The Golden egg

RecySmart is an easy-to-implement waste container device that interacts with citizens and provides feedback on recycling habits thanks to the identification of “who” and “what” is being recycled, allowing to implement user-rewarding mechanisms. 

It aims to increase packaging recovery rates by 15% in countries where deposit systems are not implemented (e.g. Spain €103.3M year) and aims to become a preferred option over reverse vending, especially for smaller shops in countries where deposit systems are obligatory, thus complying with EU legislation.

The Concept

Nowadays Recycling is no longer optional, it's a Smart decision to make our future possible. That's why RecySmart it's build from this two basic concepts, transforming the recycling habits into something fun and beneficial.

Creating a System

With a clear Style Guide with an enriched iconography, RecySmart offers a friendly and engaging experience to all the users. 

A strong Marketing campaign did in collaboration with the Smart Cities that participate in the RecySmart project, the citizens find an easy way to connect their phones with the recycling devices installed in the trash containers, and start earning points seconds after downloading the app.

To solve this challenge, we created an on-boarding plan, with “Ambient Educators” that will help the users on the first time recycling.

I prepared a clear interviewing guide in order to conduct several usability testing sessions. This test had to be “guerrilla-testing” due to the nature of the project, starting from a raw idea and growing step by step with the time.

In this tests we discovered that the APP was clear and easy to use, but the concrete recycling process, with the device connectivity from the users smartphones was a bit complex and needed some improvements.

How might we introduce a new way of recycling to the citizens?

RecySmart it’s not only key for citizens. 
It’s the perfect IOT device for waste managers to get contracts and comply with the EU Legislation! 

A centralized BackOffice, for all our Key Players

Our technology is set to allow Waste Managers to be more competitive and environmentally sustainable, boosting circular economy and reducing pollution. We aim to digitalise the waste cycle, giving the tools to city authorities and waste management companies to engage the citizen into a new active role thanks to the use of incentives. Recircula is addressing the challenges, needs and opportunities for improving the global environmental problems with special focus on the plastic crisis.

This Back-office,  manages the key aspects of the system: citizen recognition, package identification, waste collection, container filling volume, location, and, ultimately, report generation. Moreover, the platform is able to create statistical models and real forecasts thanks to the compiled information and the benefits of big data. All this Business Intelligence is on the service of clients, allowing to create a user-reward mechanism boosting recycling rates and contributing to optimise the waste collection system, increasing security and transparency. 

Engages users to take better care of our planet and save up money when recycling correctly.

User Research
Interaction
Visual
Prototyping
& Testing

A recycling APP that engages users to take better care of our planet and save up money when recycling correctly. “You would never think that your trash can make you earn money.” 

This APP is part of one of Recircula Solutions projects. With the use of IOT they can control the volume waste thrown into the trash containers, and with the help of this APP, teach and reward the citizens that joined the RecySmart community!

RecySmart App, engages users to take better care of our planet and save up money when recycling correctly.

After Benchmarking the main German & International retailers, and following the best practices suggested by Baymard and NNG the project started with an extense analisis of the mediamarkt.de website (2017).

We saw a clear need to simplify the checkout process, get rid of all distracctions that the funnel had, and provide a clear structure that enssured the users in which step of their purchase were they, and how could they proceed without hesitating.

Blueprint to understand the complexity of the monolit

When I started to bring the concepts life, I truly discovered the complexity of such a big project. MediaMarkt had a legacy website with tones of dependencies and tech restrictions. That’s why I created a Service Blueprint with my team to reduce the complexity and visualize together the frontstage and backstage. This really helped all of us to make a realistic proposal that the devs could easily implement and mantain. Avoiding to fall again in huge and complex systems, that affect the user experience, and frustrate the teams when any improvement it’s needed.

Validating the designs

I conducted several usability testing sessions in-house with our primary users. The tests were often task-based, and the same user had to perform the test task in 2 different versions of a prototype. The goal was to compare the performance in both versions (time to complete, attractively, security…), and verify which version was more friendly for our users.

Apart from creating a specific script for every test scenario, together with our Research colleagues, we established a basic survey to be used in every interview, regardless of what experience where we testing. With this basis, we could extract 

a general overview of the user’s perception among our Brand, and contrast it with our user personas.

