April Yang
I am a UX designer who innovate and inspire
Recycle Jungle
- A game to increase campus recycling
March- April, 2014
Have you ever wanted to recycle an item but couldn't find a recycling bin nearby? Recycle Jungle is a mobile app that guides you to the nearest recycling bin by using elegant augmented reality technology.
By using Recycle Jungle, you get the reward to grow plants or animals you like. You may even get to grow your own zoo or garden if you recycle a lot!
This is a course project of Interaction Design Studio at Carnegie Mellon University.
Teammates: Anna Molosky & Kelly Rivers
My Roles: Interaction Designer | UX Designer | Illustrator
Contributions: Interaction design| UX design | Illustration
Process: Literature Review | Interview | Wireframe | Prototype
Increase campus recycling by playing a game.
Choose what you want to do now... Search for a recycling bin or view your achievement.
Search or Achievement
Plastic water bottle
Plastic water bottle
Enter item type here
Plastic water bottle
Enter the type of item you want to recycle and Recycle Jungle will show you the nearest recycling bin.
Enter Recycling Item
An arrow with distance will direct you to the bin.
Follow Guidance
You find the recycling bin!
Congratulations!
We interviewed 6 college students of varying ages and backgrounds to learn about their recycling habits. We found that they all thought recycling was important because it can save the environment.
However, the most interesting thing we learned was that students did not recycle when it wasn't convenient, or when they couldn't see any recycling bin nearby.
Research & Key Findings
I don't have a bin ( for bottles ) in my office, and other recycling bins are never nearby.
I won't bother with searching if the recycling bin and trash can aren't next to each other
Students want to recycle, but will not go out of their way
Based on our research, we used storyboard to illustrate the most common scenario that happens in college students daily life in which students would need Recycle Jungle. We also created a persona to characterize our target users.
Storyboard & Persona
Students want to recycle, but will not go out of their way
Aspen is studying in the university library with her friend.
She just finished a bottle of soda.
She cannot see any recycling bins nearby, but doesn't want to throw the bottle away.
According to our research, we also noticed that the manager of the system will want a way to analyze the success of the system. For this purpose, We designed a dashboard to allow the manager of the system to track the progress of the users' recycling practice.
Dashboard & Persona
In order to help the team work together smoothly and make future development easier, we created technical and design specification to tell examples of how the design of the Recycle Jungle should be executed.
Technical & Design Specification
We used interface flow diagram to model the user interactions and navigation flow of this app. This also enable us to gain a high level overview of the user interface of the app. Below are two different versions of the navigation flow diagram.
Navigation Flow
We explored various patterns during the design of the logo. Below are some of them. The right one was one of the splash screen design options.
Logo Exploration
We plan to implement the "getting rewards for your plants and animals" idea as one of the main features of Recycle Jungle. Below are part of the illustrations we plan to use in the future.
Next Steps
Recycle More
to Raise us!
