Large public events like the Olympics often arise to large amounts of waste and there are differing levels of intrinsic motivation for people to engage in eco-friendly behaviours, as well as physical barriers, such as limited access to bins.

Ecotrack is a mobile application aimed at promoting eco-friendly behaviours through incentives and educational content. Users can easily classify their waste and locate nearby bins to overcome barriers of limited access.

CONTEXT

Academic app concept

Highest mark in cohort for individual prototype

ROLE

Research

Wireframing

Prototyping

Usability Testing

TEAM

Me (mobile)

1x team member (smart watch)

TIMELINE

10 weeks

TOOLS

Figma

Balsamiq

RESEARCH

Have you ever attended an event, just to find the area covered in rubbish everywhere?

With the above question in mind, I led the desktop research gathered from various sources (academic journals, news outlets) and online ethnography from social forums to gain insight into social behaviours. Our objectives encompassed researching:

Current sustainable solutions implemented in the Olympics

Waste disposal practices in large sporting events

Individuals' behaviours regarding waste disposal

ANALYSIS

Key insights

Barriers to eco-friendly practices

External factors such as the number of bins available, whether they are easily accessible influence on sustainable behaviours.

However, incentives can also act as a motivator for inciting sustainable practices

Knowledge

Lack of knowledge and confusion regarding waste classification was a barrier for users to engage in sustainable habits.

Additionally, while some abided by recycling rules, they did not feel a sense of impact for their efforts.

Motivations and behaviour

User behaviour is dependent on ease and convenience.

Ethnographic data showed that some people were intrinsically motivated to care for the environment, others had little drive to engage in eco-friendly behaviours.

User behaviour is dependent on ease and convenience.

Ethnographic data showed that some people were intrinsically motivated to care for the environment, others had little drive to engage in eco-friendly behaviours.

PROBLEM DEFINITION

"How might we make it easy, convenient and motivating for users to engage in waste disposal processes at large public events?"

IDEATION

Coming up with a product vision

Based on the our research insights, behavioural change is a key factor in facilitating long-term sustainability and waste disposal is heavily dependent on ease, access and convenience.

My team and I conducted a sketching session to draw out a vision of the solution. We then individually produced our individual prototype with our respective chosen devices.

Mobile (Me)

Waste classification

Gain points

Watch (Team member)

Locate nearby bins

Gain points

Sketching and iterating

Multiple rounds of sketches were undertaken to iterate on the user flow and wireframes. For each iteration, I reflected on what features worked better than others. Heuristic Evaluation was also conducted to refine on the high-fidelity prototype.

View full report

SOLUTION

Mobile device use case

Users can easily classify their waste with the help of AI photo recognition and will be notified of the number of points they earn to unlock their next milestone and be guided towards the nearest bins.

View prototype

KEY LEARNINGS
Conducting testing when there is limited access to users

Often times hearing from the users are ideal but with limited time constraints, this led to limited access to users. This experience highlighted the need for flexibility and adaptability in the testing process.

Being intentional with visual language across platforms

As this was a group collaboration in which each member had to focus on a different device, this project taught me a lot about being intentional with visual density and how they scale up or down on different platforms whilst maintaining a cohesive visual brand identity.

The impact of micro-interactions

I learnt that adding microinteractions, as simple as a feedback tooltip can make users feel more included and elevate a product. Moving forward, I would love to further explore micro-interactions to subtly enhance overall usability.