Blue Bin is an app I designed for a class project that aims to educate users on how to recycle correctly. Its core function is to scan items and let the user know how to properly dispose of them. It also features educational recycling resources.
Most of us know that recycling is good for the environment, but what we often don't realize is that recycling the wrong materials can actually harm the environment. Improperly recycled goods contaminate entire batches of recyclables, which renders them waste, endangers facility workers, and damages equipment. And unfortunately, it's a rampant problem in the US.
After learning about this issue in a waste management class — and realizing I had been guilty of recycling items that weren't supposed to be for years — I set out to design an app to clear up confusion surrounding recycling rules.
I determined my target user cared about the environment and wanted to be more conscious about their recycling practices. They would also likely be either a millennial or Gen Z, since these generations tend to be more eco-conscious.
I started by conducting interviews with members of the target audience to understand why people dispose of items incorrectly, so I could address the issue at its roots.
While my user interviews were insightful, I wanted to support what I had learned with data from a larger sample size. One pain point, which I also uncovered in my interviews, came up repeatedly: recycling rules vary significantly from place to place, and people have a hard time keeping up with the discrepancies.
In a published study of nine cities, data showed that items recyclable in all nine cities had a low rate of being recycled inaccurately, at 9%. However, for items that were only recyclable in some of these cities, the rate of error was 52% 3. These numbers are a direct representation of the confusion surrounding recycling practices for items that lack standard rules.
While an app can’t change the rules, it can help people identify what can and can’t be recycled in their city—and that’s what I aimed to do in my design.
Based on my learnings, I created a user persona of a member of the target audience to keep the user’s needs at the forefront of the design process.
To help determine what features to include in my app and how to stand out amongst competitors, I researched existing disposal apps on the App Store. Most of the apps I found were centered around local trash collection, but I was able to find three apps that fulfilled a similar purpose to Blue Bin: Scrapp, iRecyle, and Recycle Coach. For each app, I identified features, strengths, and weaknesses, to see areas where Blue Bin could stand out.
After researching these three apps, I was particularly inspired by Scrapp, which I found had the most user-friendly design and features. It was also the only app with the scanning feature I envisioned for Blue Bin. My main criticism was that the manual entry process for new, unrecognized items was extremely long and tedious, which led me to exclude this step from Blue Bin.
Based on my research, I created some low fidelity wireframes as a starting point for the design. I defined the main pages of the app — scan, lookup, and learn — and their tentative layouts and copy.
This is the app's entry point. It allows users to quickly see how to dispose their item correctly simply by scanning it with their phone camera. This eliminates the hassle of having to search whether or not the item is recyclable manually. The result is based on the user's location since guidelines vary place to place.
I decided to include an item lookup page for users who prefer to search manually. To save time compared to a broad Internet search, the app will surface results for the user's location and provide the exact information they are looking for.
To address the miseducation around recycling on a deeper level, I wanted to include a learn page with sustainability and waste related educational content, such as the importance of recycling correctly.
With low fidelity wireframes done, I was able to focus on the design. I started by making a design system in order to maintain a consistent & coherent look in my hi-fi prototypes. I went with earthy colors that traditionally invoke sustainability, such as green and tan. I also opted for a few bright colors and used rounded, san-serif fonts (Co for headings and Bryant for body) to give the app a fresh, friendly feel.
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Last but not least was designing the hi-fi prototype. I made a few key updates to the low fidelity designs to improve the overall usability and usefulness.
In addition to the screens below, I designed a brief onboarding flow and a scan history page which can be viewed in the full prototype linked here.
I presented the finished prototype to my class, walking through my process and explaining my design decisions. I received great feedback regarding the concept and my designs.
Even though it's one of my earlier UX design projects, Blue Bin remains one that I'm most proud of, because I designed a solution to a real-world problem I personally care about. I also had ownership of the entire project, which meant I established the concept and branding myself.
That being said, as a class project, there were still some constraints. We worked under a fixed timeline with a fixed set of deliverables, with about a week to produce each. Consequently, I wasn’t able to gather feedback and iterate on the final design as much as I would have liked.
Looking back, I can clearly identify areas for improvement; for example, as the most important information on the page, the disposal instructions for scanned items should be displayed front and center, instead of at the bottom of the screen.
1. EPA, “National Overview: Facts and Figures on Materials, Wastes and Recycling,” December 2022, https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/national-overview-facts-and-figures-materials.
2. Recycling Partnership, “2019 West Coast Contamination Initiative Research Report,” May 2020, http://recyclingpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/The-Recycling-Partnership_WCCI-Report_April-2020_Final.pdf.
3. Blanco, Christian, et al. “America’s Broken Recycling System.” California Management Review, California Management Review, 30 May 2023, cmr.berkeley.edu/2023/05/america-s-broken-recycling-system/.
