plogger: litter clean up application
Concerned about the growing ocean trash crisis and made increasingly aware of the litter in his area and the prevalence of single-use consumer packaging on his litter clean up outings, Minneapolis entrepreneur Ben MacKinney set out to create Plogger, an app to aid in the tagging and clean up of trash. He approached my team for help determining user flows and features for the Plogger MVP (Minimum Viable Product), laying the groundwork for an app that might “equally serve large corporations that want to track their efforts and individuals who want to make an impact in their neighborhood.”
Tasked with determining the ways in which the app would function and provided with mid-fidelity wireframes as a springboard for our designs, our team conducted cognitive walkthroughs and contextual interviews to educate ourselves on the problem space and gather insights on the processes, organizational needs, and opportunities and challenges associated with trash clean up efforts.
SOLUTION:
With research insights in mind, I prototyped a Plogger user flow and presented it to the client. My prototype focused on two key aspects: convenience (making litter clean up as easy and convenient as possible) and positive reinforcement (highlighting users’ positive impact on their community to inspire continued use and increase waste awareness.)
client:
Stone Arch Innovations, Plogger
methods
Cognitive Walkthrough
Contextual Inquiry
Affinity Diagramming
User Scenarios
Wireframing
Prototyping
understanding the opportunity space
research goals:
First, my team discussed the specific questions we had about the problem space and produced a list of goals to guide our research:
Better understand the current volunteer experience, context, and motivations
Understand current mechanisms for identifying, locating, and reporting outcomes of trash collection needs and efforts
Gain insight into scope, scale, and context of trash collection efforts and how this impacts organization/volunteers
Gather insights on how Plogger’s proposed feature set might impact volunteer motivation/engagement
COGNITIVE WALKTHROUGH
To get a sense of the ways an app like Plogger might function, I conducted a cognitive walkthrough on Clean Up Meet Up, a similar in-development trash clean up application, rating the task flows based on visibility, mapping, and feedback criteria.
CONTEXTUAL INQUIRY
We first met with the president of HeightsNext, a nonprofit community organization that includes coordination of volunteer trash clean up events in their robust list of outreach activities. We observed as she demonstrated the tools and task flows of event organization, showing us the spreadsheets, email clients, Facebook groups, council meeting outlines and grant writing processes that are part of her daily duties as head of the organization.
Next, we conducted interviews with three trash clean-up enthusiasts to learn about their individual collection processes, from passive efforts while walking one’s dog to dedicated hours-long outings, armed with a variety of tools. We were shown the remarkable range of waste that one might encounter on a clean up expedition, including industrial manufacturing debris, strings and fishing line, and a staggering amount of plastic.
Conducting a contextual inquiry in the HeightsNext home office.
A glimpse at the variety of waste Ben MacKinney has found during his clean up efforts.
SYNTHESIS + FINDINGS
After contextual inquiries, my team came together to debrief and synthesize our research findings. Combing through notes, recordings, and photographs we created an affinity diagram to identify any common themes, pain points, and other insights on the processes and organizational needs associated with trash clean up efforts.
Through my individual synthesis, I developed two significant areas of focus for the development of Plogger:
The application needs to make trash collection as easy and convenient as possible in order to facilitate passive clean up (casual pickers wanting to do good while walking their dog).
The application needs to make the positive impact that users have on their community and their environment a central and constant message in order to inspire continued use, increase waste awareness, and shape user attitudes and behaviors.
I then produced a Research Findings & Prototype Plan, combining these findings with my prescribed changes and a number of user scenarios illustrating how the recommendations would increase clarity and positive impact for users.
RAPID WIREFRAMING + PROTOTYPING
Using my Research Findings and Prototype Plan to guide user flow development, I built out new user interactions through sketched and digitized wireframes.
Using my wireframes to guide flow and design, I then created a medium fidelity digital Plogger prototype in Sketch.
reflection
MacKinney’s passion for creating “a future that is better for everyone” is inspiring, as is his understanding that big change starts with small change. By incorporating my suggested features, Plogger will be able to increase functionality and usability, making it easy for users to clean up trash in their areas and institute small, habitual changes.