Apart from the in-house usability sessions, we also validate other ideas remotely, with UserZoom. This allows us to quickly validate our assumptions and have results in less than 24h.

Why should users buy at MediaMarkt?

Even if nowadays buying online feels natural to most of us,  we know that some of our users still like to go to our Markets and check the products before buying them. That’s a unique advantage for MediaMarkt, that we potentiate with an enriched Omnichannel experience. 

Offering a seamless experience among devices and stores it’s one of the main KPIs of MediaMarkt. Using the Markets as an extension of our website we can offer an extra service that our main competitors can’t. That’s why the MediaMarkt Experience it’s so unique.

Making every piece fit!

With the new MediaMarkt Design System, created among the UX Chapter and the Brand department, the whole team shared their unique perspectives and needs with the goal to create a reusable component library that unifies the experience of navigating through MediaMarkt online and offline.

This system is not only used in the webshop and consumer app. Also consumed by our internal systems, store manager APPs, cash registrators,… And will soon be implemented in physical branded elements in the stores and commercials.

The Checkout Experience directly influences brand perception, propensity for return visits, and an organisation’s ability to drive revenue online.

A sucessful Checkout Experience is one that reduces the time & effort it takes to complete the buying process.

MediaMarkt Saturn Technology is in the middle of a Tech transformation that showed up the need of a total renewal in the whole Webshop. The Checkout funnel is the strategic key to enssure the company profit, therefore a delightful experience when purchasing it’s a must for any e-commerce now a days.

MediaMarkt Checkout Experience, focuses in cleaning up the design and simplify the buying process for all our users.

The Circular Concept

The need of a re-branding

The brand was created in 2016 by a group of friends filled with passion to create a new way to treat plastic waste in our country. The first logo tried to communicate the cicle of the waste and how to improve it into the circular economy.

Re-Branding was a necessary step that consolidated the company goal and helped to professionalize the message. Achieving more visibility in the sector and waking up more interest in the Waste Managers community.

The project was presented in the 4YFN - Mobile World Congress (BCN ‘19) getting various investment rounds, making possible to expand the tests to several Spanish cities.

The implementation of ReCircula technology not only achieves substantial increases in the rates of recycling of materials, but also increases its quality thanks to the better separation at source allowing the implementation of the Circular Economy.

A newborn company that provides innovative solutions to help Smart cities to recycle.

Waste Managers need an innovative tech to comply with new European Legislation. Recircula Solutions is a newborn company that provides innovative solutions with up to date technology to help to improve the recycling and waste management flow in Spain. 

The device that Recircula Solutions has developed can be adapted to any particular needs, with a clear expansion plan for the rest of the EU. The company needed a redesign that help transmiting this clear professional message to all potential investors and partners.

Recircula Solutions is a newborn company that provides innovative solutions to help Smart Cities to recycle

Qualitative & Quantitative Research

Our first steps were searching all the information about the principal attractions in Barcelona, and more particularly, about MUHBA, and contrasting them with the brief of the client. We found an official study from 'Institut de Cultura' that gave us the first insights. With this base, we wanted to make sure that the data given was real, so we went out to the street to contrast the information with the reality of the museum. 

After a week of interviews with around 15 visitors and 5 stakeholders, we had qualitative data to work with. The first impression was that the brief of the client and the reality of the place was quite different. We also did an online survey to 100 potential users, using the tool Typeform from which we obtained quantitative data that verified our suspects and the official study that we found at the beginning.

Defining actions with our new Learnings

At this point, we knew our real users' thanks to the research and the ones that we didn't have but wanted. In this phase, we defined our objectives and using the technique of Personas, Journey and Empathy maps we build a full scenario of our primary user 'Ruth' the citizen of Barcelona, and the 2 secondary profiles, the kids of the schools and the tourists.

With the Benchmarking we identified some interesting features from the competence and after a Heuristic analysis of them, we could start to list our "to-do's" combined with the data from research to start the first sketching sessions.

