BEIN

Overview

About the Project

Interactive prototype for enhancing environment sustainable behaviour in public spaces. This project, is an initiative to encourage students to minimize the use of plastic containers. Goal of this is to create awareness about the consumption of plastic on daily basis by motivating university students to make a joint effort to reduce the use of plastic. This goal is achieved by effective communication, Providing effective motivation to individual user as well as a group or community (reward system), Developing curiosity for every time use. At the end of this project, students feel proud that they were helping to reduce plastic and were attracted to re-fill water containers from water dispenser. .

Timelines

5 month.

My Role:

Interaction design, Prototyping, Testing, User experince and Interface design

THE CHALLENGE

In university, students prefer to buy disposable water bottles from the vending machines. Improving the experience of water re-filling stations in the university. This will help to reduce the consumption of plastic containers and also creating an awareness of avoiding plastic containers. Here we found an open door which involves a new experience for the students of Politecnico di Milano giving a shot of uniting together to make a joint effort in changing the behaviour of the students.

DESIGN BRIEF

Motivating students to refill their bottles which will avoid the use of plastic as a container, by giving them a joyful/playful experience on the same hand spreading awareness about the harm plastic causes to animals.

OBSERVATIONS - CURRENT SCENARIO

The experience is not very interesting as the students wander around while refilling their bottles. Ergonomically it is not very convenient to press the button, hold the bottle and the cap of the bottle. Lack of communication for the placement of water filling machines.There is a long queue in break time to refill the bottle. .

CONCEPT - HOW ?

INITIAL CONCEPT - BRAINSTORMING

THE CONCEPT - BEin

Experience

Firstly, when a student goes to refill the bottle he can see the status of dirty water according to the number of people who have contributed to make it clean.By this means it communicates the proportion of ocean water which is already polluted. Through this visual, the intent is to provide motivation to students by indulging them into curiosity of the refiling experience. This will inspire students to feel as they are contributing by their efforts to fight against this global problem of plastic pollution.

Secondly, when standing in the queue other students can also see from a distance the progress of dirty water converting into clean water.

Thirdly, when a student is pressing the button of the water refilling machine he will see an aquatic animal popping on the LED screen with a message “YOU SAVED (specific animal)”. This will give a feel of satisfaction to the student built on empathy. It will make the student think about the achievement by his efforts of just avoiding plastic and saving sea creatures.

Fourthly, after refilling the bottle the student can also see the contribution of his efforts to achieve the common goal of cleaning the polluted water displayed on the screen. This will also help to provide him inspiration for the next time as sharing his experience with friends around in the university to achieve this common goal. Once achieved, the idea is to change the theme of the visuals, to avoid monotony in a long term.

A GOAL TO REACH TOGETHER

Graphics on the LED Screen

LED matrix screen for communicating to the user to provide awareness .The reason is that it is convenient as well cheap and can be maintained easily. Acceptable features to build our experience for university students to avoid disposable plastic containers.

PROTO TYPING

Designing

Based on research, found other major sea animals/ creatures which died due to plastic in ocean. As a result, as discovered that animals such as Turtle, Fishes, Starfish, Seal, Seahorse where largely affected. Henceforth, focusing on our motto to spread awareness in an effective way we developed visual images of these animals on creative building software’s such as Adobe Illustrator and make GIF images on Adobe Photoshop.

Building the code

Developing with Arduino for the LED matrix - (Figure11) and exploring the ways to code the designed animal, was discovered, at the end, that was necessary to use Processing 2 software. This was set up to run the designed animal and text on LED matrix. Using aluminum foil was tried to create a sensor touch when the user is filling water.

TESTING THE PROTOTYPE

Failure

Individually it was possible to run the visuals on LED matrix but on combining the code controlled with button there was a failure as the memory of Arduino Uno was not enough.

Opportunity

Considering this as an opportunity, discovery was made to show this experience to the users using UNITY 3D, by building the project and experience.

Results

Students feel proud to know that they are helping to reduce plastic.
A higher turnout at water dispenser was registered during testing days.
The que was entertained .

FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS

From this project, I had a valuable experience of testing with actual users in actual environment this application and prototype is designed to be used. Although it was quite anxious at first to ask students we do not know for a participation and feedback, at the end of the day, I learned that people were quiye willing and supportive to help with thier desired needs. Regarding the iterative process, I realized that the design can look very different depending on the medium it is being presented.

Adding infographics to describe the clear scenario .

Including actual facts and figures on the LED screen for clear motto to spreading awareness.

Adding the effects of fading in and fading out when the Led matrix starts.

Data and facts could be displayed on LED matrix for creating direct awareness.

The screen could be interactive with touch sensors.

The effect of sound would make this experience more enjoyable and playful.

Communication for placements of water refilling machine could be improved.

LEARNINGS

It needs experience to understand an extreme user, take advantage of who spent a lot of time with them.
Be sure to set the right goal, don't waste time and effort.
Start by making a good plan and make sure everyone agrees, lose sight is easy.
It's nearly impossible to make assumptions about an actual user, evaluate each step with them.
Testing is not an option, even if is harsh, it is the only way for validation.
The screen could be interactive with touch sensors.
Done is better than perfect, deliver!
Respect diversity, be open-minded, have fun.

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