TRASH BIN FINDER
Type: Rapid Design Project
Direction: Concept Design, UI/UX Design
Year: 07.2019
Location: University of Applied Sciences Potsdam (Germany)
Background: This is a rapid design in UI/UX direction. The idea of the project was related to the topic of my graduation project, namely the problem of waste management on tourist islands. I completed this rapid design before studying this problem in my graduation project, aiming to open possibilities for a final solution.
In this project, I designed an application for finding trash bins and integrated it with Augmented Reality (AR), which aims to motivate users to throw the trash in the right place in an interactive way and solve the problem of people not knowing where the trash bins are on the beach.
Problem
The beaches on tourist islands are usually where most tourists gather. However, fewer trash bins are placed in this area, and people cannot find them quickly when they need to get rid of the trash, which is one of the major reasons why there is always trash left on the beach. Therefore, besides asking the government to place more trash bins on the beach, we can also come up with some ideas to ensure that people will throw the trash in the trash bins as much as possible.
Inspiration & Idea
Nowadays, integrating immersive interactive experiences like AR and VR into a digital product is always easy to attract people to give it a try. Although due to technical limitations, users sometimes cannot have a smooth AR / VR experience on a smartphone.
Therefore, I came up with an idea to design an application based on the island map to help people locate the trash bins and provide an additional AR navigation mode to expand the user experience. Besides, I tried to add more interactive features in the AR mode: users can scan to know the trash category and throw it into the trash bin correctly to get points, which can be redeemed for coupons afterward. A game experience often inspires people to participate, so I added a game-like experience for this app to ensure more users manage their trash correctly, which is the goal we aim to achieve.
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Features
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Trash bin navigation
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AR mode: trash bin navigation, trash scanning and simple interactive game
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Redeeming coupons within the app
Unity 3D
To ensure the solution's feasibility, I researched the current state of AR navigation on smartphones and how to implement it. Afterward, I went through the basic programming process in Unity 3D on my own. I worked with Unity 3D, Mapbox Unity SDK, Vuforia, and Xcode to realize a demo. As you can see in the following three images, I achieved the real-time GPS (compass), latitude & longitude, and direction indicator (a red dot) in the demo, which are the essential elements of AR navigation.
Final Design
Wireframe
Prototype
For creating the final prototype, I applied the 3D tracking camera to simulate the AR navigation in After Effects and built the primary interfaces with Figma.
Reflection
The rapid application design skipped some steps compared to the complete design project, especially the preliminary research on the target user group and competitive products. If I were to develop this project further, I would first complete the pre-research part to make sure the app meets the actual user's needs and experience.