WeCycle: Gamifying
Positive Habits
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Problem Statement
Although many individuals these days are aware of the benefits of recycling, they lack
motivation and knowledge to do so, and fail to recognize the collective impact that individuals
can have on the environment. This project seeks to tackle this problem by increasing motivation
and supplementing knowledge through gamifying recycling with a mobile app. Real life problems this project tackles include the following:
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Encouraging users to improve their recycling habits over time.
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Having a lasting impact on user attitudes towards recycling.
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Improving users’ feelings of connectedness with like-minded individuals.
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Helping users contextualize their impact with meaningful visualizations.
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Providing users with accessible knowledge on what is recyclable.
Role
UX Designer
UX Researcher
Timeline
3 Months
Team
Shauna Cheatham, Jane Chen, Stefan Sykes, Ezra Truneh, Annie Zhang
Tools
Balsamiq, Invision, Figma
Project Topic & Concept Statement: Community-Oriented Waste Reduction
Recycling is often the first step for many towards becoming more sustainable. For many individuals, however, recycling is a second thought because it doesn’t seem that impactful. On an individual level, it’s “just one bottle.” What these individuals are struggling to see is that recycling is a group effort, and the impact that can be made is real. On the flip side, individuals are also accumulating more and more waste as commercial products and processed foods become increasingly more popular. For this project, we targeted individuals who want to become more green. We want to encourage them to continue to save the planet and become better at doing so; more importantly, we want to help them visualize and conceptualize the impact they are having on our planet. In so doing, we will not only increase the tangible impact on the environment, we will unite like-minded individuals and visualize a shared goal that they can make tangible steps towards achieving.
Contextual Interviews
Goal
Our goal is to gather current attitudes towards recycling. Particularly, we want to find out what motivates individuals to recycle, and what prevents other individuals from recycling.
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Participants & Recruitment
Our participants were college students living off campus for the first time. They face the unique challenge of managing their own food situation, and dealing with associated waste. Therefore, they are quite likely to be environmentally minded but unfamiliar with how to optimally manage their environmental impact. To recruit such individuals, we posted flyers in an off-campus grocery store and posted in student Facebook groups.
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Do you live off-campus? Do you care about the Earth? Do you want to make an impact? We are seeking 5-6 individuals to answer a couple quick questions. This is for a study about recycling behaviors. As a token of our appreciation, your name will be entered in a 1 in 6 chance to win a $5 Starbucks gift card. Please email <name> at <insert-address-here> for more information on how to take part!
Interview Script:
Introduction
Hi! Thank you for agreeing to participate in this study. Today, we will be asking you a few questions about your recycling habits, and we may also ask you to show us your room, fridge, and kitchen.
How are you today?
What’s your major?
What year are you expecting to graduate?
How often do you eat meals on campus?
When you finish, is there ever uneaten food on your plate?
How often do you cook?
On your average day, about how much recyclables (such as paper, plastic, and glass) do you estimate you go through?
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Deep Dive
How do you feel about the current state of the environment?
Have you actively done anything (donate, pick up litter, carpool, etc) to help the environment? (If so, what?)
How do you feel our society handles waste?
Do you go out of your way to recycle items?
Follow up if no:
Why not?
What goes through your mind when you do recycle an item?
Do you think your habits are mostly benefiting or mostly harming the environment?
Why?
Do you ever not recycle a recyclable item?
Follow up if yes:
What do you think is the reason why you do that?
How would you feel if you could see how much waste you accumulate over one year?
How would you feel if you could see how many trees you are saving by recycling in one year?
Could you give me a tour of your kitchen? I’d specifically like to see your pantry, fridge, and trash area.
Could you show me where you put your trash and recycling materials to be collected?
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Wrap Up
Thank you for your participation.
Would you say this interview had you think about things you had not previously considered? If so, please give some examples.
Do you have any follow-up questions to ask us?
Thank you again for your time. As a token of our appreciation, your name has been entered in a 1 in X chance to win a $5 Starbucks gift card! If you win, we will contact you with the details.
Data Analysis
Affinity Diagram
We identified six clusters from our activity notes from these interviews (Figure 1): identity, knowledge and awareness, challenges, motivation, opinions on society, and habits. We further concluded that identity, as well as knowledge and awareness, contribute towards personal challenges, motivations, and opinions on society. Together, these three latter categories impact personal habits.
