Research for Street Furniture

Client: 

Newcastle City Center 

Brief:

"We want Newcastle city centre to appear innovative, exciting, and digitally advanced as part of our smart city agenda. We would like you to design and propose some Interactive Street Furniture that will enhance the visiting experience for city visitors".

We started ideating about what type of street furniture we should design. We came up with the following ideas:

• A place to socially interact like a bench
• Place where people can go skating, without any restrictions.
• An area where people can take shelter if it suddenly starts raining and they don't have an umbrella.
• A better version of the currently available bins. We brainstormed many ideas like ballot bin, automatic recycling bins, bins that are marked on google maps so that blind person can easily find the bin.
• Some kind of illusion art where people can click photos with.
• A Digital booth is also a place where people can click photos, but here they can upload and customise the background. (Inspired by: Selfie Central)
• Pixel Grid Art: A community art board that gives users the opportunity to place a pixel every 2 minutes to be a part of a large image that is constantly changing based on community input. (Inspired by: Yayoi Kusama's Obliteration Room).

We wanted our furniture to have some positive impact on society, so we decided to re-design the bins.

First, to get some initial idea, we searched the internet about what type of bins are currently available. We found some interesting concepts like:

• Deep Bin: It gives the illusion of throwing something inside a deep hole by making a falling sound. At the end of the sound effect, a crashing sound is played to give the impression that the trash has reached the bottom. This works on the concept of fun theory, which encourages people to do more.
• Automatic Recycle Bin: Which sorts the garbage automatically.
• Ballot Bin
• Bin with a basketball hoop

We created the following mood board:

Our Research Methods:

Our focus naturally tends towards understanding the subjective experience of a clean environment so its difficult to back this up with quantitative results, given the time frame of the research it would also be difficult to get rich quantitative data to support our design decisions. It would also be difficult to draw conclusions from this data as it would not serve the subjective nature of the design. \

Our research methods involved:

• Interviews will be kept short around 5 - 10 minutes with accompanying audio recording

• Surveys using google forms.

Questionnaire: 

https://forms.gle/qV8aKEcGGbcCKb7B7

There is a positive skew towards “accessible” suggesting that there isn't much of an issue with accessibility however, this can be improved.

A strong yes suggests that the current bin situation adequately fulfils the needs of the average user. However, it would be interesting to explore further why one participant said “no”. This could open up new avenues of research.

Looking at the data there are some varied responses but a common theme is “hygiene” 

Qualitative Methods

Reflection on first 4 interviews

• Recorded 2 out of 4 interview

• For the 2 guys it was difficult to get everything down, rich information but some of it was off topic 

• Hard to keep on subject

• Didnt feel like they understood the goals of the research

• Didnt ask follow up questions - conscious of time

• Only asked people who work at a university

• Aksing more about the social ramifications of recycling

• Taking notes disrupts flow and distracting

• Feel like theyre not being listened to and we are only point scoring

• Give suggestions to help inform people options within the context

• Participants were taken from one area

Question	Respondent 1	Respondent 2
Do you find it easy to find bins?	Easily available	yes
Are the bins adequate in your local area?	Yes, haven’t seen an overfilled	Not much, just a general-use bin
What is a common problem you have with using public bins?	There are enough, maybe I just find it hard to go looking for it	It's too full or most of them are overfilled
How does trash on the floor make you feel?	I don't feel anything, but make me think how lazy are people, and makes env dirty	Disgusting, and angry
If you or your friends smoke,  what are the options for cigarette disposal?	-	Separate disposal, but seen chewing gum
What sort of rubbish do you throw away?	Tissue, lollipop sticks, chocolate wrappers, remaining food	Crisp packets, or snack wrappers
How much effort do you put into recycling types?	I try to follow the rules, I don't consciously mix the different types, but might have done when I’m not sure	Definitely yes, I put more effort into it be it at home or outside
Do you feel the information on recycling bins is adequate to make you feel confident in your recycling decisions	Yes if its there. If it says plastic, I believe it is	Its not that clear
What's a typical recycling experience for you?	Pretty easy one	Most of the water bottles and coffee cups, but a bit difficult to explain as an experience, as its quite a common thing I do
Have you avoided throwing away trash in a particular container, why?	I usually do it, when I miss it, I pick it up for sure. I just want to try whether I can put it from a distance for fun	If it's overflowing already overfilled, or extremely dirty and all mixed up
How do you deal with the trash when there are no bins around?	So usually carry a few items home like plastic, but if it stinks like banana peel I throw it under a bush so that it decomposes. If its a juice bottle I carry it home	I’ll carry it home

Review

Difficult to know how well you have recycled 

Different people have different mental models for bins eg office worker vs a school child

There’s not much of an accessibility problem in terms of people being disabled or being in different age groups. The main issues seem to be usability issues where people can't decide where to throw what or are not able to find bins (To be discussed)

Research method critic

• Ideally an observer, but this will affect answers

After our research was completed we came up with the following personas:

Problem Scenario: 

Trash bins that are currently available fulfil their basic role which is garbage collection. But it can be hard to recycle for international students or tourists since they might don't know how recycling works in the country. Also, some of the bins get full quickly and can be unhygienic.

Solution Proposal:

• Making it recycling-friendly by making the process automatic. (Self sot)
• Trying to make bins rewarding so that people can have some kind of positive emotion (Fun) that will encourage them to throw more.
• Bin which automatically seals, stores, and replaces rubbish bags when it gets full.

Prototype:

Prototype of the bin with an auto sorting mechanism and a cigarette rate ballot to collect cigarette butts in a effective way

Acknowledging people with a message to create a sense of positiveness

Acknowledging people with a message to create a sense of positiveness