Since my target audience for this project were members of my own community, I asked my neighbours to participate in my research. I had them fill out a survey asking them more about themselves and their current waste habits. Then, a few members who were interested participated in interviews. Participants covered a wide range of ages and abilities; some participants were born and raised in Canada, and others were new to Canada and learned English as their second language. This created a great opportunity for me to keep accessibility in mind throughout the design process.
Research uncovered four key pain points:
• Users couldn't remember garbage pickup schedule, or wanted a weekly reminder, especially for special pickups ie. batteries or electronics
• Many products are marketed to be recyclable or compostable, but sadly only in specific municipalities (users need to be able to identify what is or is not general waste)
• Users lack the motivation to learn or create better habits to recycle and compost
• Users feel guilty when they have no choice but to throw something in the trash when it could otherwise be donated or repurposed
With all the data collected from the surveys and interviews, I created a few personas to represent the goals and characteristics of the end users.
I started out with some rapid sketching to get some ideas on paper. Then I refined those sketches with a little more detail, building from my IA above:
• Landing screen where users see the current month pickup schedule
• Map of nearby drop-off depots and donation centres
• Interactive quiz to test and improve the user's knowledge
• Community posts where users can learn about what steps their community is taking to reduce their environmental impact
Next I transformed my paper wireframes into digital lofi wireframes. At this point, I had spent a little extra time sketching out ideas, so I felt more confident directly copying them without making many changes.
I tested the lofi prototype by running 6 usability studies with users on the Figma Mirror app. This gave users a more realistic experience on a mobile device, and helped me understand issues that wouldn't have come up using the web browser prototype. With the results of the usability studies, I iterated on the designs:
With this being my third project part of my Google UX Design Certificate, I really felt everything I've learned come full circle. I felt a lot more confident conducting interviews and usability studies, especially with people I didn't know very well. I focused more on avoiding leading questions and being aware not to limit my subject's answers based on what I was expecting. I also tried not to overstructure the usability studies, and I found that helped bring out more authentic responses.
My next steps with this project would be to focus more on notification settings, and what kind of control users would want over them. I'd also like to do more with the quiz, adding a way to earn points or badges and share achievements with their community members.
