Definition & Ideation: A Minimum Viable Product for a Recycling App
An eCollective initiative
Through Lean Inception workshops
“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results”
– Andrew Carnegie
Overview
A group of 9 enthusiastic UX designers and want-to-be designers voluntarily embarked on creating an app that helps people recycle in Spain. The group IxDF Madrid-Ecology (IxDF: Interaction Design Foundation) organized this volunteer project. We were based in different cities in Spain, thereby working remotely was the only option. We started from the findings obtained from the empathize phase previously done.
CHALLENGE
Since we wanted to create a recycling app, we aimed to come up with an idea for the first minimum viable product (MVP). An MVP is the simplest set of features made available to users to validate an idea and gather essential data to guide the direction of the product (Caroli, 2020). By doing so, we used the methodology Lean Inception to define the problem space, our users’ needs and goals, as well as what this app should do and have.
We didn’t have experience using this methodology. All of us were eager to learn and make the most of our collaborative meetings as we enjoyed the process.
- Duration: 2-hour workshop sessions every two weeks for two months. Sometimes we had tasks to do at home and discuss in the next session.
- Collaborate platform: Miro
PROCESS
It consisted of two phases: 1) Define; 2) Ideate. Each phase was made up of several activities. We had an agenda and timetable to follow for the online workshops. Our 2-month timetable was an adaptation of the traditional one-week workshop of Lean Inception due to our meeting restrictions.
Definition
1)The product vision
As the name implies, this activity helped us collaboratively define the vision of the product, which consists of the following blanks to fill:
For [final client],
whose [problem that needs to be solved],
the [name of the product]
is a [product category]
that [key-benefits, reason to buy it].
different from [competition or current alternative],
our product [key-difference].
We worked together to form a homogeneous sentence. For the first two blanks “For” and “whose, who”, we had three different groups of users with different needs. We decided to keep three visions of the product instead of one in this early stage of the process, as follows:
(1) For an aware person who has trouble finding places to recycle the product named Guay reciclar / ¿y si reciclo? / Soy verde is an app that helps people recycle easily and is different from word of mouth. Our product encourages recycling through prizes and gamification
(2) For an unaware but motivated person who lacks motivation to recycle the product named Guay reciclar / ¿y si reciclo? / Soy verde is an app that helps people recycle easily and is different from word of mouth. Our product encourages recycling through prizes and gamification
(3) For companies and/or organizations who are looking for a solution to recycle the product named Guay reciclar / ¿y si reciclo? / Soy verde is an app that helps people recycle easily and is different from word of mouth. Our product encourages recycling through prizes and gamification
2) The product Is — Is not — Does — Does not
With this activity we aimed to understand and envision our product by asking what the app is not or what it does not do. Likewise, we asked ourselves about the positive aspects about the app and what it does (ideally). To do so, we divided a white canvas into four areas (Is / Is not / Does / Does not) and wrote post-its for each quadrant.
As a result, we reached a consensus about our product:
- The product is — an app / webapp / tool to recycle / meeting place for the green community
- The product does — reward for recycling / teach people about recycling / facilitate recycling
- The product isn’t — a social network / forum / chat
- The product doesn’t — recycle for us / solve climate change / change laws
3) Product goals
Having in mind what the product is and does, we moved forward to raise and clarify the main objectives of the recycling app. The objectives were meant to be more abstract and strategic instead of being functionalities or specific features of the app.
The steps we followed were: 1) brainstorm objectives; 2) cluster them by similarity; 3) name each cluster; 4) discuss the objectives and clusters.
We had a common ground about the main objectives of our app, which were:
- provide good user experience
- give information about recycling
- facilitate finding recycling points
- reward the user
4) Describe personas
We created three personas to promote empathy about our potential users while understanding their needs and goals.
In the desk research, the designers found three main actors, two active and one passive. We based on those actors and the vision of the product to create our personas.
Persona 1: María — she’s aware of protecting the environment. However, she has trouble finding places to dispose of her waste. Moreover, she wants to inspire other people to recycle.
Persona 2: Carla — She feels like she wants to recycle. However, she feels a bit overwhelmed by the recycling process. She would recycle only if the process was straightforward for her.
Persona 3: José — He doesn’t care about protecting the environment. Therefore, he doesn’t bother to recycle properly.
Ideation
We aimed to define what functionalities or features would solve our users’ problems, which are lack of motivation and a need for a roadmap to recycle.
1) User Journeys
For each persona (María, Carla and José), we described a user’s journey by specifying the context and a sequence of activities in which the persona could achieve her/his goals. The timeline we chose was a full day — from morning to evening. We also considered the user’s touchpoints, channels, thoughts, and feelings.
