Diego 6.1040 Portfolio

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Project 2: Divergent Design ​

Features ​

MVP Features ​

  1. Disposal location map - a map of disposal locations (recycling pickups, compost bins, etc.) in the local area

  2. Bin capacity reporting - Users could have the ability to report the capacity of disposal bins (full, not full only)

  3. Bin information - Users can see what items are supposed to be disposed into certain bins (along with which ones aren’t)

  4. Categorization of materials - Allow users to search the recycling database by item, material, RIC, or barcode

Stretch Goal Features ​

  1. Donation locations - Organizations can add dropoff locations to the location map so that users can donate their items

  2. User metrics - Track the number of items properly recycled, composted, and thrown out by each user

  3. Global metrics - Highlight the number of items properly recycled, composted, and thrown out by users using the app

  4. Badges - Recognition on your profile for achievements such as ‘x’ items recycled, ‘x’ items composted, ‘x’ waste bins recognized as overflowing, etc. Can also be earned by each member of a community for community-wide accomplishments.

  5. Community leaderboard - List of geographical communities (i.e. MIT campus, etc) with the lowest contaminated waste. Users automatically join a community when they dispose an item within that community’s geographical area

  6. Daily fun fact of the day - Fact about waste on home page every day

  7. Alternative resources - Provide alternative resources if no appropriate bins are available nearby. An example of an alternative resource would be linking to the recycling site for the user's area

  8. Educational game - Sort items into correct bins

Other Considered Features (Not Implementing) ​

  1. Notifications - Let the user know when certain disposal bins have been picked up (or are about to be picked up)

  2. Route Finding - Users can use the map to find routes from point A to B that pass by certain bins

  3. Blogs - Allow users (or just certain users) to write educational blog posts about waste management

  4. Object Recognition - Users can snap a photo of an item, upload it, and the app can try to figure out what it is and how to dispose or recycle it. (Good for unknown objects.)

  5. Reuse idea generator - Users can input what types of items they have and their quantities, and the app can suggest cool or useful things the user can make with them

  6. Communities - Introduce the concept of groups/communities where users in close proximity can view and input waste statistics/metrics for that area

  7. Streaks - Similar to SnapChat streaks, but your streak only continues if you log one piece of waste properly sorted each day.

  8. Leaderboard - List of top users by various metrics such as “most items correctly recycled in a week,” “most items correctly composted in a week,” “longest streak.”

  9. Forums - community pages where users can post questions or comments about waste management; this could include information about local waste resources, food drives, waste management/sustainability clubs, etc

  10. Bin signage templates - The app can generate a custom bin sign that the user can print out that not only has the appropriate symbol and name for each type of bin, but a list of the types of items that would go in that bin.

  11. Sorting mini-game - A mini-game where users are provided virtual items to sort into the correct virtual bins. The goal is to help users commit proper recycling habits to memory

  12. Recycle trivia - A trivia game with questions surrounding how items are actually disposed of, how long certain materials take to degrade, and more. The goal of this feature is to help the user learn more about and gain appreciation for waste management work done in the field

  13. Item sharing - Extend the app to include a marketplace for users to share items they no longer need, promoting reuse

Concepts ​

Map (1, 5)

  • Purpose: to represent a geographical area and the location of things within it
  • OP: User inputs a geographical location -> all items (bins) associated with that location are shown to the user along with the streets and roads in that geographical area

Bin [Map, Material] (1, 2, 3, 5)

  • Purpose: to represent a waste disposal location and the sort of items it accepts.
  • OP: Bin locations are shown as markers on the map -> User selects a single bin marker from the map -> User is able to see what type of items the bin accepts for proper waste disposal

Material (3, 4, 5, 11, 12)

  • Purpose: to represent what any physical item can be made of
  • OP: When users search for bins to dispose of their item, only bins that accept the material the item is made of will be shown.

Score [User] (6, 7, 8, 9, 12)

  • Purpose: Signify how well something is doing
  • OP: User starts with having properly disposed of 0 items (i.e. score 0) -> user self-reports that they have properly disposed of something to increase their score -> users can earn badges or be put on the leaderboard for achieving certain scores -> their scores will be personally displayed in their profile

Achievement [User, Score] (6, 7, 8, 9, 12)

  • Purpose: Show a goal has been reached
  • OP: Users earn different tiered achievements based on their score for how many items they have properly disposed of. Users earn an achievement for completing the educational game(s). Members in a community can earn achievements when the community is recognized on the community leaderboard for lowest contaminated waste.

LinkedResource (1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11)

  • Purpose: Provide further information about a topic
  • OP: User is interested in the daily fun fact or recycling information on a bin and wants to learn more -> user clicks on hyperlink provided with the fun fact that takes them to an external resource (i.e. a LinkedResource). Wastewise does not have information about the proper disposal for their item -> user clicks on some provided links to start looking for the proper disposal method for their item.

Standard Concepts (Don’t need to be described)

  • User
  • Session

Comparables ​

RECYCLE SMART PRINTABLE INFOGRAPHIC - Can make one of these for the home page or link to it in our app as a linked resource

RECYCLE SMART HOME PAGE - Can add commonly used bins or commonly searched items or confusions

SPORT OR ‘SPLODE MINI GAME from New Super Mario Bros./Super Mario 64 DS - Sorting colored bob-ombs into their corresponding areas: we could use this idea to make a mini-game where we sort random items into different bins and give points for correct sorting

BIBLE APP: SEARCH - This search bar mirrors what we plan to do with our search feature. It allows the user to search for an item using various identification categories (so RIC, material, etc. in our case) and also presents the user with recently/commonly searched items.

BLUEBIKES: MAP - This image has a pretty direct parallel to what we plan to do with our map. It’s one example of how we might show different bin locations nearby. (We could distinguish between each of the bins with pills of different icons and colors.)

DUOLINGO: QUESTS AND BADGES - After a user completes a certain amount of daily quests for the month, they earn a badge: we could use this to implement a similar system that perhaps keeps track of the number of bins within a certain community/region whose waste was below a certain threshold, and if a certain percentage of the community’s/region’s total bins are below threshold, all members of the community/region can earn a badge for their efforts. Similar thresholding idea for individual achievements.

DUOLINGO: LEADERBOARD - Tracks and displays ranks of users based on experience points earned from lessons and other activities for the week. By achieving a high enough rank, users can move on to higher leagues, facing off against generally more active/competitive users. We can use this idea by making a leaderboard for communities/regions and rank them based on the percentage of bins in their region that are contaminated below a certain threshold.

BIBLE APP: DAILY QUOTE AND HOME PAGE - Displays the quote of the day and displays content that complements the quote, offering the user a pre-built daily routine, as well as shows the user’s daily streak in completing the daily routine. We could use this idea to display our daily fun fact about waste and offer content related to the fun fact, such as articles and blogs, and/or memorization games about waste sorting, and keep track of a streak.

Storyboard ​

  1. Say a user needs to throw a banana peel away, which they know is compostable. They open WasteWise, and search for a nearby compost bin with the app. They navigate to the bin and successfully throw away the peel.

Storyboard #1

  1. Say the user has an item that they don’t know how to dispose of, so they open WasteWise to search for information about the item. From their search, they realize it can be composted, and use the map to look for nearby compost bins. (See flow #1 for how they can find a nearby compost bin)

Storyboard #2

  1. The following storyboard depicts how a user might go about updating information about a bin. Say they’ve arrived at a recycling bin that WasteWise does not report as full. However, they observe that it’s overflowing. From the landing page, they would navigate to the map, select a particular bin, and submit an edit to the bin’s capacity attribute to report it as full.

Storyboard #3