
Finding UX in the Trash - 0xF2
https://f2.svbtle.com/ux-in-the-trash
======
foobarbecue
You guys should see the trash sorting at McMurdo station, Antarctica. When I
first traveled there in 2009, there were about 20 categories, and dorms had an
area just like this one with about 10 of those categories present, each with a
page of documentation. If your category wasn't there, you needed to go find
that category somewhere else. The categories overlapped and changed from year
to year and had names like "paper towels" (compressible non-recyclables that
could be baled on station) and "burnables" (I still don't really know what
that was for, since incineration is banned out there). Users were encouraged
to call the Waste Department for support, and actually the people at Waste
seemed to understand and believe in the system (unlike me) so I called them
frequently to ask where to put e.g. an empty juice box. To be fair, this
system was borne out of the real difficulties of waste management in
Antarctica, and I'm not sure I could have done a better job with the UX.
(Constraints were that everything went back to the US on a boat, food waste
had to be shipped back refrigerated, etc.)

~~~
jackfraser
Why exactly was incineration not allowed? I can understand it being
logistically difficult to implement, but it would sure be a lot simpler, and
it's not like there's enough people down there that the carbon footprint
relative to the airshed would be significant.

~~~
foobarbecue
Well you inspired me to actually look this up for the first time. Turns out
it's allowed, per Article 3 here:
[http://www.ats.aq/documents/recatt/Att010_e.pdf](http://www.ats.aq/documents/recatt/Att010_e.pdf)
but McMurdo stopped doing it in 1993 because it was more expensive than
shipping unburnt waste north. (
[http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/igy2/incinerator.html](http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/igy2/incinerator.html)
) So the category may well have been sort of vestigial.

------
xg15
The paradigm works well as long as the designer has a clear idea of what the
user wants to do and as long as the designer('s boss') and the user's goals
are aligned - and as long as the designer could anticipate all use-cases.

Nothing is more infuriating than finding out that something that should be
straight-forward to do is hard or even impossible because the option got taken
away in the name of UX.

Actually, there _is_ one thing more infuriating: If that UX was also inspired
by business goals and not user interests.

~~~
CamperBob2
_The paradigm works well as long as the designer has a clear idea of what the
user wants to do and as long as the designer( 's boss') and the user's goals
are aligned - and as long as the designer could anticipate all use-cases._

The advice in the article works well for simple things. Simple things can, and
should, be perfect.

Unfortunately not everything can be simplified until it makes sense to an
unskilled operator (or an unskilled designer). Ideally, complex things are
composed of simple things... but if that were true, wouldn't we'd all be
running UNIX command-line desktops?

Contrary to the author's leading premise, the best designs don't just work by
taking options away from the user. They hide those options until they're
needed... and when they _are_ needed, they make those options easy to find.

And that's hard work, the sort of hard work that can't be waved away with a
list of trendy bullet points from some respected design guru who mysteriously
never seems to be around when you need to use a different printer than the one
the OS thinks you want.

~~~
FooHentai
>The advice in the article works well for simple things. Simple things can,
and should, be perfect.

That seems backwards, as the argument being put forwards is that UX is all
about trading off a complex, options-rich interaction with a simple, options-
poor interaction. So good UX _delivers_ simple things. The hard work comes in
the skilful reduction of a potentially complex interaction to a simpler one,
and recognising that there are tradeoffs.

------
cptskippy
I really hate these articles that bemoan poor UX but in reality are a failure
of the author to take the time and look at the problem from a different
perspective.

Sure the Mac printer selection experience is great when you have a laptop that
you carry from work to home and print from a single printer at either
location.

It sucks when you have a desktop at work and you can see the entire corporate
network. That printer sitting across the hall might be 10 hops from you on the
network but the printer on some exec's desktop might be 2 hops even though
he's 2 floors up.

Or maybe you're a home user who never takes your laptop anywhere but you have
a document printer and a photo printer. Or a kid and they have a printer for
school work in their room. Then you have to check every time you print.

