Binxel
Role
UX designer
Prototyper
Art director
Type
Team project at PolyU
Timeline
3 months
Project Brief
We all know how complicated the recycling issue is with internal and external factors. To deal with the three internal factors, "laziness", "tedious", "self-deceiving" that lead to low recycling rate in Hong Kong, we propose an interactive machine and a corresponding mobile application to create a meaningful reward system to visualize refreshing positive outcomes in order to increase user motivation and enjoyment of recycle.
Binxel
An interactive machine with colorful LEDs to show pixel arts to visualize unique and meaningful reward to motivate participation and increase the enjoyment of recycling.
Souvenir
After a theme's period, the postcard provides user with the pixel arts he or she has contributed to as a recycling record in order to provide a sense of achievement.
App
To provide a platform for users to view all the Binxels on campus and preview the patterns while using gamification and curiosity to create a sense of treasure hunt to ultimately motivate their participation.
Design process
To follow a user-centered design process, we spent 3 months going through innovative design methods like cultural probes, body-storming and participatory design workshop to understand university students and gain valuable insights for the final design.
With the use of a 7-day cultural probes, we aimed to gain unbiased data of the university students’ daily waste disposal, study their behavioral patterns and understand deeper about their recycling awareness. And most importantly, to identify the problems/ barriers they were facing during the recycling journey.
Findings
After collecting back the kits from our 5 participants, we analyzed and concluded the 9 barriers and difficulties faced during recycling into the following nine problems and categorized them into 2 groups - the external and internal factors.
Factor 1. Self-deceiving
- We have double-checked with all participants that they have no recycling habits because they have been using
the same rubbish bin throughout the probe.
- The result above contradicts with their self-evaluation part in probe one.
- Most of the waste they categorized as general waste can actually be recycled.
Factor 2. Tedious
- One participant reflected recycling is actually fun to do at the beginning, but there is not enough
motivation to sustain the enjoyment.
Factor 3. Laziness
- With simple guidances, most participants were able to fulfill the recycle requirements. In this case our
challenge was a “compulsory” activity, with this trigger, participants were fully capable and “motivated” to
complete the task, despite it was a tedious process.
In order to design real scenarios for body-storming, we did desktop research, field research and in-street interview at the first place to better capture the attitudes towards recycling from university students to design our body-storming scenarios.
Conclusion
Through body-storming, we found that people have the awareness and basic knowledge about recycling, but there is not enough motivation for us to take actions. The reasons of it can be divided into external and internal factors. Since there is very less thing we can do to influence the external factors(e.g. insufficient bins and government policies and regulations), so in the next design direction we will focus on the internal factors.
Design Direction
In terms of the 3 criteria derived from the research stage, we developed three possible solutions: Paper reuse origami, Clap for your recycle and Recycle bottle pixel. After balancing the strengths and the weaknesses, we choose the last one.
Rationale
First of all, plastic bottles are also the most common waste generated among university students. Recycle bottle PIXEL involves public participation to maximize the recycling effect. Last but not least, It uses the sense of collection and treasure hunt to encourage people to invest just a little effort to achieve a noticeable effect.
Prototyping
Pixel pattern controlled by ultrasonic sensors
Card sensor controlled by toggle switch
User Journey
Evaluation
We did the user test with 4 undergraduate students and use the co-discovery method to allow the two of each group to discuss about recycle experience when using the prototype.
😄 Pros
1. Instant refreshing visual reward is more attractive than the existing canteen coupon.
2. The use of separated pixel art can create a sense of treasure hunt and encourage collection.
3. The machine can have the potential in spreading awareness of recycling within university students.
4. The LEDs can attract people from faraway and also inform the location of the recycling machine.
😬 Cons
1. The pixel art pattern should not be green-related but can relate to the current trend.
2. Seasonal physical reward is preferable.
3. Student card can be used to record the recycling history.
Objective
1. Laziness
2. Self-deceiving
3. Tedious
To discover more inside the 3 factors and try to eliminate their impacts on university students.
Participants
Process
Roleplay
Roleplay
We distributed a character card to each participant and let he/she list the reasons why people may have this character and give examples to describe corresponding features related to the character.
Hands on
To observe their cleaning process before disposal and inquire about their feelings.
Crowdsourcing
Participants were required to come up with an agreement for their design solutions, we would be observing how different stakeholders persuade and argue for their point of view.
Collect GreenCoins
To let them try the PolyU Greencoin machine and examine current reward system and find possibilities for further design.
Design criteria
