SCRUB
A Smart Clothing Recycling & Up-Cycling Bin
This project was apart of my second year ‘User Experience Design Studio’ at the University of Sydney in 2024
Project Brief & Context
The brief for this project was to create an engaging and interactive experience centred around an identified problem or opportunity. The final design solution must have digital, spatial and physical components, which bring your users meaningful and interactive experiences rather than just providing a one-way digital information channel.
The context surrounding our chosen area was that we had to intervene and transform everyday urban environments into dynamic and interactive spaces and installations to promote playfulness and creativity among people.
Initial Ideas
Initial ideas started by brainstorming individually urban areas that we think would be a great opportunity for improvement. Coming together these were airports, car parks and recycling areas. From further research recycling areas were the most interesting to explore. Further refining down to the specific recycling facility to redesign, that being clothing. Defining our initial problem as the ‘Recycling and purchase of clothing at opportunity shops/recycling centres’.
Key Skills
Research
Communication and collaboration
Problem-solving
Time management
Flexibility
User-centred design
Analytical thinking
Innovative
Collaborative software’s including Miro and Canva
Decision-Making
The decisions that were made in the project were always about what way we should proceed. This was always backed up by our research and data we had personally conducted and collected. This meant that the user was staying at the centre of the design. Doing this also meant that we were able to eliminate any bias and validate assumptions.
In addition to this it was important to have respectful discussions that meant listening to every group member’s opinion and perspective and collectively agreeing on the next steps. For the purpose of ensuring everyone understands where we are at and what we are aiming for.
Summary of Process
My group and I agreed on using the double diamond design process, accompanied with the triangulation method.
My individual contribution to the design process included starting with background research through literature and online sources. This developed into carrying out our research methods to address the objectives we collectively came up with. I conducted numerous interviews, sent out surveys and collated online ethnography.
Analysed our data through an affinity diagram, empathy mapping and a user-journey map. Then we synthesised and drew out insights, leading to me establishing a problem statement.
It was then time to start to develop prototypes. I was involved with sketching and storyboarding iterations for our low-fidelity prototyping. Moving on to assisting in making the physical mock-up out of cardboard for our mid-fidelity prototype. I then was a part of a user-testing fair, recording observations of users and then refining our final prototype to be presented in an advert poster and video.
Final Outcome
The final outcome has revolutionised the way to donate clothing through our new and improved recycling bin called SCRUB. It is located in entryways to shopping centres in the aim to turn these dull places, of not much use, into a new exciting space, where this bin affords playfulness with its digital elements. It has an animation around it that rises when items are put in, making users want to come back and add to the animation, while also indicating how full it is. Its smart kiosk display makes the process easy, with AI technology to scan items that are acceptable to donate. Integrating an app into this as well allows users to collect points to then use to purchase items that had been donated. All these features add to the incentives that were lacking in previous facilities.
Final Reflections
Reflecting on the progress of this project it is clear that this area of recycling is something that hasn’t had a lot of research to improve its implementation. We know that fast fashion is a growing issue in Australia and a large contributor to waste in landfills, that is why this prototype would create positive changes in this landscape. User-testing showed that people were more engaged in the process and willing to participate in recycling clothes like this in the future, which is why we think it has been a success.