Background
In USA, often times, residents and businesses have trash that needs to be picked up but it cannot wait or it should not wait for a regular municipal trash pick up. Another case is residents or businesses have trash that cannot be picked up by a regular garbage pickup like hazardous waste.
This led to the idea of creating an application called trashmitter that allows people to get their trash picked up as and when the user requires. The idea was built in a tech incubator where I worked closely with the founder of the application to turn the idea into a digital solution.
Project Overview
Designing an app for on-demand trash disposal services for North American residential users.
The project revolved around working closely with the founder of the application to understand their vision and collaborating with the business and marketing team to build product strategy and design the application.
My Role
Led the project as a
UX Designer and
UX Researcher
The Team
- 1 Product Manager
- Engineering Team
- Marketing Team
- Business Team
Timeline
2 Months
What was the problem?
🕣
In North America, municipal corporation trucks pick up trash from every household according to their own timings.
🗑️
The municipal corporation does not pick up all kinds of waste (for example hazardous chemical waste or construction waste).
🏡
Airbnb owners are usually not around the property to manage it and therefore getting rid of trash from the property was a challenge for them.
Discovery
User Research
After having a discussion with the client about their vision for the app, I was able to get in touch with a cohort of 12 people varying from Airbnb owners, to residents and people who provide waste disposal services.
All research was conducted Zoom since the research was being conducted during the outbreak of Covid-19. The participants were asked a series of open-ended and thought-provoking questions to understand their needs and wants.
7
Airbnb Owners
12
Residential Users
4
Municipal Workers
2 Weeks
Duration
Insights Gained
📆
Disposal tracking challenges
Residents and Airbnb owners have to keep track of garbage day and type of waste and make sure they dispose off the right waste.
😓
Users often forget to put out trash
Users usually forget to put out the trash leading to storing the trash for another week.
🤢
Difficulty storing waste
The majority of the participants in the research complained about the problems they face in storing garbage till it gets picked up (like bad smell and limited space)
🗑️
Unable to dispose off other waste
Municipal corporation only picks up certain types of waste like biodegradable, landfill waste and recyclable waste except a few cities that pick furniture waste as well.
Key Personas Identified
1. Trashmitter
This is the user persona that emits trash and would be our key user.
2. Schweeper
The driver who picks up the trash. Schweeper has the liberty to work at their own convenience and is not bound by any timings.
While talking to potential Schweepers while conducting research we wanted to focus not only people who already collect trash but also people who would be interested in it. Therefore, I collaborated with the product team and we sent out questionnaires to potential Schweepers and tried understanding their needs and frustrations to help us design the right solution for them.
User Goals & Tasks
I wanted to understand what the goals of a typical user would be for the application, I decided to use insights gathered from user research to create a list of user goals and task for both personas. I collaborated with the product manager for this task to make sure we cover all tasks and goals.
Trashmitter Goals
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To throw garbage without having to go to dumping sites themselves.
-
To book garbage pick-up whenever they want to throw the garbage without waiting for municipal corporation trucks.
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To dispose trash that can not be picked up by municipal corporation trucks.
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To be able to throw any kind of trash they want to without worrying about the size and type of trash.
Trashmitter Tasks
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Packing garbage for pickup.
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Sorting our biodegradable waste from non-biodegradable waste and color code the trash bag.
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Schedule a trash pick-up using the application.
Schweeper Goals
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To earn extra cash through side jobs.
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To make use of the vehicle they already have to help them make money.
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To complete multiple pick-ups at a time to earn more money and dump it all in one go.
Schweeper Tasks
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Pick-up trash from user’s property.
-
Dump the trash in dumping sites around the area they are in.
-
Schedule a trash pick-up using the application.
User Journey
Next, I scripted a typical user journey for the application for the two personas. This process helped me decide how the app’s user experience might be designed to cater to the user’s needs.
Medium Fidelity
I worked on the medium fidelity and mapped the basic user flows to have an MVP. The reason why I chose mid-fidelity instead of low-fidelity was because non-tech founders find it difficult to understand low-fidelity ideas and this helps avoid miscommunication.
Mid-Fi for Trashmitter
Mid-Fi for Schweeper
Final Visuals
Once the wireframes were complete, I incorporated the colours that were finalized by the client and the brand team and worked with the client through frequent catch-ups to make sure we were heading in the right direction.
Trashmitter Onboarding
Booking a pick-up for Trashmitter
Schweeper Onboarding
Accepting a trash pick-up job for Schweeper
Key Learnings
Choosing participant criteria and finding the right people to interview
Carefully selecting a diverse group of participants, such as Airbnb owners, residents, and waste disposal service providers, to ensure comprehensive insights. I also had to ensure the participants accurately represent the target user base to gather relevant and actionable feedback
Working with a non-tech founder
I faced challenges in communicating technical aspects and design decisions to a non-tech-savvy founder. To overcome these challenges I tried simplifying explanations, using visual aids like mid-fidelity designs and prototypes, and maintaining frequent and clear communication to ensure alignment and understanding.
Balancing flexibility and structure in the app
I designed the app to provide Schweepers with the flexibility to work at their convenience while maintaining a structured process for Trashmitters to schedule and manage pickups. This was a collaborative effort between me and the business team which also helped me understand small use cases to reduce frictions in the business model.