RecycleRight: A UX Design Retrospective & Case Study
Why are recycling rules so confusing?
It’s garbage day. Which items do you recycle instead of trash? A. Those dead batteries from your junk drawer? B. Your old sweater too beat up to donate? C. The empty plastic peanut butter jar with the last dregs? D. And its lid?*
Unsure? Most of us are at some level. This is evidenced in some of the more recent (and disturbing) stats about national recycling rates. Currently, we recycle only about 20% of our waste items. More problematic: 25% of what we do recycle is trash — and this contaminates the recycling stream and sends entire batches back to the landfills they were meant to avoid.
Big national issue, basic user experience problem.
Obviously, reducing our waste is a big environmental problem to solve.
But let’s assume, as recent data shows, that many, if not most, people want to do the right thing for the environment. Then the issue is better framed as a UX problem: how do we design for a better waste management experience? Or how can we make it easier and smoother for people to recycle more and recycle right?
Having felt firsthand the confusion and difficulty in figuring out the rules to recycling — as an employee in the solid waste industry no less — I wanted to help design a digital tool that could solve the user need for clear information, which in turn would support the business need of reducing recycling contamination.
What do users really want and need?
Before I could flesh out a solution, I needed to understand the real problem better. To do this, I interviewed five people, ranging in age from 25 to 75 to better envision how people interact with their waste, and where are the biggest pain points, and potential opportunities to connect to, in the process of making waste decisions.
I selected local residents who faced similar waste service provider conditions. During the interview, I posed open-ended questions to help draw out qualitative data color — thoughts and feelings that guide actions.
Here is what I heard:
- Overall, people do care about recycling. But:
- They find the rules about what to recycle confusing, especially regarding specifics. Also:
- They’re busy. They don’t have a lot of time or energy to spend making recycling decisions. If information is too hard to find, or isn’t immediately available at the point of need, they won’t use it.
- In general, they prefer finding information online, as opposed to preserving printed materials.
- They’re more motivated when they can see the difference their efforts are making.
Based on my interviews, I distilled two useful personas to target:
- The rabid recycler, very motivated to make the most sustainable decisions with consumable items and waste management. Proactively pursues education to recycle better, beyond the point of immediate need.
- The regular recycler with general interest in making sustainable decisions. Could be motivated with more education, but have limited interest or felt ability to invest additional resources to learn. May welcome education at the point of need.
Envisioning the user experience
Using my interview data as a springboard, I identified the “regular recycler” as presenting the most opportunity to improve user experience around recycling or waste management.
Creating a user journey map that linked user actions with thoughts and feelings at different stages in the waste management process helped me in two critical ways: I could both better empathize with the bumps and pains people face and better visualize potential opportunities to intersect with and smooth their path.
A few takeaways helped move me forward in designing a digital solution:
- The most logical point of intersection is right when the waste management decision is being made — the point where the user has the question they need an answer for.
- Not only do users need to know clearly what they can recycle at the point of waste management; they also need to know how to prep the item. Since there’s only the one shot to reach them at this trigger point, a solution must provide both types of information.
- Answers need to be fast and easy to access to be useful at the point of need.
The journey map helped confirm my initial hypothesis: the most useful solution would address the core transaction — what do I recycle and how — and use a digital app-based format to enable quickest access with minimal search barriers.
Who else is tackling this problem? Where can I improve on their solutions?
Once I settled on a solution direction and a core task, I wanted to understand the product landscape around this issue — both to envision what users expect in a digital solution, and where I could capitalize on their missed opportunities to better serve the user.
A crowded field — with critical pockets
Not surprisingly, many organizations have already tackled the issue. Among waste service providers — the most obvious source of recycling information, since they often set the rules and interact directly with users around their waste — I encountered three off-the-shelf products the service providers had customized.
As well-tested and streamlined products, these apps were strong in enabling the core task. But the generic products limited opportunities for users to customize for their specific needs, and neglected key steps in the user journey.
For example, Waste Management’s Cartwise app provided a very basic level of information addressing waste and recyclable items the local service provider handles. But it skipped providing users information about regional recycling programs that help manage the more unusual or bulky items — perhaps less common, but no less of a felt need.
Envisioning user expectations
Among the five competitors I assessed, I catalogued several common elements and features to prioritize into my product:
- Prominent, smart search (searching as users type) — keeping the core task front and center to aid quick transactions
- “Popular” or curated lists of items that help users identify what they want or need
- Localization — connecting users to the information source closest to them — with map and direction feature options
- Heavy visuals — photos or icons — tied to search feature to help users access information in multiple ways
- Contact info, or “help” page — some opportunity to connect to a real person for technical help
- Customization/personalization options — opt-ins for alerts or more information, or saving “favorites”
Designing for a better user experience
How will users get from here to there?
Using what I learned from both my users and my competition, I developed a flowchart (pictured below) to capture and visualize how the user core task would play out in an app environment. What actions would users want to take, and where would they logically fall in the process? What additional screens and features would be needed to accommodate potential tangential tasks that serve the primary? This process was extremely helpful in honing in on the key user path and necessary content to develop ahead of the physical design stage.
