DOCUMENTATION: SOLUTION
ANNOTATED SOLUTION + DESIGN CRITERIA
Design Criteria #1: The website must be easily navigated.
01. Easy Navigation
The final website has three main sections: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. By placing these prominently at the top of the page, I was able to ensure that users can quickly and easily reach whichever section of the site they are interested in.
02. Functional Search
Design Criteria #2: The website must have a search function that allows users to quickly find information they are looking for.
The combination of the search and filter functions allow users to specify a variety of criteria so that only relevant results will be shown. This will significantly shorten the amount of time users spend sorting through search results for something they are interested in.
03. Incentive to Return
Design Criteria #3: Users should have an incentive to return to the website.
A small number of "social" features on the site provide a greater incentive for users to return to this site. Users can leave reviews and comments on projects they have tried and save articles, projects, and pages to their favorites. This means it will be easy to find things again later and they will be more likely to return to the site.
04. Accurate + Up-To-Date
Design Criteria #4: Recycling information must be accurate and up-to-date despite rapidly changing requirements.
The biggest failing of competing recycling resources is that their information is frequently out of date or hard to verify. This site describes recycling categories so that users can identify them. It would hypothetically connect to a database of recycling providers to inform users which providers accept the material. This database would be able to be updated by the providers to that any time their requirements change, Re: Create will still be accurate.
05. Responsive Design
Design Criteria #5: The website must be responsive and work well across a variety of digital platforms.
The three main sections of the website will be used in a variety of contexts. A user might want to look up a recyclable item on the go, or use their tablet to guide them through a DIY project. To accomodate this, I used Foundation to make a responsive design that would be easy to use on any digital device.
Audience Evaluation
Positive Comments:
The potential users I talked to gave good feedback the visual design, they said they color scheme was natural and relaxing. I was also told that the navigation was easy to understand, and the "cute little buttons at the top" were noted as helpful.
In terms of who would use the site, one audience member said they were to most likely to use the recycling section, noting that one time they spent hours trying to figure out how to recycle a mattress locally for a reasonable price but ended up giving up.
One evaluator thought the reduce and reuse sections were noted as likely to be used by moms or to find crafts for students. Additionally, many responders said that they would love to use a site like this for DIY projects.
Suggestions for Improvement:
The most common suggestion was to better incorporate the parts of the site that could be influenced by the user. As the site is now, the "reviews" for projects are not viewable and there is no way for users to submit articles or ideas. One evaluator suggested that the reviews and comments could jump to the bottom of the page "almost like an amazon review page." This is actually how I imagined this part of the site working, but it was not a priority on the user experience so I was not able to incorporate it in this time frame.
To view the live website, please visit http://pages.iu.edu/~gkenyon/