Affinity Diagram Theme Narratives
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Habits
Students in our problem space exhibit habits that are generally positive from an environmental standpoint. Behaviors like picking up litter and using recyclable materials are habitual, and happen on a day-to-day basis. As such, they come about from a balance between convenience for the student, and the impact it has. Students use fewer plastic bags and save unfinished food from eating out, but they understandably do not try and go all the way to a zero-plastic lifestyle, or switch exclusively to a lower waste meal-prep-only diet.
Students are busy and have many responsibilities to attend to. They try to maintain good habits, but they also need to prioritize their time and energy to succeed. The habits they pick are ones that introduce minimal friction into their lives, while also introducing a positive environmental impact.
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Motivation
Many environmental campaigns today are focused heavily on big-picture or large-scale facts and explanations, which has proven to be problematic for individuals in our problem space. For example, a flyer might say “Americans use enough plastic bags in a year to stretch around the Earth seven times!” Interviewees told us that the problem with campaigns like this is that they are too disconnected from individuals. Rather than personally relatable, the message feels flashy and unrealistic.
We learned from interviewees that a huge factor in an individual’s motivation for action is knowing how their actions cause real changes in the world. To be compelled and motivated to act, individuals need to feel like their actions matter. For them to feel like their actions matter, they need contextually relevant information, because if the figures fall outside of their sphere, so too will the message behind those figures. An example of a better message, given to us by an interviewee, is as follows: “If you use 2 less bags everytime you go grocery shopping, you could save a tree.” [sic] To resonate on a deeper level with an individual, campaigns need to better connect with people’s daily lives – and that means smaller-scale, more relatable content when communicating with them.
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Knowledge + Awareness
Most people in our society have a decent understanding of environmental practices – what practices hurt the environment, and what practices help the environment. However, the students in our problem space have mostly reported that they gain a lot from the recycling displays and infographic around campus. Specifically, signs spreading awareness of what materials can and should be recycled, because interviewees have reported confusion within that area. Sometimes, they are not too sure what can be recycled.
Students told us there should be more awareness of how and what to recycle. Visual representations were said to be favorable, likely because they make it easy to quickly glean information and put it to use. One interviewee told us that he thinks it is a problem when food packages and containers do not make it obvious whether that package or container can be recycled. If recycling would require them to hunt inside and out of the item to see how it should be properly disposed of, they will likely just trash it – people will not go too far out of their way to find out if something is recyclable. To improve awareness on a continuous basis, improving the visible accessibility of recycling signage is key.
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Convenience + Accessibility
Since most students have been taught the benefits as well as the importance of recycling from an early age, recycling is more of a habit to them than a conscious act. Almost all the participants we interviewed will recycle if the situation permits, but won’t go out of their way to recycle something, so convenience often ends up being the dominant factor in their recycling behavior. For example, if a student does not see a recycling bin anywhere near them, they tend to just throw a recyclable item into the trash. In this case, the student does not intend to harm the environment but is rather challenged and deterred by the extra effort it would take to carry the item around and look for a recycling bin. Similarly, if the labels of packages or categories of bins are too complex for individuals to figure out on the spot, they often end up throwing recyclables into the trash to instead of putting in more mental effort.
A related major theme to emerge in the data is accessibility. Many have a desire to recycle but cannot do so, due to a lack of recycling bins and services. In some instances, recycling bins are located inconveniently. They are farther away in proximity than trash bins are, or they are located outside of a building instead of inside. Moreover, many apartment complexes do not even offer recycling bins on the premises, and tenants are forced to throw away items that are recyclable. In situations where there is greater access to recycling bins, individuals are more compelled to recycle.
On-campus facilities usually offer recycling bins and make them easily accessible. As a result, individuals are more likely to recycle in these contexts even if they are not particularly passionate about recycling. One of the interviewees lamented at the lack of recycling bins, especially at her apartment complex. “Society should make more recycling bins available”, she said. If recycling bins are more prevalent, both on and off-campus, recycling rates may see an uptick.
Persona
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Solution Space
We sorted our solution space into four categories based on their form factor (mobile apps vs. physical products) and functionality (gamification/tracking vs. educational).
