Recup

Saving the planet, one cup at a time.

---

overview

background

The challenge for the competition was to identify a critical area of need in climate action and design an accessible, achievable and measurable experience to facilitate it as an individual or a group.

the design brief

Our climate is changing, fast. To avoid catastrophic consequences to our health, economy and the biodiversity of our planet, we need to take action. Efforts to create a sustainable climate for the planet can feel like a daunting and inaccessible goal at an individual level.

What if there was a way to contribute in small meaningful ways that could deliver a large impact?

Your mission is to develop a mobile app solution and may address one or all of these:

• Address a specific climate opportunity or challenge that can be impacted at a local level.
• Through connection and engagement, mobilize people to take action, making a positive and meaningful impact in their community.
• Leverage emerging technologies (AI, 5G, Cloud, Blockchain, etc.)
• Consider new business models to enable value exchange between parties.

*Read the entire design brief

solution

Recup is a reusable, sustainable, smart cup with an accompanying mobile application, that aims to reduce the impact on the environment of the millions of disposable coffee cups used every day.

By making the payment process faster, tracking coffee consumption, providing rewards, displaying your contribution to climate action, and even reminding you to carry your cup, Recup encourages you to be more environmentally conscious while enhancing your entire experience of coffee drinking on the go.

*The solution shown below is my redesigned version.
Click here to see what our team created.

Our team secured the 4th position!

” Wonderful, wonderful presentation. I really liked the way you led in with the insights and presenting your research, and then telling a story about the user journey. ”
– Sabine Roehl, Chief Creative Officer at IBM iX

” You guys kind of went outside the remit in two areas- one was actually doing that little presentation upfront, which is really great for setting context and the second is that you went beyond app design- you went into product design and service design, which was also actually really interesting “
– Gorham Palmer, Distinguished Designer at IBM

evaluation criteria

Upon initial evaluation of the design abstract and prototype by a set of industry professionals, the top 10 teams were chosen to present their designs to a second set of Finale Judges.

esteemed judges:
Vijay Mathews – Creative Director + Partner at W&Co
John Langford – Director, UX + Product Design at Convercent
Pei Hsieh – Global Experience Design Director at IBM iX
Amanda Hurte – Creative Director at IBM iX

finale judges:
Sabine Roehl – Chief Creative Officer at IBM iX
Gorham Palmer – Distinguished Designer at IBM
Jessica Moon – Senior Design Manager at Adobe XD

The designs were evaluated based on:

• Demonstration of clear content, strong visuals, and intuitive navigation.
• Empathy towards the target audience.
• Uniqueness and potential impact of the concept.

---

choosing an issue to focus on

With such a broad, open-ended design challenge, it was impossible to move forward without defining an issue to focus on.

We began with a general discussion of the activities we saw around us that were adding to environmental damage. Some of the issues that came up included the wastage of excess food in restaurants and cafeterias, leaving building lights turned on even when everyone has left, the use and disposal of coffee cups, pollution from private vehicles and more.

Looking at all the disposable coffee cups on the tables around us at our university, we decided that this would be a great issue to tackle. After all, we had been guilty of using disposable coffee cups ourselves!

understanding the problem space

Working on our project on university premises gave us the unique advantage of having access to a variety of users for interviews and usability tests. We conducted primary and secondary user research to understand the problem and existing solutions better.

a. disposable coffee cups create major waste

b. “paper” cups cannot be recycled easily

Don’t let the name fool you. The inside of paper cups is coated with a polyethylene layer that prevents the cup from leaking. This layer is fused to the paper so well that it is very difficult and expensive to separate the two from each other, essentially making the paper cup almost equivalent to a non-biodegradable plastic cup. Moreover, if erroneously placed in a recycling bin, this cup contaminates the higher value plastic that can be recycled.

c. coffee cups are disposed incorrectly

Coffee cups need to be taken apart and disposed of separately. Here, as you can see with the bin at the University of Toronto, paper cups should be put into the slot with the pink label, the sleeve of the cup should be removed and put in the brown slot, and the lid should be put into the blue slot for containers.

Not only is this confusing and time consuming, but a mistake could also lead to the contents of the entire bin being contaminated. So most people just end up throwing the cup in the red garbage slot and carry on with their day.

biodegradable cups aren’t widely available

sd

d. carrying reusable cups are cumbersome

While major coffee chains such as Starbucks, Tim Hortons and Second Cup offer incentives for customers to bring their own cup, only around 1-2% of customers actually do. We took informal interviews with university students to find out why they didn’t carry cups, and this is what we heard:

” I want to carry my cup, but I always forget to. “

” Disposable cups are convenient, I don’t have to worry about washing my cup or leftover coffee leaking into my bag “

” I don’t have space in my bag to carry a mug, it’s already so full. “

” Is the $0.10 – $0.15 discount worth all the effort of carrying the cup? “

summarising the problem

While major coffee chains such as Starbucks, Tim Hortons and Second Cup offer incentives for customers to bring their own cup, only around 2% of customers actually do.

ideating possible solutions

After brainstorming multiple solutions, we discussed the pros and cons of each of them.

Finally, we ended up with two solutions that we discussed in more detail.

what this looks like for katie

Katie is getting ready to leave for work, when the Recup application reminds her to carry her cup. She quickly puts the compact cup into her bag and heads out. On the way, she stops at her usual coffee place to pick up a cup of coffee. She expands the cup as she waits in line, then places her order and taps the cup at the sensor on the counter. The payment is made from the method selected on the application. She collects her coffee and rushes to work. It’s that simple.

designing the application

After discussing and drawing sketches of the application, each of us worked on a single feature for the high fidelity design, after which we put the entire application together. My focus was on the splash screen, login screen and consumption tracking feature.

presenting recup

As one of the top 10 teams, we presented our solution and application design to the panel of judges.

See us present our solution at 04:35
Listen to the judges’ feedback at 13:00
Hear the winners being announced at 18:11

---

my redesign

While we did the best that we could in the limited time that we had, I realised that there were still a lot of areas of improvement, since we were not able to focus on specific details during the design jam.

Although the features of the application mostly remain the same, I wanted to refine the user interface focussing on overall consistency and accessibility compliance in terms of colour and typography. After testing our prototype quickly with a couple of users, I also decided to use a lighter colour scheme since the application would mostly be used during the daytime

Interact with the clickable prototype.

e. consumption tracking

f. rewards

future potential

• I believe the best part of this solution is that not only is it scalable, but it builds on the existing scenario without the need for major changes in infrastructure. It enables small, simple daily actions that encourage one to be more conscious of their impact on the environment.
• The features of the application could be extended to existing users of reusable cups, using “smart stickers” that link their preferred cup to the application, instead of them having to buy a new smart cup.
• The rewards section of the application could be utilised to promote local businesses and coffee shops.
• The community impact feature could be developed further, to add gamification and a social aspect that would encourage even more use of reusable cups within the community and friends circle.

reflection

• Using constraints to our advantage: While people generally find constraints limiting, the open-ended nature of the design challenge emphasised the importance and necessity of narrowing down options and focussing on one problem at a time.
• Making quick decisions: Through this project, I experienced working in a fast-paced environment and learned how to make quick decisions without compromising on the needs of the users.
• Keeping an open mind: Working in any team, it is crucial to set egos aside and instead of shutting down each other’s ideas, build on them. That’s when the brightest ideas shine.