Roughing out the picture on paper
My first sketches envisioned three different versions of my three core screens that served the core task: the home, or search, screen, where users would search for items; the item information screen where they would locate information about what, how and where to recycle; and the account settings or help screen, where they could customize their experience and get support if needed.
Getting immediate feedback on these designs helped expose some clear weaknesses. The most glaring one was a misplaced motivational feature, helping users experience how their recycling actions benefited the environment. Though I wanted to include this feature to meet user need for positive reinforcement around recycling actions, it was confusing to users in my initial design critique. It was trying to accomplish too much — social marketing for behavior change as well as answering the core user problem for clear transaction-oriented information.
New, clarified design in wireframes
The first round of feedback helped me focus and simplify my designs and content for the low-fidelity wireframes. The new round of designs (shown below) envisioned two ways to meet user expectations on the three core screens: one as a streamlined version with expandable drop-down information sections to minimize text, and one rendition more visual-heavy.
Fielding these around yielded conflicting results — some users preferred the design with heavy visuals, feeling it helped the information pop. Others preferred the simple streamlined version, which is very common to other apps. I also tested the language describing recycling options — some users felt “handling options” was more clear, since not all items were afforded recycling as a disposal option. Finally, I tested whether users preferred the home icon or search icon to represent the search screen, which ultimately serves as the home screen. My initial wireframe testers gave the affirmative on the magnifying glass icon.
The RecycleRight experience in real-time
Field testing the RecycleRight prototype
Once I settled on the streamlined design, I moved to turn the screens into a functional basic prototype using InVision that users could test, and I staged the research plan and testing schema.
For the test, I recruited three participants who matched my target audience: based locally, representing the “regular recycler” and “rabid recycler” personas, and very or somewhat tech-savvy, between the ages of 35 and 65. I designed the usability tests with six central research questions to help me learn the following information:
- Whether the app worked to guide users through the core task — finding recycling information for specific items.
- Whether the options and screens presented met user expectations for content and possible actions.
- Whether the “tips” or “favorites” section felt natural or intrusive on the user experience as they conducted the core task.
- Whether the link between user location and their local waste service providers was apparent or necessary to the user experience.
During the test, participants performed the following tasks using the app:
- Envisioning a scenario where they have plastic bags they want to recycle, use the “search by item name/category” option to find out how to handle used plastic bags.
- Save “Earth-Right” tip on reducing plastic bag use to their “favorites.”
- Envisioning a scenario where they have old holiday lights they want to recycle, use the “search by popular category” option to find out how to handle broken holiday lights.
- Find the drop-off recycling location for holiday lights closest to Totem Lake.
- Return to the search screen from another screen.
These tasks enabled me to watch how participants interacted with the app screens and features and interject with further qualitative questions throughout the testing process.
Results: good, interesting, ugly — useful
Testing the RecycleRight prototype with real people performing real tasks provided invaluable feedback.
- Good news: it works! (for the core task at least). Users were able to make their way through the core task — finding recycling information for specific items — with minimal to no trouble. Participants also affirmed the benefit and usefulness of the app, and confirmed content design generally matched their expectations.
- Interesting news: unmet expectations and browsing confusion. Interpreting the item information screen presented some difficulties for participants. Where the design used a check-box to represent available disposal or handling options, participants expected to be able to check the boxes for the options they preferred. Additionally, users met with some challenge in returning to the “home” or search screen — causing me to question whether the home icon is, in fact, a better navigation option over the “search.”
- Ugly news: no one wants “more” information. When participants interacted with the “favorites” content options — saving item handling information or eco-friendly tips — I heard conflicting opinions. On one hand, users appreciate the ability to save and return to item information they referenced. On the other hand, both where the info would be saved, and why they would save “Earth-Right” tips or connect to the online newsletter was unclear. This is both extremely useful and somewhat disappointing, since the “tips” feature was intended to offer the extra motivation and reinforcement missing from other apps. For future iterations, I will have to reconsider whether this content is earned or distracting.
RecycleRight 2.0: together we can build a better-recycled world
Based on the user testing process, it’s clear the app needs work and several iterations before it’s show-ready. A second version should improve on these things:
- Help users interpret the item information screen to avoid confusion with the check box affordance, — i.e. short text that signals “this option is available for this item.”
- Revise clunky naming conventions in some areas — “Earth-Right” tips, “handling” options, for two. Further testing around language with more users would help.
- Testing “tip” content to learn whether locating this information in another section or screen area creates a better link — or whether it is indeed irrelevant to the main user purpose and should be discarded.
- Possibly changing search navigation bar to a home icon instead of a magnifying glass — to be confirmed with additional user tests.
But aside from those changes, it’s also clear the app’s existence is justified — it meets a real, experienced need for both the user and the waste management industry.
In my app dreams, the recycling and waste diversion industry engineers the needed AI technology to enable photo recognition, and helps catalog universal standards for recycling our common items — useful for any person, in any location.
In the meantime, I’ll keep evangelizing for a better way.
*Answers, from top: A. Household batteries go to hazardous waste drop-off locations. B. Textiles can be taken to a drop-off facility, or requested for pick-up (depending on the service provider) C. Recyclable — as long as it’s empty, clean and dry D. Plastic lids 3" and over are recyclable.