EcoATM
Target Problem
Improve ease with which users can sustainably dispose of old electronics.
Solution/How It Works
Easy-to-use kiosk where users can deposit their phones and receive cash rewards. User brings device to a kiosk. Kiosk automatically evaluates device make, model, and condition, and determines a competitive price. Functionality offered by the kiosk is that it performs this evaluation on-the-spot, and provides immediate payment in cash. The kiosk also takes steps to ensure that confidential information is kept private and secure from unauthorized access.
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Limitations
The kiosk only works for cell phones. Our user group would require this to perform similar functionalities for a wider range of recyclable objects.
Dallas Sanitation Services
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Target Problem
The inhabitants of the city of Dallas often forget what day their recycling is and lack knowledge on where/how to recycle.
Solution/How It Works
The City of Dallas’ Sanitation Services Department has launched a new app titled Dallas Sanitation Services, which provides the inhabitants of Dallas with information on recycling. Residents who download and sign up for the app have access to a personalized collection calendar outfitted with collection dates, automatic reminders and information on how to reuse, recycle, compost and dispose of materials. The app also includes an easy-to-use search tool, where residents can search over 200-300 materials to find the best destination for their items.
Limitations
This app is only available to Dallas residents, which is unhelpful for our user group here in Collegetown. Additionally, the sign up requirement could discourage certain individuals from using the app.
Robotic Waste Sorter​
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Target Problem
Recycling waste must be very distinctly separately before actually being recycled.
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Solution/How It Works
ZenRobotics’ robotic waste sorter can efficiently sort recycling waste for you. Their system used a combination of computer vision, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI) to run synchronized robotic arms to sort and pick recycled materials from moving conveyor belts. The company broke ground with recycling stations that were tied together in a neural network and the AI learned, from real-time feeds providing data from metal sensors, 3D laser cameras and spectroscopic cameras, to select and sort the right items from the belt.
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Limitations
The robot is large and expensive. It is not ideal for an ordinary consumer, much less a student, to buy and use at home. The robot is better suited for industry use and doesn’t really make the lives of consumers easier, other than allowing for unsorted recycling to be processed better.
Greenify
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Target Problem
Improve ease with which users can sustainably dispose of old electronics.
Solution/How It Works
Greenify is a mobile application that calculates and tracks users' carbon footprints so that individuals can better visualize and understand the impact of their daily choices. Additionally, the application pings users at points in their day where they can make greener decisions, such as before a meal (a cheeseburger or a vegetarian pasta?) or traveling to work (take a cab or the subway?), in order to suggest eco-friendly alternatives to their routine. In order to avoid having users tediously input every activity they performed each day, they would be prompted once a day to answer three questions about their recent habits to be factored into their footprint calculation. The application also features achievements and user competitions as an added incentive for users to go, and remain green, long-term.
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Limitations
This solution is limited to the digital space. While it is able to address aspects of our problem space relating to the environmental friendliness of users’ daily choices, it does not directly interface with users at the point of recycling – so it can not influence users at the time/context of recycling.
Happen​
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Target Problem
Lack of motivation for people who want to engage in sustainability efforts. Also, the lack of community development for like-minded recyclers and environmental conservationists.
Solution/How It Works
App that provides rewards for users for participating in actions like recycling, energy conservation, and water use reduction. The Happen app provides a platform with the aim of building communities of local sustainability champions who are focused on conserving resources, reducing pollution, and eliminating waste, all through their own actions. The app allows users to network with each other, enables neighborhood comparisons on recycling and energy-use metrics, as well as compete with others via challenges (such as recycling quotas or water use limits) that positively impact the environment.
Limitations
Happen relies on local municipalities to host events and provide community-based incentives. Thus, people can not benefit from this app if they live in cities or towns that have not partnered with Happen to implement the program (only a handful of cities in each state have done so). Since Ithaca has not partnered with Happen, this is also not helpful for our user group.
iRecycle App​
Target Problem
Americans are not recycling as much as they could be. One reason is due to lack of knowledge of how to recycle. Recycling can be complicated because there are so many different products that are recyclable in different locations. Because of this, people don’t recycle as much as they could.
