August 2021 -
December 2021
The Process
Research
To learn more about the problem space that we were tackling and the users involved, we began by conducting research through a variety of methods.
Method 1
Task Environment Analysis of Old Electronics
Conducting a task analysis of the many ways people dealt with old electronics helped us understand the current options available.
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Method 2
Analysis of Existing Systems
An analysis of currently existing systems provided us more insight into what worked well and what didn’t work for reducing e-waste.
Method 3
Surveys & Semi-structured interviews
To understand more about the users themselves and to reach a broader audience, we conducted a survey to learn about college students’ attitudes and awareness towards e-waste.
Survey Findings:
Two-thirds of students expressed their willingness in recycling the e-waste.
Though generally recognizing that second-handed devices were cheaper (20%), people tended to like new ones (32%) and feel concerned about the quality of used electronics (34%).
Most people found it hard to deal with laptops and phones (37%) due to the large amount of data stored in such devices (41%) and lack of knowledge (23%).
While surveys allowed us to reach a larger audience, we also chose to conduct interviews to dig deeper and explore more behind the behaviors and motivations of the user.
Click to view full affinity maps
Key insights from our research
Top reasons for college students not to recycle old electronics are inconvenience, low priority, and lack of knowledge.
Students are willing to fix their own devices only if they are confident they can do it well.
Students have limited budgets for official repairs.
Students usually switch to new electronics even when the old ones are still working.
Students care about their information security when recycling or trading in their used devices.
Students usually have limited resources or knowledge to recycle or trade in old devices.
Design and Testing
From our research, we came up with a few design requirements to keep in mind during our ideation phase.
The functional design should provide users with information on how to recycle their devices properly.
The design should help users to learn to repair the electronics.
The design should be able to help the users to decide the best way to deal with their old electronics
The final design should enhance users’ motivation and opportunity for reducing e-waste.
The design should be able to retain the users’ emotional attachment with their device after the recycle.
The final design should increase user’s confidence in their own ability to fix devices.
The prototype should ensure user’s data privacy in their devices through recycling.
Step 1
Concept Ideation
Together as a team, we conducted a brainstorm session and generated 10 ideas from our design requirements, which we then narrowed down to the two we believed would be the most beneficial to our users.
Concept 1: RepairMap
RepairMap helps break down the components of personal devices. When we buy electronic products, a lot of the time, we don’t know what it looks like on the inside, nor is there easy documentation on how to fix our devices by ourselves. RepairMap solves this issue by showing a 3d breakdown of all the parts in the device. This allows users to compare their
devices exactly to the components map and identify specific parts within their devices. Users can also click into each part and they will receive more information on the part.
Concept 2: ET Planner
ET Planer is designed for managing personal electronics for their entire lifespan. Whenever a device breaks down or the usage of the device is detected to be not ideal for its performance, ET Planer would come into help by offering instructions and tips for repairing and encouraging proper usage of electronics. If any of the devices needs to be repaired or disposed of, users can easily check into the ET Planer and click on the “Repair” or “Recycle” icon to get help immediately.
Step 2
Wireframes
Ultimately, it was hard for us to narrow it down to one concept only. We felt like both ideas would be highly beneficial to our users, so we combined them together to create the best of both worlds.
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Step 3
Wireframe Testing
We conducted a testing session with 4 participants to assess if we had met the needs of our users. The requirements that we focus on during testing were:
Does CYBR support users to recycle their devices properly?
Does CYBR support users to repair their devices by themselves?
We had each of our users complete a think aloud task completion test and a feedback session. We also conducted heuristic evaluations with design experts.
Key insights from our user testing
Visual learning: All the participants enjoyed the visual representation of all the device components, and felt that it would increase their confidence in their own ability to fix a broken device.
Even more information: The final design should include a lot more information and options for when they want to repair and recycle their devices.
More visibility: Pages should be made more informative on the users’ current position in the system.
Step 4
Establishing the Design Style
Step 5
High Fidelity Prototype
Building on the feedback we received from our wireframe testing session and the design style established, we built a high fidelity prototype of CYBR using Figma. Click around to check out our interactive prototype!
