ReLife
ReLife is an experience that focuses on sustainability in the city of Los Angeles, CA. This experience is an informative and accessible way to recycle reusable materials in the LA area.
ReLife is an experience that focuses on sustainability in the city of Los Angeles, CA. This experience is an informative and accessible way to recycle reusable materials in the LA area.
Dec. 2021 - Jan. 2022
Pablo Cuellar
Red Minoza
UX Researcher
UI Designer
01/07 Discovery
How might we increase recyclability awareness in Los Angeles county?
02/07 Empathize with users
We created a survey to gather quantitative data, to determine why people fail to recycle, and to analyze how we can develop a solution to increase recyclability awareness in Los Angeles to make recycling easier for people.
Results
73%
of the respondents believe recycling of all materials should be mandatory.
50%
stated they are not aware of recycling stations near them while the other half
were aware of stations near them.
88%
of the respondents agreed that in the area they live in, they see recyclable material in normal trash bins.
“I feel bad not being diligent with recycling items properly but I am very busy that sometimes the process is too inconvenient for me to bother.”
Sabrina, 20
College Student
Sabrina is a student renting a small apartment in Los Angeles. She is often not at home as she is at school and at work most times, that is why she hasn’t been very particular with recycling.
Pain Points
Needs
“I wish I knew what recycling stations take what kind of materials.”
Jake, 22
College Student
Jack is a full-time student that collects recyclable materials to make a little extra money and to help out the environment. He often struggles with knowing what stations nearby accept certain recyclables.
Pain Points
Needs
03/08 Defining the problem & solution
1. Users do not know what recycle stations take certain recyclables
.
2. Users would like to be able to find recycle locations near them according the to the recycle material.
LA residents need a way of knowing what materials are recyclable and where the recycling locations can be found.
We wanted the user to be able to search recyclable material by their specific type and be able to locate recycle stations that receive those specific material.
The end goal for the user would be to find a certain type of recycling station near them depending on what kind of material they are recycling.
We developed a competitive analysis of other recycling apps to determine what was missing in the competitor's apps. This analysis assisted us in the developmental stages of our app because determining strengths and weaknesses in the other apps gave us a clearer direction of what we wanted to create.
With the development of the User Flow Chart we took into consideration the most intuitive route for the user to accomplish the end goal. The end goal being finding a certain recycle location near them.
Once the user create their profile, they are brought to the home screen where they can search different categories of recyclable materials.
After clicking one of the categories the user is shown specific recycle types for that recyclable category.
When choosing nearby recycle locations you the user is brought to a screen with a list of nearby locations for the certain recyclable.
In this occasion the user chooses Recycle Innovations and the app give the user a map view of the location.
Under the locations tab the user can also search for all recycle stations nearby or search for location that accept certain recyclable materials.
This screens shows the results the user would see for all recycle location according to the zip code they input.
The discovery screen allows users to read articles related to recycling and sustainability, along with fun facts about recyclable materials.
If you liked an article you can always favorite it from the discovery screen or through the article page.
Users also have the option to read fun facts in the discovery screen.
The user’s profile page will show how many articles they have favored and allow them to go back any time to reread the articles.
05/07
Wished there was a toggle button between list view and map view when finding recycle locations.
06/07
Found the experience easy to navigate with making the user journey seamless and to the point.
04/07
Mentioned the fun facts should be able to be favored as well just like the articles.
Before
After
Some user feedback we received noted the button to create the user's account was not legible so we did a contrast check and found that it did not pass the accessibility guidelines ( WCAG).
Our solution was to make the button with a white stroke and transparent background, in order for it to be accessibly readable.
This was a very exciting project to work on. It was a great collaborative experience working with Red. We learned how design thinking is not a linear process and that revisiting earlier phases in the process is critical in creating an experience that truly solves the users' problems.
I also, discovered that I greatly enjoy working on the user experience side of the design. It is something I am passionate about because it makes the designer critically think about user journeys, outcomes, and actually designing around the problem.
If I had more time when designing ReLife I would have liked to conduct user interviews. Gathering qualitative data would have helped us empathize with the user on a deeper level because we would have received more descriptive feelings about how they feel and what their pain points are.
Moving forward I will now begin user testing in earlier stages of the design process. Testing the experience during the mid-fidelity process is critical in receiving early feedback from the user and their journey. Also, focusing more on accessibility when laying out the style tile and it's components is something I will concentrate more of in the future.