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Solution/How It Works
Providing a recycling database in one app where US residents can find information on recycling 350+ materials at thousands of locations across the country. The user can look up products of all types, from automative to household items, and receive information on drop-off points (location address, phone number, hours of operation).
Limitations
Our persona feels unmotivated to go out of her way to recycle. Even if she knew where the pickup location was, she would prefer to throw something away instead of having to travel a long distance. Our project would need to address this motivation problem instead of just providing information.
Recyclebank App
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Target Problem
Individuals lack motivation to recycle and are unable to see their impact.
Solution/How It Works
Individuals lack motivation to recycle and are unable to see their impact. Recyclebank is a rewards system using gamification techniques to encourage users to recycle more. Recyclebank rewards environmentally friendly actions with points, which are a monetary incentive to recycle. You can also compare your behavior with others on leaderboards in the Recyclebank Ecosystem. The technology is designed to record the amount that your home recycles. The more a user recycles, the more points they earn. Points can be traded in to earn coupons for deals at local businesses as well as discounts on sustainable goods.
Limitations
The incentive structure is inherently consumerist, in that the rewards system is based on earning discounts on purchased goods. Therefore the users would need to have a purchasing mindset in order to be incentivized properly, and this might not be fully congruent with the spending habits of busy, low-budget college students.
Recyclebank App
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Target Problem
Improperly sorted waste on Cornell’s campus.
Solution/How It Works
A combination of different design interventions, including redesigned bin signage and product labeling to create consistency campus-wide. Implemented at Manndible Cafe and saw significant drop in the amount of contaminants.
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Limitations
Space-specific, excels in educating users but fails in motivating them.
Opportunities
Missing from the solution space is some kind of mobile app experience that ties together separate concepts we’ve seen in a more comprehensive way – there are apps that are tracking-based, and apps that are educational, but there are not really any apps that fulfill all of these different aspects of user’s needs in one place. For example, such an app could receive daily input from the user about what/how they recycled that day, and then based on it could find shortcomings in their behavior and provide relevant educational materials about recycling to improve their habits. The app could also use the input it receives to gamify the whole process for the user, and encourage them to improve. The idea here is that there are apps out there to address all of these needs, but no app that unifies this sphere of solutions into one coherent experience. Additionally, none of the solutions we have found specifically target students.
Design Process
Brainstorm & Design Direction
Each member of our team analyzed interview data and shared ideas for a solution during a group brainstorming session. Our chosen design direction was a mobile application that utilized user behavior tracking, user reminders/tips, user education, user impact visualization, and social gamification to motivate users to recycle.
User Requirements Checklist
Motivation – Individual Impact
The app addresses this with the behavioral tracking feature, as well as the visualization feature. These features combine to give the user a holistic (tracking data + visualization) picture of their impact on the environment.
Knowledge - What to Recycle
The app addresses this with easily-accessible infographics within the app. The scanner feature also allows users to identify what is recyclable instantly.
Accessibility – Low Cost
The app addresses this by being available for download free of charge onto a user’s smartphone (iOS and Android). The only thing a user will need is a working iPhone or Android phone, which the vast majority of college students have.
Motivation - Ease of Use
The app addresses this with its shallow task structure. While the app has multiple capabilities, there are not a lot of tasks within each function. There are also functions to make the app easy to use by the users standards. For example, the ability to scan an item and be told if it is recyclable or not so that the user doesn’t have to spend a lot of time searching for that information.
Accessibility – Recycling Accessibility
The app addresses the requirement of being as accessible as a trash can, because the system lives on the user’s smartphone which they will always have on their person.
Motivation – Positive Reinforcement
The app addresses this requirement because the system provides powerful visualizations of the user’s impact based on their actual behavior. The user will be left in a better mood when they learn that they recycled enough paper last month to save a new tree from being cut down.
Knowledge-Easily Interpreted Values
The app keeps track of how much the person recycles in terms of bottles and cans so that it is easily interpreted by the user.
Knowledge-Text
All of the text in our app is in English to meet this requirement.
Knowledge-Intuitiveness
The graphics in our system closely resemble real objects or are photos of real objects. This allows users to quickly interpret the visual representations of their impact on the environment. For example, when our user recycles enough paper to save a tree, they will see a photo of a tree.