* Neither OS adds a printer by default so the scenario I described isn't really feasible and none of the OSes behave as I or the author of the article described.

~~~
kettlecorn
I haven't used printers from a Mac at all, but reading the article I thought
the implementation was that the Mac would keep track of a preferred printer
depending on what network you're connected to.

If it's as I was thinking it would work without problem for the scenarios you
described.

~~~
cptskippy
I just checked and nothing really lines up with what the author states.

MacOS Sierra and El Capitan default to the "Last Printer Used". The UI is the
same in both and there is no indication in the UI that this a per network
preference.

Windows 10 defaults to "Let Windows manage my default printer" and has
clarifying text under the option that states "Windows will set your default
printer to be the one you used most recently at your current location". Which
appears to be the feature the author loves about OSX.

Windows 7 sets the first installed printer as the default printer and when you
install a printer it asks if you would like to default to it in the future.

Personally I prefer the Windows 7 approach over macOS and Windows 10. Having a
network/location default would be ideal in my mind and that doesn't appear to
be an option for macOS or Windows.

~~~
kettlecorn
> Having a network/location default would be ideal in my mind and that doesn't
> appear to be an option for macOS or Windows.

That's too bad.

The crux of the author's point appears to be that reducing the choices the
user has to make is generally good, but I feel that modern designers are often
over zealous in that pursuit.

Intelligent defaults is something that feels like a good blend. You're working
with the computer, it recommends something it thinks is smart (I set this
local printer as the default) and if you disagree you can modify it. One must
be careful to not overly increase the mental overhead of the user this way,
but smart defaults can prevent the complexity of the user trying to reverse
engineer and fight unspoken rules.

------
tyingq
The article doesn't propose a solution for the trash problem.

I suspect because it's not really a UI problem. UI can't magically make all
complex interactions easy. Fixing the problem would mean changing the
requirements first... then the UI.

Edit: Never mind...missed the key sentence there in all the discussion about
the 4 labels.

~~~
dguo
The author did say: "UX is turning those four bins into two (or one!) and
signing up with a single stream recycling vendor."

~~~
catnaroek
And he's wrong. It is far easier to get everyone to classify their trash.
Separating trash that has been put in a single trash bin is far more
complicated later on. “It allows people to think less” isn't an excuse for
making shit worse in every other possible imaginable respect.

~~~
0xF2
Author here. The point here is not the trash, I go by those bins twice a day
and can affor to think a few more seconds if I am carrying something unusual.
Plus it makes you feel like you are part of a bigger cause to put near-zero
effort to help save the planet.

The point is software. There I should not spend a fraction of a second
thinking, because that does not happen twice a day. It happens every 15
minutes if we are talking about me looking at my phone. UX thinking there
makes a real, tangible difference.

~~~
carwheel10
What do you think of my solution posted above?

~~~
0xF2
I like it better than reading different signs in every office I visit.

In the US the problem however is that recycling collection is not
standardized. Each city does it differently, which gets in the way of the
standardization you propose. We would need a Federal standard (or at least an
agreement by the relevant industry association) to help there.

~~~
carwheel10
Not necessarily although a federal standard would help. A single big state
like California could implement it and the standard would propagate itself
from there.

------
carwheel10
Here's the problem with current trash UX:

1\. Person walks up with trash in hand to 3 bins. Each bin has a poster with
pictures of items which are meant for that bin. Each person has to make O(n)
comparisons for each of the bin and then make the closest judgment call. Too
exhausting, error prone and inefficient as each person is solving the
classification problem for a given trash item over and over again.

Here's a simple solution to the problem above:

1\. Setup a regulation that each article be simply labelled with a numeral
marking: "1", "2" or "3". Standardize each trash bin to be called bin #1, #2
or #3. Each person simply throws the trash in the matching bin.

This moves the classification problem from the person to the time of
manufacturing of the article. Also, the classification is only done once by
experts and not by each person at the time of throwing away the article. Also,
reduces the classification problem for the person from O(n) to O(1).

Simple solution which solves the problem in elegant fashion.

