Reuse Reduce Recycle
App for personal and social change in reusing reducing and recycling
Overview
Reuse Reduce Recycle is a voluntary project I worked out of my passion and love for Mother Nature. This app helps users by giving tips & tricks for reducing wastage and recycling. It helps them to keep their motivation up and running towards their goal of reusing the products. Keeps track of the records of the savings they achieved by reusing the products and reducing the wastage.
Design Methods:
Research, user interviews, persona creation, Storyboards, Paper prototypes, User testing, Heuristic Evaluations, wireframes, usability testing, preference tests, mockups, animations, and prototypes.
Tools Used:
Sketch, Photoshop, Illustrator, Invision, Pen & Paper, User Testing App, Zoom, Marvel App.
My Mission
Design an interface that facilitates personal and social behavior change in reusing the things and reducing and recycling the wastage rather than buying new products to save the planet.
My Approach
Change is hard. People sometimes want to change and like to kick undesired habits and build desired ones. Sometimes because of the lack of motivation, sources, awareness, or information, they will not be able to make it out.
So, I started this project with research and analysis. The observations and user interviews helped me to gain a big picture in need finding. The design iterations with few rounds of user and usability testing are the key to the success of this project.
Ideation
My observation center around my mission - reusing rather than buying new to save the planet by reducing and recycling the waste. I want to learn more about the habits of the people around me.
I chose to observe people as they perform the tasks related to general usage of reusable and use and throw products. I got a chance to observe my participants directly and go on with some follow-up questions.
Finally, I recognized that some people are looking for a change personally and socially to help protect the planet while others still don’t have any awareness about how the planet and climate changes are going. As some people are willing to change, they lack the sources of motivation.
Persona
“As a user, I want to set a goal for myself every month to go with the reusable stuff, so that I can keep up my motivation.”
“As a user, I want to keep track of my savings, so that I can count how much I saved by reusing the things.”
“As a user, I want to learn and gain knowledge about the different ways of wastage, so that I can avoid doing the wastage on the planet.”
“As a user, I want to know the tips & tricks to reuse the things, so that I can reduce buying the expensive general merchandise.”
User Stories
User Journey Map
Storyboards
Storyboards helped me visually guide and narrate through a scenario, where and how the users can use the App. They allowed me to see what are all the potential problems that usually would not go unnoticed, ultimately saving much of my time. They helped me share my ideas, align and organize my thoughts about the flow of the App and its user interactions.
Paper Prototypes
My favorite and most exciting part of the project is, crafting the paper prototypes, based on the Mental Models and Information Architecture that I worked on.
Heuristic Evaluation
I learned more while giving the evaluation to peers than getting it to myself. I understood how efficient heuristic evaluation is before doing the digital and high-fid wireframes, and user testing. They helped me to understand and realize the issues and their severity beforehand by going any further.
Low-Fidelity Wireframes
Storyboards lead me to lay the Information Architecture of the app. I crafted the low-fidelity wireframes using pen & paper. The rapid prototype is on the low-fidelity digital wireframes that I designed using the Marvel app.
Moodboards
Mood boards helped me to understand and design the UI of the app. I designed the logo of the app by taking nature and fall colors as inspiration. I used Illustrator to work on the illustrations of the app. And these are used to show and make the users understand what the app is and does. I used Avenir Next font family for easy reading of the text and to increase the hierarchy. I designed the Iconography and UI elements by maintaining the consistency and brand guidelines of the app. I have chosen the colors of the app by taking the natural fall-colored leaves as inspiration. I also paid close attention to incorporating the Gestalt Properties and Accessibility Guidelines.
Style Guide
Logo
Illustrations
Typography
Iconography
Color Palette
UI Elements
High-Fidelity Wireframes
Usability and A/B Testing
I did usability testing based on the high-fidelity prototype that I worked on Invision. I performed usability testing on 3 users. After reviewing the prototype, I performed A/B testing manually on 4 participants by using two prototypes. The two prototypes are a little different with one screen. I completed the A/B testing by maintaining integrity.
After performing the usability and A/B testing and gathering feedback from peers of the design community, the prototype is reviewed and revised. Here lies the link to a recent version of the Reuse Reduce Recycle app's prototype!
Retrospective
I feel proud and responsible for doing this project as my part in saving the Planet. I gained knowledge and great insights by working on a project for saving the earth. I feel happy for working on a design project that is going to help people to change their perspective personally and socially about reusing things. Observing and understanding the people helped me to gain a grasp of the opportunities and breakdowns where people are firm/failing in reusing, reducing, and recycling things. I brushed up all my research, design, and interaction skills once again by doing this project. I learned Photoshop and applied the skills while doing this project. I excelled in my skills in Sketch, Illustrator, and Invision.