RefiT

Contact

RefiT: Designing a circular service for community impact

hello@template.com

Instagram

Contact

RefiT: Designing a circular service for community impact

hello@template.com

Instagram

Twitter

SERVICE DESIGN

DASHBOARD

SCHOOL PROJECT

Designing a circular service for community impact

Role

Lead Product Designer

Team

2 x User Researchers

2 x Product Designers

Timeline

April - June 2025

Tools

Figma

Adobe photoshop

Adobe illustrator

Description

A community-powered service to turn plastic bottles into affordable team jerseys

Problem Space

Why Focus on Plastic?

" 450 million metric tons of plastic packaging waste annually. That’s projected to triple by 2050. "

YALE INSIGHTS - SECONDARY RESEARCH

Plastic waste is rising, but most people lack accessible ways to take part in reuse.

We explored packaging across its lifecycle, from production to disposal, to explore how packaging can be reimagined for sustainable impact.

Research & Insights

Understanding the Context

To uncover actionable opportunities, we triangulated insights across three methods:

Secondary research synthesis

Survey form

CO-DESIGN FIGJAM BOARD

Secondary research showed macro trends:

High-tech recycling exists (e.g., Repreve), but often lacks community engagement and visibility.

Surveys and interviews helped us understand consumer behaviors and attitudes:

Consumer decisions are driven by convenience, habit, and visual appeal.
Sustainability is valued but often not the deciding factor.

Co-design workshop revealed actionable design opportunities:

Participants emphasized the need for clear awareness, visible impact, convenience, and social sharing, guiding us toward a service that’s motivating, visible, and easy to act on.

Opportunity Framing

Value Proposition

01
Community

Turning local effort into local pride, I aim to design a service where communities work toward a shared goal and see their impact benefit those around them.

02
Sustainability

The service aims to reduce environmental impact by giving plastic waste a purposeful second life.

03
Affordability

The service should stay accessible and practical for everyday community use, not just a trendy, short-lived solution.

Before defining the solution, I identified the core values that the service needs to uphold.

Brainstorming

From Values to Concepts

1. Explored a wide range of ideas and voted on directions with shared interest
2. We focused on plastic yarn and mapped its potential repurposing use cases
3. Quick activity to spark ideas on how bottle donors could benefit
4. Lastly, we outlined early user flows with key touchpoints and challenges.
1. Explored a wide range of ideas and voted on directions with shared interest
2. We focused on plastic yarn and mapped its potential repurposing use cases
3. Quick activity to spark ideas on how bottle donors could benefit
4. Lastly, we outlined early user flows with key touchpoints and challenges.
1. Explored a wide range of ideas and voted on directions with shared interest
2. We focused on plastic yarn and mapped its potential repurposing use cases
3. Quick activity to spark ideas on how bottle donors could benefit
4. Lastly, we outlined early user flows with key touchpoints and challenges.
1. Explored a wide range of ideas and voted on directions with shared interest
2. We focused on plastic yarn and mapped its potential repurposing use cases
3. Quick activity to spark ideas on how bottle donors could benefit
4. Lastly, we outlined early user flows with key touchpoints and challenges.

1. Explored a wide range of ideas and voted on directions with shared interest
2. We focused on plastic yarn and mapped its potential repurposing use cases
3. Quick activity to spark ideas on how bottle donors could benefit
4. Lastly, we outlined early user flows with key touchpoints and challenges.
1. Explored a wide range of ideas and voted on directions with shared interest
2. We focused on plastic yarn and mapped its potential repurposing use cases
3. Quick activity to spark ideas on how bottle donors could benefit
4. Lastly, we outlined early user flows with key touchpoints and challenges.
1. Explored a wide range of ideas and voted on directions with shared interest
2. We focused on plastic yarn and mapped its potential repurposing use cases
3. Quick activity to spark ideas on how bottle donors could benefit
4. Lastly, we outlined early user flows with key touchpoints and challenges.
1. Explored a wide range of ideas and voted on directions with shared interest
2. We focused on plastic yarn and mapped its potential repurposing use cases
3. Quick activity to spark ideas on how bottle donors could benefit
4. Lastly, we outlined early user flows with key touchpoints and challenges.

