Renew

An innovative recycling platform that won Honorable Mention in the Adobe x Target Creative Jam

Overview

I teamed up with a friend to design Renew, an app that motivates eco-friendly behavior through rewards and community engagement. During the course of the week-long design sprint, we conducted qualitative user research and completed the final prototype in four days. Renew earned an Honorable Mention out of 130 internationally competing teams.

Timeline

August 2021 (1 week)

Role

UX Designer

Team

2 UX Designers

THE CHALLENGE

We had one week to design an inclusive third-party mobile app to facilitate retailers to help their local communities educate, encourage, measure, and/or track recycling.

THE SOLUTION

Renew, an app designed to directly address the three main motivators for recycling: rewards, fun, and awareness.

  • Users unlock distinctive benefits for their eco-friendly actions, giving them tangible reasons to keep building the habit.

  • A clear progress tracker helps users see how their individual efforts add up over time.

  • Beyond individual rewards, Renew fosters a broader impact by cultivating heightened awareness of sustainable practices within communities.

01 RESEARCH

People are more inclined to recycle if…

Given the short duration of the design challenge, our background research primarily consisted of speaking to acquaintances in our personal networks and investigating online forums. We found that people were more inclined to recycle and make environmentally-conscious decisions if:

  • There was a reward, either monetary or psychological

  • The process of recycling or eco-friendly decisions was fun

  • They were more informed about environmental consequences

02 IDEATE

Initial concepts & sketches

Coming from an industrial design background, my teammate and I had a free-flowing brainstorming session where we generated some unique paper sketches.

03 DESIGN

Three primary features

After exploring different features and layouts through paper concepts, we created the high-fidelity prototype. We developed three features to motivate consumers based on our research findings.

1. Motivating Progress Tracker

Renew syncs with the other retailer and store apps downloaded on the user’s phone to determine how much recyclable materials are acquired on each shopping trip.

The homepage highlights a circular progress tracker that monitors how much of that material is collected and recycled, motivating users to reach their personal monthly recycling goal.

2. Redeemable Punchcards

When users recycle at retailers, they receive punches on their digital punchcards in the app by scanning their personal QR code. Once a punchcard is completed, they can be redeemed for special offers at partnered stores. This tangible reward experience provides further incentive to recycle.

We arranged the punchcards vertically, inspired by Apple Wallet, to make the feature feel instantly familiar and reduce cognitive load.

3. Explore Articles & Activities

An Explore section with videos and articles published by partners not only allows consumers to learn about their impact on the environment, but fun activities and community news allows them to feel good about their eco-conscious decisions.

Bookmarks and tags at the top of the page allow for users to filter through and keep the content that interests them.

04 DELIVER

The final design

We wrapped up the sprint with a high-fidelity prototype and brief that won Honorable Mention from Adobe and Target. As part of the recognition, we each received a Target gift card and the opportunity to connect with a Target product designer.

GROWTH & TAKEAWAYS

Applying my engineering mindset

This project was the second UX design project I had ever done, the first being another Creative Jam that was largely experimental. During this project, I was able to apply my understanding of the design process from an engineering perspective to the field of UX, relying on open ideation, user feedback, and constant iteration. I also became more familiar with UX terminology and gained experience with using UX design tools through Adobe XD.

Noticing where I fell short

However, this project also shed light on my limited knowledge of UX-specific areas. Our process lacked structure, we overlooked crucial user research strategies such as user flows, and we rushed into making final prototypes with visual assets.

Looking ahead

For future projects, I committed to conducting thorough user research and gaining a better understanding of the essential steps in a comprehensive UX design process.