For María, the day we chose was a working day because we thought she would more likely recycle and use our app during the workweek.
However, we thought that Saturday was the most appropriate day for Carla since it’s on this day when she could find some time to recycle.
For José, we thought that a working day made more sense to do his user’s journey because he must take the rubbish out of his family, and this would more likely happen during the week.
These users’ journeys provided us with interesting insights about what the users could do with our app, and how and when the app could help them alleviate their pain points. We used these insights to brainstorm features.
2) Feature brainstorming
A feature represents a user’s action or interaction with the product. In other words, what makes our app functional.We bore in mind that the features should: (i) be as simple as possible, (ii) aim to meet a business goal, (iii) and address the personas’ needs contemplated in their users’ journeys — the insights.
During the brainstorming process we tried to answer these questions:
What is the user trying to do? So, the app should have a feature for that.
What is this feature? The brainstorming resulted in over 40 features (post-its).
Then, we grouped the features into groups (total = 11) and named them. The names of each group were core functionalities of the app: 1) Profile; 2) Login; 3) Onboarding; 4) Free; 5) Multiplatform; 6) Community; 7) Recycling points; 8) Communication and Marketing; 9) Gamification (reward); 10) Events; and 11) Family Profile.
3) Technical, business and UX review
Since our end goal was the MVP canvas, we needed to narrow the number of features and select the most important ones for the MVP # 1. In doing so, we evaluated together the technical capacity (effort), cost and viability (business), and user experience (UX) of each feature. The original Lean Inception methodology indicates that a symbol must be assigned for each of these three categories (Caroli, 2018). However, we adapted this activity and assigned a traffic light color instead, as follows:
Development Effort
(green: low effort; yellow: medium effort; red: high effort)
Business
(green: affordable; yellow: high cost; red: extremely costly
UX
(green: high desirability; yellow: medium desirability; red: low desirability)
Example: Feature Public / private
Public / private = effort, business and UX have been assigned green.
This feature belongs to the core functionality Profile (perfil)
Moreover, we interpreted each feature according to the dominant traffic color. For instance, if a feature gets three green, it means that it could be economical, provide good UX and be viable. Therefore, this feature would be a very good candidate for the MVP # 1. However, if it gets at least one yellow, it should be examined in more detail. Finally, the features that have at least one red must be further discussed.
Subsequently, we plotted the features in relation to the level of commitment for recycling on the Y-axis. For high commitment we had our persona María, whilst for low commitment we had José, and Carla was placed between them. There is also the category “todos” — everyone — that encompasses features regardless of the level of commitment for recycling. On the X-axis, we plotted the features in relation to the product goals.
At the beginning of the process, we thought the app should be mainly focused on rewarding the users who needed to be highly encouraged. However, the features we brainstormed seems to meet the needs of users who already have an interest in recycling, as it’s clearly shown in this scatterplot. Therefore, we decided to choose María as our primary persona from whom to design this recycling app.
Since we had loads of tasks and subtasks (features), we had to synthesize our features. Therefore, we merged the features of each core functionalities (e.g., Profile), and assigned a traffic light color that would represent the consensus of that functionality. We did that for each product goal. This would result in having the same core functionality for more than one product goal. For example: profile (perfil) is yellow for the goal “provide good user experience”, however, it is green for “facilitate finding recycling points” (see graph below).
4) Sequencer of features
We defined the sequence that we will deliver the features of the app according to the Lean Inception guidelines (Caroli, 2018). We defined the sequence of the functionalities for each MVP by doing sprints.
Since we wanted to design the app for people who are already eco-conscious, we thought that the app should be more focused on creating a sense of community instead of offering rewards for recycling. Moreover, this app should provide tools and resources to help their users better recycle. We reflected these ideas on the first sprint. For the MVP 1 (see graphs below), we selected core functionalities and their features that could provide UX (green) and were mostly easy to implement and not very costly (green and yellow). These functionalities/features would allow us to test if our business idea was correct and viable.
5) MVP Canvas
The MVP Canvas is a visual chart that helps us align and conceptualize the MVP #1 from which we will continue the process to design the app (Prototype phase). This MVP canvas is the blueprint for our UX team.
Learnings
In the technical, business and UX review activity, we found it a bit difficult to assign a traffic light color for the categories effort and business since our team was made up of only UX designers. We learnt that what developers have to say is essential to define at least the first MVP.
Useful Links
Caroli, P. (2020). What is MVP? https://www.caroli.org/en/what-is-mvp/
Caroli, P. (2018). Lean Inception: How to Align People to Build the Right Product. Editora Caroil.