~~~
jaxn
You completely miss the point of what he is saying. There is nothing intuitive
about "1", "2", "3". Your proposed solution requires everyone to build
expertise at throwing things away.

You also open the system up to folklore about what the numbers mean and what
should go in each bin. And that folklore is impossible to control and correct.

It's fine if you want to build systems that way. They may be good and work
well enough. But a more intuitive system will prevail at some point.

~~~
et1337
Jeesh, take it easy. I took the numbers to be rhetorical. Of course you'd want
to use intuitive icons instead of just numbers. What I'm curious about is what
kind of prevailing more intuitive system you had in mind.

~~~
maxerickson
Plastic recycling uses numbers.

------
smoe
I totally agree with the article for user interfaces that are meant to be used
by a broad audience.

What I'm struggling wrapping my head around is, coming up with user
interfaces/experience for big, specialized applications whose value
proposition IS to give the user full control over the "machine". Think
GarageBand vs Pro Tools, SketchUp vs Maya, iPhoto vs Photoshop.

for example within an digital audio workstation I think it is great for quick
experimentation and beginners to have some guitar pedal style plugins with
just on/off switches and few knobs, that can change multiple parameters at
once in a predefined way. But if you don't also give me an alternative way to
control all the parameter myself the application becomes useless to me except
in a few use cases.

Does anyone have recommended readings for ux projects where you can't "just"
turn 4 into 1 and be done with it? (Not meant to be demeaning to the author,
it is just not always possible to just remove things:))

------
sdbrown
Trash sorting is the absolute worst UX. A newspaper goes in paper recycling,
fine. Does a glossy magazine also go in paper recycling? Cardboard goes in
paper recycling. Does paper cardboard with a plastic overcoat go in paper
recycling? Can TetraPaks or whatever the heck Zico/juice boxes/etc. uses be
recycled as "paper"? What about steel cans (which most coconut water in
southern California is packed in), do they go in "cans" recycling, since there
is no "Aluminum"-specific stream in my workplace?

Trash UX is really awful. In my office it's even worse - the custodial staff
just dump the at-desks blue recycling bins into the same large trash can as
the black waste bins. Why the heck do we even have recycling bins if it's just
going to be commingled anyway?

------
bhauer
I get particular joy out of seeing that type of multiple waste-bin
installation in municipalities that use mixed-waste processing [1]. Knowing
that all bins are being combined at pick-up and then re-sorted at the material
recovery facility makes me chuckle.

Incidentally, is mixed-waste processing still picking up steam anywhere?

[1] [http://www.waste360.com/mrfs/10-points-explain-mixed-
waste-p...](http://www.waste360.com/mrfs/10-points-explain-mixed-waste-
processing)

------
jakobegger
But sometimes education _is_ the best UX. Just give people an exhaustive list
of trash for each bin.

There is no simple and elegant solution to knowing what goes where, since it
depends on the recycling process etc.

Recycling bins at community recycling centers here just have alphabetic lists
that list every item, and helpful staff that tells you were to put things if
you are unsure.

People throw away the same things over and over again. Teach them once, and
they‘ll throw it in the right bin.

No need to come up with a confusing icon or throw everything in a single bin.

------
Mathnerd314
The best UX I've seen for recycling & composting is putting up a board with
examples of each item for each bin. So the aluminum bin would have cans, the
commingled bin would have paper, bottles, etc., compost would have a banana
peel, compostable forks, etc., and trash would have all the non-recyclable
stuff. The only remaining problem is that the examples are non-exhaustive so
you still have to guess if the thing you want to throw away isn't up there,
but the trash is always safe.

~~~
carwheel10
What do you think of my proposed solution I posted above?

------
gerdesj
If you are going to whine and whinge about something in a blog, why not define
the bloody thing first? You (for a given value of you) and I know that UX
means User eXperience.

Could that be a blog UX fail? If someone doesn't even know what you are on
about from the title, then your message may not get through. To be fair, the
intended audience for this might allow the author assume a certain subset of
knowledge but it wouldn't hurt to cover a wider casual readership.

------
ccleary00
Many people do not understand UX and its role, but in my experience UX teams
do not really understand how to operate within organizations and adapt to
processes either.

