• Help in building community of sustainability conscious individuals

Each year, Americans throw out more than 12 million tons of furniture

and over 11 million tons of recyclable clothing, shoes, and textiles. This waste ends up in one of the 2,000 landfills currently open in the United States. And although they’re often camouflaged fairly well, the negative issues that accompany landfills remain.Underneath the makeup that’s been plastered on landfills lay toxins, greenhouse gases, and leachate – all of which present concerning threats to our planet.

Research

User Interviews: What do people find important and what drives their actions?
It is important to mention that our projects' original inspiration was the fact that most of us were from NYC and we all have participated in stooping activities one way or another.

Stooping is a longtime New York tradition: someone casts away their no longer needed furniture (and other things) on the sidewalk in front of their home and anyone who needs them can salvage the items for whatever use they desire.

There are a number of online groups and forums where people exchange information about items available. We interviewed 6 people to gain better understanding of their wants, needs and pain points.

Surveys: Who are our users and how can we help them achieve their goals?
We sent out survey, targeting average New Yorkers ages from 21 - 65. Evidence showed that 87.3% of population is aware of environmental issues and actively trying to learn more.

However, only 44.4% would prefer to search for previously owned items vs buying new. On the positive note 14 out of 18 people would recycle and reuse if it were easier.

Market research: what are others like-minded companies and groups doing and how can we do it better?
We looked at the most popular online communities that are used the most for discovery:
• "Stooping NYC" instagram page
• "Buy Nothing" facebook group
• Craigslists' free stuff section

Design

Bringing the thrill of discovery to sustainability.
While there are popular stooping accounts and groups on social media right now, Going once offers users the opportunity to find and share free stuff close to them. Bringing community and upcycling to your finger tips.

Sketching workshop.
Our entire team including engineers did a short design studio session together and we discussed what we were looking for visually. After reviewing all of the team’s contributions, we sketched a couple of screens that gathered the best way to show features and implemented them into more concise elements.

Map dashboard screen that shows items on the map. At the top we show category tags to make it easier to find items, as well as a filter button. At the bottom of the screen a plus sign leads you to the new post screen which opens up the phone’s gallery.

After selecting the best picture for the item you can name items, write a little description, state the location and condition of the item as well as any relevant tags.

Once an item is published the community can leave comments such as stating the item’s status or inquire about the item’s condition or even offer help to move it for them.

User Flows.
We wanted to make the process of creating a post to be quick and intuitive so the user just has to login and press the plus icon at the bottom of the screen to start creating a post. As well as leaving a comment on a post was a really important feature because we wanted it to be the quickest form of knowing what is the current status of an item.

Mid-fidelity wireframes.

Final Design

After test and iterations we created final designs. We chose a light green as an accent color because the color theory associated with green stands for ecological organizations like GreenPeace and even the recycling symbol. I wanted the buttons to have a bright and bold blue color to better connect with our young users and to have a modern look.

Next Steps

• Hashtags which can be used as a help from the community to describe the item for easier search.
• Item status update alert, when nearby.
• Sign in with Google, Facebook and Twitter.
• Customized notifications and alerts.
• Search function.

Takeaways

I learned to work in a cross-functional team, how to work with development constraints and how to prioritize feature functionality on a short sprint. Due to the time constraints of this project we weren’t able to conduct usability testing with our prototype and if I were to do this project again I would have set one day aside to conduct them so I could wage where users were thriving and where they were disliking and provide a new iteration with their feedback.

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