Trashmitter
Introduction
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.
Understanding the challenge
In USA, municipal corporation trucks pick up trash from every household according to their own timings.
They don’t pick up all kinds of waste (example hazardous chemical waste or construction waste). This creates a problem for homeowners and makes it difficult for them to get rid of such waste.
Alternatively, Airbnb owners are usually not around the property to manage it and therefore getting rid of trash from the property is a challenge for them.
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, residents and people who provide waste disposal services.
Upon further discussion with the client after research, we came up with two terms, Trashmitter and Schweeper. The trashmitter was the person who wanted to dispose the garbage and the Schweeper was the person who was disposing it off.
Trashmitter
The primary user of the application who would book trash pick-ups through the application.
Schweeper
The driver who would pick-up the trash in their own time. Schweeper has the liberty to work at their own convenience and are not bound by any timings.
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.
Trashmitter Goals
- 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.
- To dispose trash that can not be picked up by municipal corporation trucks.
- To be able to throw any kind of trash they want to without worrying about the size and type of trash.
Trashmitter Tasks
- Packing garbage for pickup.
- Sorting our biodegradable waste from non-biodegradable waste and color code the trash bag.
- Schedule a trash pick-up using the application.
Schweeper Goals
- To earn extra cash through side jobs.
- To make use of the vehicle they already have to help them make money.
- To complete multiple pick-ups at a time to earn more money and dump it all in one go.
Schweeper Tasks
- 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.
Low-Fidelity Wireframes
I focused on the functionality rather than what it looked like. Moreover, the simplicity of wireframes allowed me to quickly test ideas with the co-founder without diving into the details.
The 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
Schweeper Onboarding
Booking a pick-up for Trashmitter
Accepting a pick-up and dumping for Schweeper
Learnings from this project
Designing the app has been a challenging and rewarding journey. I researched the way trash was being picked up in the USA by talking to multiple research participants which helped me empathize and understand the needs of the users.
Finally, I faced the challenge of creating an engaging app both from the user experience perspective and the visual perspective which worked seamlessly for both the Trashmitter and the Schweeper and the client was happy with the designs and was able to raise seed funding for their app to launch into the market.
