Requirements

Requirement Gathering

Method

To better understand the project requirements we conducted interviews with nine people aged between 25 to 35 who reside in Chicago. The questions encouraged interviewees to give longer answers that would help us to understand their current waste practices about recycling, repurposing, and disposing special materials. In addition, we also asked about their difficulties, active interest, and effort in finding ways of repurposing, as well as experience with previous emission calculators. The specific questions asked were:

1. What items do you recycle and how do you currently recycle them?

2. What do you find the most difficult about recycling?

3. What items do you reuse and how?

4. Do you often search for ways to repurpose your waste? If no, why not?

5. What do you find difficult about your current waste management service?

6. Have you ever used any emission calculators to calculate how many greenhouse gasses you are responsible for creating?

   • If yes, what do you find difficult about them?

   • Is there any which you like or think is very useful?

7. Have you ever disposed or got rid of items like the following:

   • Batteries

   • Oils or petroleum

   • Boxes

   • Electronics, mobile devices or Computer parts/accessories

   • Furniture or appliances

   • Hazardous Chemicals or Flammable Materials

8. If yes, how?

9. If not, do you know how to properly dispose of them?

Results and Analysis

The results of the interviews showed that most users do not go out of their way to find new ways to reuse any waste they make. They also do not use recycling services outside of their current curbside waste management system, unless a special service is advertised to them, such as a nearby electronics recycling event, or curbside pickup for furniture or yard waste.

While some did not not find it necessary to do more than they have been, others were overwhelmed by having to sift through many results while searching manually. Most people were unfamiliar with emission calculators, and people that did have experience with them found them to be crowded and difficult to understand. Thus, it is clear that users were largely looking for ease-of-use in the interface and relevant, direct information.

Since interviewees stated that they mostly recycled or repurposed their waste in different ways if they happened across that information, it was important to include for the pages that display information to have a sharing capability so that the users’ networks can benefit from relevant tips. Finally, because users implied that finding out information about better waste practices was too complicated, it was also important to only include core functionalities, be well spaced, and use understandable language, or visual representations when possible.

Requirements

Functional Requirements

• Show user waste disposal and recycling locations according to their location

• Show sortable (by business hours, distance, etc) list for the locations and a map overview of them

• Calculate user’s carbon footprint

• Show user different methods to reuse a material

• Show user the correct technique to dispose a material

• Show user different strategies to reduce carbon footprint

• Let user input their waste information

• Let user share information through social media or by saving

• User should be able to track their waste input by viewing all their inputs in one place

Non-Functional Requirements

• Give notifications if a new waste disposal or recycle center opens near the user

• The system should display a loading sign if the response time is expected to not be immediate

• The system should be accessible on any web browser and have the sizes of the layout be appropriately scaled to the device size

• User should find their desired information within the viewfold, without much scrolling

• User should be able to access their account at all times

Usability Requirements

• Users should be able to edit or undo any of their inputs or go back to a page

• Users should be able to navigate efficiently

• The system should display suggestions when inputting information using UI components like tooltips or help icons

• The system should use metaphors or illustrations to help the user better understand functionalities and minimize the memory load.

• The system should not be cluttered with extra information which is irrelevant or rarely needed by the users.

• The user should have an option to seek help or learn about the system by looking at FAQs and having explanations for unfamiliar terms.