Ecora leverages auditory & visual cues to help users better manage their food waste at home. Throughout the week the Bio-Bin will generate different sounds depending on how much and what type of food is being thrown away as well as how the user interacts with it.
The bio-bin has an initial state where the amount of food waste that it fits is very small. Every time the user needs more space they would manually have to increase its size by pulling it up - this to constantly keep the user aware of the amount they are producing.
Ecora helps the user to gain knowledge that it also matters in what state the thrown away food is. The bio-bin can detect its weight (since this will say something about the amount) as well as how dry/wet the food waste is. This is since throwing wet food waste in the bio-bin can cause for example mold leading to the bin needing to be emptied more often as well as health issues.
If the user needs to expand the bio-bin, since there is no more space, a sound is generated to remind the user that "now they have wasted more than their initial goal was". When they need to change the bag a resetting sound is made indicating the start of a new period.
When opening the Ecora app the user can find both helpful tips to reduce their food waste as well as see a compilation of what the different interactions with the bio-bin have been recent. This information is gathered in a “sound aura” which consists of all the sounds that the bio-bin made throughout the week. The Ecora app also provides the user with recommendations or tips to reuse/reduce food waste. These tips enable the user to make wiser decisions with regard to food waste management in their household.
The Sound Aura is generated through the collected sounds that the bio-bin has been making throughout the week. The sound is supported by visuals showing what type of waste was being generated. The user can later compare the different sounds for different weeks and in this way get a picture of how their behavior develops/varies.
To create the different sounds for the Bio-Bin we first created soundboards for how we visualized the sounds to be. Later we used Vital as well as created foley effects, using for example wet towels, to create sounds that we later mixed using Soundtrap.
Our biggest struggle while making the sounds was creating the sounds for the axes wet-dry and heavy-light. We wanted them to be easily distinguishable, for users to be able to learn them, and at the same time, they needed to belong to the same family of sounds. To achieve this we constantly tested the sounds on people outside of our group, playing the sounds and making them point out on the map where they would have placed the sound.
Apart from testing the sounds we also used the Wizard of Oz method to test our mock-ups. We placed a Bluetooth speaker nearby the prototype and let people interact with the bin to later hear their feedback.
Before this project, I had not paid too much attention to sound while designing products, but now I “see” audio everywhere ;p
Sound has the ability to give a product a unique personality which also permits humor.
On one level, it feels strange to create a product that aims to encourage people to live more sustainably, but that at the same time is quite complex (with speakers and sensors), which can be seen as very unsustainable. However, we identified a space where the integration of auditory cues potentially could enable behavioral change in people - where the product really only acts as a shell. The bigger aim, apart from the product, is to provoke and raise the question.
Behavioral change takes time and Ecora is not about making it easier, instead, it focuses on the user gaining awareness about food waste through constant reminders and feedback.