WasteApp: Smarter waste recycling for smart citizens

Waste recycling and disposal is an increasingly pressing issue for the preservation of the Earth natural environment. A considerable amount of research has been carried on factors influencing household waste recycling behaviors and a plethora of supporting tools have been investigated in the last few years. Despite this, recycling waste is still perceived as a cumbersome task, and people around the world are often struggling to find efficient ways to recycle their waste. We argue that, among many factors, a lack of user centered design in waste recycling support tools can be one of the causes. For such reason, we approach the design of a new waste recycling support application, the “WasteApp”, by merging behavioral studies and common features of existing mobile apps with a co-design methodology. We present the outcomes of several co-design sessions aimed at gathering real user needs for waste recycling, an initial design of the “WasteApp” and we discuss the results of a preliminary small-scale user study on the application usability.