~~~
daleco
How do you integrate UX in the agile process? People think that UX is UI.
Unless you work one or two sprints ahead, it's challenging to integrate design
thinking or the users in the process.

------
paulwallas
I wonder if making the doors transparent would help in any way. I fully share
the frustration of the end user. I'm a UX designer myself and appreciate the
little moments that are few and far between in every day life where people
have got the basics right.

My thoughts on the transparent doors are that 60-70% of people will get this
trash system correct. The contents made visible will promote the correct
behaviour and may reduce the question of what goes where.

------
LarryMade2
Probably need a picture for the first bin too - People might be compelled to
toss old batteries into that bin with that icon design.

------
syrrim
Why should the _option_ to do more complicated things be taken away? If some
behaviour is needed and preferable for the vast majority of users, then of
course this should be default - but why, oh why, must their not be an option,
hidden behind some series of menus, to change that behaviour for those users
who are so inclined?

------
amelius
The recycling industry should develop automated ways to separate garbage
appropriately, in a central location; perhaps using machine learning. Then you
eliminate the UX altogether. The best UX is _no_ UX.

~~~
madeofpalk
> perhaps using machine learning.

What? You can't just say 'machine learning' about every (perceived) problem
you hear.

~~~
ekianjo
Machine learning excels at classification, and trash sorting is at heart a
classification problem.

Applying ML to non-classification problems is when it is NOT appropriate, but
this is a good pick.

~~~
dom0
> Machine learning excels at classification, and trash sorting is at heart a
> classification problem.

Classifying by physical properties is even easier by simply classifying by
physical properties. Want to pull all ferrous metals out of a pile of stuff?
Just use a magnet. Want to sort tin from plastic? Blower and conveyor bins by
flight distance.

Incidentally, those elements not easily covered by this kind of sorting (which
has been used for many years) is also not easy to cover by magical do-all
machine learning, which will have a hard time sorting plastic-coated paper
from paper from plastics, just like the processes above.

~~~
ekianjo
> Want to sort tin from plastic? Blower and conveyor bins by flight distance.

ML is useful when you cannot make a clear difference using physical properties
only. For example, if you treat different types of plastic garbage, you will
probably want to separate bottles from other types of plastics, and you can do
that with visual sorting and pattern matching.

> which will have a hard time sorting plastic-coated paper from paper from
> plastics, just like the processes above.

Certainly, but then this is when you still need some manual work at some point
of the chain. But physical filtering + ML could reduce the human part of the
work to exceptions.

~~~
catnaroek
Just separate your trash yourself.

(0) It isn't hard.

(1) If the trash bins are aligned in a predictable manner, then you can even
do it without thinking.

~~~
ekianjo
I am, but that does not mean further sorting is not needed at the recycling
plant anyway. It is.

------
gfiorav
> Making things simple is about taking options away

Dangerous. The hard part is knowing what you can take away and providing the
right default for all other things.

------
0verc00ked
I literally just found some UX in the trash.

------
grogenaut
I like that they call out issues in the ux then throw up their hands and say
"this is a messy problem" and redefine their scope instead "well just collect
everything in my beautiful ux" and "pay someone else to do the hard work". I
don't know of a single stream place that takes food commingled with
recyclables and trash except the landfill. Basically it sounds like "my ux is
harmed, user education is hard, let business or engineers figure it out"! Yay
now here's a ton of tenents to guide your way into making your job easy
because your job should be trivalizing things.

~~~
tensor
They didn't throw up their hands, they recognized a very important fact:

Trying to teach every trash bin user how to sort is very difficult. It might
be much easier to instead teach a few specialized people how to sort (the
single stream recyclable service). This is easier for the trash users, and
probably a lot more efficient as the number of sorting errors might be greatly
reduced.

The food vs other items problem is probably why they explicitly said it would
likely be two bins, and one only if it could be made to work.

This is the point of the article: UX is not UI. The solution encompasses
changes to the entire system, not just the UI.