Motivation-Competition
The app allows our users to share their recycling habits with their friends. There is also a leaderboard to show who is recycling the most items.This will motivate our user to better their recycling habits due to competition and social norms.
Five Tasks
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Users should be able to track what and how much they are recycling and throwing away as trash.
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Users should be able to see summaries over time of how much they recycled, and these summaries should be supported with meaningful visualizations.
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Users should be able to adapt and learn through frequent tips and reminders from the app.
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Users should be able to compete with other users (friends, families, or strangers) on leaderboards.
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Users should be able to see community updates and like or comment on such updates.
Preliminary Sketches for Five Tasks
Storyboards & UI Sketches
Task 1: Track what and how much they are recycling and throwing away.
Task 2: See summaries over time of how much they recycled, and these summaries should be supported with meaningful visualizations.
Task 3: Adapt and learn through frequent tips and reminders from the app.
When a user is on the leaderboard page, educational tips will occasionally pop up, helping the user to identify recycling problems and subsequently score higher on the board. The message will disappear once the user clicks on the “Got It!” button.
Task 4: Users should be able to compete with other users (friends, families, or strangers) on leaderboards.
In our scenario, Amy wonders about how much her friends are recycling this week. She navigates to the weekly leaderboard screen, sees that she’s only in third place, and vows to recycle more.
Task 5: See community updates and like or comment on such updates
Paper Prototype
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User Feedback
We asked five new users of the same target audience to use our paper prototype and give us feedback on it. This feedback was used to make design improvements
Mid-Fidelity Prototype
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After receiving user feedback on our low fidelity prototype, we were able to construct a mid fidelity prototype with Balsamiq (Figure 4). This meant that we were able to create a wireframe prototype, with better graphics and linked pages. We also needed to think about positioning and flow at this stage.
Heuristic Evaluation
I used Nielsen's Heuristics to do a heuristic evaluation of the prototype with severity and suggested solutions.
Usability Testing
Goals of the evaluation study
Broadly, the goal of our evaluation is to see if our prototype design provides an engaging and intuitive experience for the user. More specifically, we want to see if the users in our target audience can use our app to achieve their goals – that is, increasing awareness of their own carbon footprint, learning from and improving on their environmental habits, and feeling connecting and engaged with other like minded users.
Usability Metrics
Efficiency: The user will be interacting with the app several times a day, so it is important that they are able to complete their tasks in a time-efficient and non-convoluted manner.
Learnability: There are multiple capabilities afforded by the app, thus we want to ensure that newer users are able to learn how to fully realize all of them (logging, viewing activity, tracking rankings etc).
Memorability: Users might spend a few days away from the app before returning to it again (perhaps they had a particularly busy exam week). We want to ensure that they can come right back to the app and continue where they left off using all of the functionalities.
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User Experience Metrics
Satisfaction: Satisfaction is important because if the user does not feel satisfied with the system, they will be less likely to use it again. Frequent usage is an important component of our app.
Social Connectedness: Social connectivity and engagement with other like-minded users (regarding recycling and the environment) is an important goal of our users and something we want our system to help them accomplish.
Intended Participants
Our intended testing participants are college students, preferably those who are environmentally conscious and would like to improve their environmental impact and awareness of their carbon footprint. We seek this demographic because these are the core traits of our target audience. We plan to recruit people from this group by consulting with friends and acquaintances to find people in our circles that fit the description. Most students on this campus are generally cognizant of current issues, so we do not anticipate difficulty finding environmentally conscious people looking to make an impact.
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Team Member Roles
Facilitator (conducts the evaluation): Ezra, Annie
Observer (takes notes during the evaluation session): Stefan, Shauna, Jane
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Tasks & Instructions
Task 1: You just finished drinking a can of soda. Find out if it should be trashed or recycled, and then add the item to your log.
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Happy path: Ideally, from the starting Home screen, the user will click on the Add Item button. From there, they can either select “Look It Up”, “Take A Photo”, or “Favorites” to arrive at the Item-Soda Can landing page. Then, the user will ideally click “Recycle”, but they might also click “Trash.” After clicking the confirmation pop-up that follows, the user is done with the task.