First Concepts

For us it was clear that once the users are convinced to visit the museum, the experience they live inside has to be memorable. That’s why we focussed our efforts in conceptualising an interactive APP that could bring a new perspective to fulfil all the desires the users expressed during the interviews. 

Building a solid structure

After the paper prototypes, we did the first wireframes thanks to Axure, and after a few rounds of testing, and some discarded ideas, we had a solid structure to start to design. The website redesign was clear. A responsive 12 column grid which allows the editors to post and update all the media and events easily.

The new APP was a different thing, we included new features, such as VR to improve the experience inside the museum, so the testing rounds were more exhaustive to achieve an easy interface which could be used by every visitor of the museum.

We got a successful APP thanks to the Card sorting and Information Architecture work that we did during the design process.

MUHBA is a new way of visiting and interacting with the History Museum of Barcelona.

Research & Interview
Interaction
Visual
Prototyping
& Testing

We proposed a new way of visiting and interacting with the museum, after analysing the situation of the principal attractions of Barcelona.

This project was realised during our master in UX Design with the UX Researcher Xavi Sorinas, and the Interaction Designer Mariana Hormaza.

Muhba is a new way of visiting and interacting with the History Museum of Barcelona

New structures & performance optimization

With a clear business strategy and knowing the potential users that we needed, we did 3 co-creation sessions with different stakeholders from the company.

The objective was redesign not only the hole website, also the landing pages and white labels, and improving the performance and quality score of our communication.

To do that we count with a Google team working closely with the UX, Marketing and IT team of the enterprise. After months of work, we could proudly say that all the challenges were achieved.

A Mantainable Design System

With a clear Style Guide the redesign of the home page, FAQ forum, product pages and landings were easily scalable.

The product pages included the first step of the funnel, getting more engagement. And the landing pages were transformed from basic forms to wizard forms. Increasing the % of conversion to the triple than the previous year.

Rebranding and styling for Credimarket.com, the bank comparator leader in Spain.

Interaction
Visual
Art Direction
Prototyping
& Testing

Since 2008 Bankimia.com had given service to help the users to find the best financial products adapted to their needs. In 2017 the company, after years of growth, decided to adopt a new name and style more fresh and dynamic, creating CrediMarket.com

I had the pleasure to work as Head of Design during this transition. Working with the IT and Marketing team we build a solid brand with a new logo, style guide and communication tone, that doubled the % of leads on our landing page, in less than 3 months.

Rebranding and styling for Credimarket.com, the bank comparator leader in Spain

Sprint Goal

We started with our long-term goal: Give the best editorial content to our users in an easy way, with a new interface more attractive and intuitive. Engaging them to keep using our services and become loyal consumers of all our apps and services.

1. How can we make the service easier to navigate with the TV Remote and communicate with the rest of our apps and website?

2. How can we make the users come back to consume our VOD, and became addicted to our service?

The importance of good research

One of the key factors for a successful Design Sprint is definitely bring your homework done. The Sprint Week will be fun, but also stressful, you will bring lots of different points of view into the room, and that's the magic of it. But in order to not lose the focus you need to do a pre-sprint preparation, collecting all data that you can, so when discussions appear among Sprint Stakeholders, you will have the data in hand to help the team move forward.

A Challenging prototype

Prototyping a TV service was not easy. We are used to prototype websites, and mobile apps every day. But when we had to simulate the TV remote and all the behavior of the TV just in one day, we really had to squeeze with our minds!

Finally, I found a DIY solution, with a numeric pad (in which I changed the numbers for “tv remote keys”), and thanks to Axure variables, we managed to build a really decent “TV” remote! ^^

Conceptualization of the new HbbTV Service for TV3

UX Research
Conceptualization
Facilitation
Prototyping
& Testing

TV3, the public Catalan television based in Barcelona is known for being a pioneer in implementing new services and up-to-date technologies to compete with private broadcasters. That's why in 2016 I facilitated a Design Sprint Week, to rethink the concept of the HbbTV to make the service easier to navigate with the remote, share and communicate user's preferences among devices and provide a frictionless experience.

Conceptualisation of the HbbTV service for TV3

Hi!
I'm metakitrina and I design user human experiences

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