Ideation Stage | Electronic Recycling Center

One of the most important stages in the User Centered Design is that of Ideation. In this stage of the process the team thinks of ideas that allow the persona's needs and goals to be met. These ideas should start off broad to help with the divergence stage to be able to cover all of the possibilities. We thought of ideas to cover many different aspects of the needs of our persona. One of the divergence ideas that helped to expand the possibilities was the option about feng shui. In order to truly stretch all of the possibilities that could cover all of these ideas. The idea that we decided on was that of the Feng Shui because although it is a very interesting idea it is not an idea that is feasible. In order to decide on the idea that would offer the best solution we used a decision matrix in order to see which idea would help to increase the profitability and the efficiency of the Electronic Recycling Center. This decision matrix helped to weight each of the ideas given so we could scale the criteria that was important with how we weighted this.
We had five different criteria that we used for scaling the weights.

Cost: This is the measured cost that it will take to continue this system and to put the system into place. 1=Highest Cost and 5=Lowest Cost

Usability: This is how easy it for new workers to get used to the system and how intuitive it is to use. 1=Lowest Usability and 5=Highest Usability

Development Time: This is the amount of time it will take to put the new system into place or to set up the product for the users, this is mainly concerned with the us the designers in the team. 1=Most Time and 5=Least Time.

Ease of Implementation: This is how easy it is to get the new system fully working after it has been placed in ERC, this is mostly done by the user. 1=Most Time and 5=Least Time.

Profitability: This is how helpful the innovation will be in creating a more sustainable electronic recycling center. 1=Creates LEast Profit and 5=Creates Most Profit.

THE IDEA BEHIND IDEATION

The User Centered Design

APP

Create an app that will keep a database of all of the items that have been in the ERC with the price they sold it for and the most common fixes for the item.

CUSTOMER LOG

Create a system of dropping off that requires the donors to put information about the condition of the items they bring in and note what does not work with the item if they know.

EBAY ROOM

Create a new system for the organization of the eBay items at the ERC; so the items will be in a separate room and will be organized on different shelves for the items in different stages on eBay.

EBAY LIST

Create a list of the items that are on the eBay shelves so customers who come into the store have the option to see what is listed on the eBay site and this will reduce the risk of double selling items.

MONEY AMOUNTS FOR PARTS

Create a list of the amount of money that the ERC obtains from recycling certain items to the larger recycling center; this will increase the potential profits by helping them see the amount they can achieve for the items and how they can maximize that.

TESTING ROOM

Create a new system of reorganization for the testing station to keep better track of the items so it is easier to find the items and put them out for sale when they have been fixed.

TOOL LAYOUT

Create a diagram map or list of where each of the tools in the testing station are held in order to make it easier to fix the items by reducing the amount of time it takes to find the necessary tools for fixing.

FENG SHUI

Ask a specialist to come in and to help reorganize the room in order to achieve a better feng shui of the building.

OUR INITIAL IDEAS

Divergence Stage

IDEATION

THE USER CENTER DESIGN PROCESS

In looking at the weighted benefit analysis it is easy to see that the two ideas that would best fit the persona are those about eBay. The eBay room scored the highest on the weighted analysis followed closely by the eBay list. The testing room was the next closest idea that we will try to implement if we have time. Some of the ideas we left out of the weighted benefit analysis because we found that they are less feasible to make with our time and with the constraints set by the persona. So we decided to re-organize the eBay room, create a new system of tagging the items and to create a list of the items that are sold on eBay so they can be posted in the store. We found that these best fit our users needs that we found in the persona.