Discovering the problem
USER SURVEYS
In order to get an understanding of the general public’s knowledge of upcycling and gauge their enthusiasm to start learning, we created and distributed a survey which collected basic demographic information, current familiarity, and willingness to start upcycling if they learnt more about the process.
Collecting demographic information allowed us to understand what parts of the population we were getting input from, and who was being excluded so that we could make more informed decisions for future iterations.
This data informed us that we would have to include an educational component during both the onboarding and throughout the application experience as well in order to continuously provide new knowledge on upcycling habits.
Since majority of our respondents were in the age group of 18–24, we decided to gear our design and user interface to be more modern, and using topical design themes.
USER INTERVIEWS
To get a deeper understanding of peoples main motivations and frustrations in the current upcycling process, we conducted user interviews with 7 individuals, who fell under three main categories: undergraduate student, teenager, and adult. Based on the interviews, we came to the following conclusions:
Biggest obstacles:
Access to information: there is a lack of information regarding how upcycling works and what/how people can do, which causes hesitancy to start due to unfamiliarity.
Inconvenience: users don’t know what items they have to use or how much time it will take to create new items.
Lack of ideas: it is difficult to come up with ideas for creations based on the items that people have at home, especially when just starting up.
Biggest motivators:
- Competition: people are motivated by competing against their friends, and getting ideas based on what others have done.
Impact visualization: showing their actual impact will motivate them to do more and give back.
Saving money: people tend to keep used packaging materials and reuse it for other purposes as this retains quality.
JOURNEY MAPPING
To ensure that the features we ideated and journey we created actually made a noticeably positive impact on the users’ journeys, we mapped out a user journey of purchasing a new item to its end of usability, and compared the process with and without the application.
We found that while there was still a dip in user emotion when the usability of a product ended, instead of continuing that dip downwards, the new application allowed for the feeling to be reversed. Since the user now had a new challenge to tackle, and was able to both be educated and take part in friendly competition, they felt better about their impact on the world compared to if they had simply thrown out their product.
Bringing it to life!
WIREFRAMES
Based on our user research, we created wireframes for each of the main features we planned on including. After deciding the finer points of what each of the features consisted of, we drew out multiple layout options for each of them in order to visualize how a user would navigate through it.
Doing this helped us get an idea of which features provided the most benefits to the user and contributed to the user journey. By exploring various layout options in each of the sections, we found common UX principles which could be applied to make the features as easy to access as possible.
STYLE GUIDE
Since this product was targeted at an extremely large audience, it was important to have an inclusive and accessible design. This was done by ensuring that our colour use met the WCAG standards, and that all the icons we used had some form of text accompanying it so as to avoid assumptions for a diverse audience.
MEDIUM FIDELITY MOCKUPS
Based on our initial wireframes, we created mid-fi prototypes on Figma. Throughout this process, we focused on the most important features we wanted to test, so that we could then get feedback on what to improve for future iterations.
What I learnt
WORKING IN A TEAM
This project was my first time going through the entire design process with a team, from initial ideation all the way to prototyping, and in a one month timeline. I learnt the importance of dividing up the work we had, but also being able to implement each other's conclusions within our individual work in order to create a cohesive product. Since I focused on the user research and usability testing, I learnt how to successfully communicate my key takeaways without bias to the rest of the team, as well as my ideas for the implementation of what I learnt, so that it could then be done in future iterations. Having multiple eyes on the product was very effective in ensuring that we addressed the entire user flow, and did not simply focus on the technology aspect, but also how we could have it embedded within the users life.
USABILITY TESTING
Since this was my first time conducting any sort of usability testing, I went in with the preconceived notion that any user feedback was feedback on my ideas. However the feedback that I received was simply their experience, and any criticism was on how the application functioned within their required task. When I took 'myself' out of the ideas, I was able to remove the bias and subjectivity on how I perceived them, which enabled me to generate real key takeaways. I also found the importance of open-ended questions, and understanding user perceptions before moving on to task based activities.
ACCESSIBILITY IN BRANDING
This project was my first foray into learning more about accessible design, and I was able to learn more about implementing WCAG standards with the colours I used, as well as how different font sizes and typography was viewed to different people. Doing this is incredibly important, as the branding is one of the first points of contact for the user and having it be usable to everyone is the only way people would be willing to use the solution created.
