CompostUSA

A Social Impact Website

Project Details

Role

UX Designer

Methods

Competitive Analysis,User Interviews, Affinity Mapping, Persona, Journey Map, Usability Testing, Wireframing, Prototyping

Tools

Figma, Miro, Zeplin, Trello, Otter.ai, Google Meets, Zoom

Overview

In this spec project, my team and I were tasked to create a responsive design website that solves the problem of real users in the social impact world.

Our team decided to focus on the sustainable management of food, specifically in regards to composting.

Challenge

Some of the best ways to positively contribute to our global sustainability are to modify consumption habits and take action to produce less waste. Unfortunately, many cities do not have programs in place that help their residents with options like composting, and nearly all make it complicated with no incentives or ways to measure impact.

Solution

We created a website that provides users with an influential community & access to resources, an incentive to continue composting, and validation to inspire a positive emotional connection to the experience.

CompostUSA Desktop Site

Trust the Process

Over the course of 2 weeks our team conducted research on the topic of composting that included user interviews and various methods of testing. We then synthesized our findings to develop a persona to help us ideate our designs. After testing and iterating our designs we developed a high fidelity desktop and mobile prototype that we named CompostUSA.

Investigating the Problem

What Issues do people have with Composting?

If people were more aware of the impact of food waste on the environment, they would take action to properly dispose of their food waste.

How might we boost awareness of the impact of food waste on the environment, so that people can properly dispose of their food waste?

What are our Assumptions?

Compost is not readily available for most people the way that trash and recycling is
People do not know which food item specifically can be or cannot be recycled (example orange peel)
People don’t really know what happens to their items once they’re put in the trash, recycling, or compost
People aren’t educated on composting as much as recycling.
People want to do what is best, but will ultimately do what is easiest and cheapest

Research Methods

Our team conducted a screener survey to ensure we received qualified users within our target audience for our interviews. We screened 13 people, and found 7 that represented our target audience as well as a diversity of geographies.

Example Questions:
Are you familiar with what composting is?
Yes
No
Do you currently compost at your home?
Yes
No
After our team completed our screener survey, we conducted in-depth interviews with seven individuals. We captured incredible notes about our target audience’s behaviors, opinions, pain points, values, and more—which will be crucial in our next stages of synthesizing research.

Takeaways from these interviews:
- Due to a variety of barriers, people aren’t able to start a successful composting practice on their own.
- People want to feel like their making a difference in the world on a personal level
- People have limited awareness of products, resources, and services for composting.
- People feel their contribution to the environment isn’t enough, which makes them feel guilty and judged.

Who Are Our Users?

Creating a persona allows us to solidify our understanding of who we are designing for. Meet Erina.

Erina

She is a 29-year-old Occupational Therapist in Denver, CO.
She wants to learn more about composting to see if it is feasible for her.
She needs more information on what kinds of disposal services are offered in her city.
Currently lacks knowledge about composting and feels guilty about her consumption habits.
Is reluctant to pay extra for composting services and feels that the city should include it in their services.

What did we Learn about the Problem?

What will help people Compost?

Developing good habits for composting comes at an early age and is usually learned from an influential person in life

Having access to community resources and support has the potential to influence individuals to develop good habits around composting

People have limited awareness of products, resources, and services for composting.

In order to overcome barriers to participate in composting, encouraging individuals to utilize resources and education must lead to the right incentives.

People feel their contribution to the environment isn’t enough, which makes them feel guilty and judged.

Contribution to environmental change deserves recognition, this provides validation and creates a positive emotional connection to the experience.

Designing A Solution

Ground Rules

Before starting on any designs, we wanted to hone in on some key design principles when thinking about our approach.

Community

We want CompostUSA to be a community resource that has the potential to influence individuals to develop good composting habits.
Incentive

CompostUSA must encourage individuals to utilize resources and participate in composting.
Validation

Users need to have their contribution to environmental change recognized to create a positive emotional connection to the experience.

Early Designs

The next step in our process was to conceptualize initial designs as a team. Each member of the team drafted sketches of possible design ideas and voted to select a favorite design. We then built mid-fidelity designs based on our initial sketches.

Final Designs

Compost Tracker

The compost tracker inspires individuals to be influenced by each person's contribution to the environment allowing the development of good habits.

Find Compost Services

CompostUSA offers a list of location based services regarding composting.

Educational & Resources Page

Users can find helpful education and resources regarding composting all in the CompostUSA website.

The Results Are In

In order to evaluate our designs our team ran usability tests first with our early mid fidelity design and once more with our final designs.

We read out a series of three scenarios and tasks for each user to demonstrate for us, while we recorded: time on task, easiness rating, and what level of completion they had based on the scale of Indirect Failure to Direct Success.

Tasks Include:

Navigate to find the nearest place for you to take your compost to.
Navigate to where you’d be able to identify what items are compostable.
Navigate to see how much you’ve composted so far this year.

The time it takes for users to complete tasks using the proposed design had decreased at an average of 5 seconds

The average rate of success for each task had increased by 10%.

Testing has shown that users found tasks to be a bit easier to complete with the new designs with the easiness rating jumping from 4.4 to 4.5 on an easiness scale from 1-5.

Prototype

Moving Forward

Through our research and testing, we were able to improve the mobile experience measurably, with all tasks ending in a 92% success rate. We improved our time across tasks (with the exception of our Account and composting tracking task, which we added screens to).

We have several next steps ahead to continue improving on our product.

Add scroll bars, side arrows, and/or other navigation indicators to aid our users' navigation experience.
Continue adding statistics and data breakdowns to our Account and Tracking tool, to help users further see their impact.
Make the infographics inside the "Education" tab more interactive and scatter them into multiple pages instead of just one.
Conduct another round of high-fidelity prototype user testing with the above-mentioned changes to test their impact.
Build out all mobile and desktop pages and test with users over time to see our Tracking tool in action and continue making improvements.