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Instructions for evaluator/observer: In this task, the observer should pay attention to if it is clear that the add button on the task bar is where the user goes to find out if an item is recyclable or not. If this is not intuitive, users will have difficulty with the app as this is one of the main functions. The observer should also pay attention to if the user chooses to log the item using the search function or takes a photo, because we may want to put the most commonly used option on the top. We also want to see if the user knows the item was logged automatically after clicking recycle or trash, or if they think there is more to the task.
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The evaluator should make sure the user starts this task from the home screen. If the user is struggling to complete the task and five minutes passes, the evaluator should move on to the next task and assure the user that it is due to our design flaw they could not complete it and that they are still providing valuable information. The evaluator should acknowledge questions but should not answer them.
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Task 2: You are wondering what your carbon footprint has looked like this past week. Find out what percentage of your disposal over the past week has been from recycling.
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Happy path: From the starting home screen, the user will ideally click on the “Summary” page and be taken to the user’s own daily summary. From there, they will click on the “This Week” summary option which will take them to the page with the information they need. Once the user answers “59% recycled”, they have completed the task.
Instructions for evaluator/observer: The observer should pay attention to how long it takes the user to find the summary page in the taskbar. They should also pay attention to how many clicks it takes the user to complete this task. Because this task only requires two clicks, if the user takes 4 or more clicks, the observer should note where the task became confusing for the user.
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The evaluator should make sure the user starts this task from the home screen. If the user is struggling to complete the task and five minutes passes, the evaluator should move on to the next task and assure the user that it is due to our design flaw they could not complete it and that they are still providing valuable information. The evaluator should acknowledge questions but should not answer them.
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Task 3: You are curious as to how your week compares to some of the very dedicated recyclers in your friend circle. Determine who among your friends is the best recycler of this week, and find out the recycling and trash breakdown of that friend’s week.
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Happy path: From the starting home screen, the user will ideally click on the “Rankings” page and be taken to the Ranking-Friends-Today page. Then, they will click on the “This Week” view option. From there, they will click on “See More” under the top ranked person (Clark K.) and be brought to Clark K.’s summary on the weekly view. Once the user answers “65% recycled, 35% trashed”, they have completed the task.
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Instructions for evaluator/observer:
The observer should make sure the user starts on the home screen. They should pay attention to if the user knows how to get to the rankings page from the task bar based on the icon that we used. The observer should also note which part of this task seemed to take the longest for the user, as this is the most complicated task of the three.
The evaluator should make sure the user starts this task from the home screen. If the user is struggling to complete the task and five minutes passes, the evaluator should move on to the next task and assure the user that it is due to our design flaw they could not complete it and that they are still providing valuable information. The evaluator should acknowledge questions but should not answer them.
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Scripts for the evaluation session
Welcome / Briefing: Hello and good day! Thank you for agreeing to help us with our testing process. We are creating a mobile app that is designed to help users improve their relationship with the environment by providing a way to log items they trash and recycle, visualize their carbon footprint, and connect with like-minded users and compare their behaviors and habits. We will be asking you to perform a series of tasks using this app, while evaluating your performance and listening closely for any insight or feedback you have during the process.
Informed Consent: We are asking you to participate in a test of a system’s usability. This form is designed to give you information about this study (hand user the form). We will describe this study to you and answer any of your questions. The goal of this test is to evaluate whether our prototype provides an engaging and intuitive experience for the user. We will be taking notes on your performance on various tasks, and we may record your name during the note-taking process but we will not collect any other information about you. All participant data that may be collected, such as your name, will be anonymized in the final report.
Survey Questions: After each task, ask the user these questions:
What immediate impressions do you have of the app after that task?
Do you find this task useful?
Did you find any part of the task frustrating or confusing? If so, what parts of the app do you think caused it to feel that way?
Exploration Phase: At this time, we’d like to ask you to explore the app on your own. Please feel free to still talk through your thoughts and actions, and let us know if you see something amiss!
Debriefing Script: Thank you very much for your time and participation, the insight you’ve provided into our design will be invaluable. If you ever have any more questions about today’s test or our system, please feel free to contact us at placeholder@cornell.edu
Design Problems
Design Improvements
Based on usability testing, we made the following design improvements:
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We added a button explaining the "Add Item" button to first-time users
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We added a recycle button for items that are non-recyclable
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We changed the "trash" button to say "throw it away"