1. Explored a wide range of ideas and voted on directions with shared interest
2. We focused on plastic yarn and mapped its potential repurposing use cases
3. Quick activity to spark ideas on how bottle donors could benefit
4. Lastly, we outlined early user flows with key touchpoints and challenges.
1. Explored a wide range of ideas and voted on directions with shared interest
2. We focused on plastic yarn and mapped its potential repurposing use cases
3. Quick activity to spark ideas on how bottle donors could benefit
4. Lastly, we outlined early user flows with key touchpoints and challenges.
1. Explored a wide range of ideas and voted on directions with shared interest
2. We focused on plastic yarn and mapped its potential repurposing use cases
3. Quick activity to spark ideas on how bottle donors could benefit
4. Lastly, we outlined early user flows with key touchpoints and challenges.
1. Explored a wide range of ideas and voted on directions with shared interest
2. We focused on plastic yarn and mapped its potential repurposing use cases
3. Quick activity to spark ideas on how bottle donors could benefit
4. Lastly, we outlined early user flows with key touchpoints and challenges.

Guided by our core values, we brainstormed with a wide range of reuse ideas.

Research on high-tech companies turning bottles into yarn helped us see the potential in this material, which leads us to focus on plastic yarn as a viable and impactful direction.

This is Plarn (plastic + yarn)!

1st Rapid Prototyping

Exploring the B2C Path

onboarding

homepage

plastic bottles drop-off

Introduces the service’s purpose and core values.

Show progress of local school projects to encourage bottle donations.

Step-by-step guide for donating and counting bottles by size.

To explore the potential of a consumer-facing service, we rapidly prototyped a mobile app within a week targeting everyday consumers.

These screens focused on helping consumers to donate bottles, track impact, and feel part of a larger effort.

But, we got some pushbacks during class critique… 🤔

Critique

Spotting Friction in the B2C Model

During in-class critique, we were challenged on the justification for our consumer-facing model, pointing out low motivation, high effort, and unclear value for users. This pushed us to reconsider our direction.

NOTES TAKEN DURING IN-CLASS CRITIQUE

Design Pivot

Repositioning to B2B

Before: B2C Model

Entry Point

Consumers download app to donate bottles

Bottle collection

Consumers find drop-off site and self-tracks contribution

MOTIVATION

Individual impact and environmental awareness

adoption barrier

High - add download & extra effort

Scalability

Limited - depends on individual participation

After: B2B (School Partnership)

School initiates campaign with our guidance and assigns students

Sports team students go door-to-door to collect plastic bottles

Students earn affordable team jerseys through their own collection efforts

Low - embedded in school activities and team goals

High - leverages existing school networks and outreach

So, we began rethinking our service model.
To guide the pivot, we created a B2C vs. B2B comparison, examining entry points, motivation, and more.

Inspired by the Girl Scout cookie model, we chose to partner with schools, enabling students to collect bottles door-to-door. This creates a more structured, scalable, and self-benefiting system that aligns with our core values.

Design Process

Rapid Design Iterations

LOW-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES

Within a day, another designer and I developed wireframes for 3 core user flows that are essential to our service.

Website – The public entry point to learn about our service’s values and benefits, and where users begin a project.
Registration Form – Collects school and team info to tailor service offerings.
Dashboard – Enables partners to track progress and manage ongoing projects.

*I solely owned the design of the dashboard, while also contributing design ideas and design system alignment for the website.

MID-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES

Based on testing and feedback, I prioritized the dashboard for our final showcase. It’s the core touchpoint users interact with throughout the service.

I focused on designing three key functions to support their experience:

Dashboard Overview – See project status at a glance
Bottle Collection & Shipment – Track progress and manage logistics
Campaign Resources – Access tools to kickstart collection efforts

Usability Testing & User Feedback

Standardizing Counting to Reduce User Effort

Before

After

Usability Insight

Counting 200+ bottles a day is unrealistic. Coordinators won’t spend 30 minutes sorting and tallying bottles.

My Design Response

Based on feedback, I reduced daily effort: instead of entering a per-bottle count, users log filled standardized bags (≈50 16 oz bottles each). Estimating by bags is faster, consistent enough for tracking progress, and far easier to sustain.

The Solution

'RefiT' Service

dashboard for daily monitoring & management

New project application

Service website

Reflection

What did I learn?

01
Service value must align with real needs

A service creates real value when business goals align with user motivation. Our B2C to B2B pivot taught me to design for both intent and real-world behavior.

02
Open to feedback, even rethink everything

The best feedback challenged our whole model, not just a screen. Being open to pivoting early helped us land on a solution that was more scalable and grounded in user reality.