Reflection

PUNT showed me the power of community action and how small efforts can lead to meaningful change. By organizing cleanups and engaging with others, I saw firsthand how collective responsibility can shift habits and attitudes around waste. This project taught me the importance of leadership, persistence, and building systems that empower others to take initiative in their own neighborhoods. Here, I post photos and lament the original outline for what PUNT was to be:

Stage 1. User Research

Engaged with over 120 community members, including students, teachers, and local residents, through surveys, interviews, and field observations to understand attitudes toward litter and barriers to participating in cleanup efforts. This phase revealed a strong desire for hyper-local, action-based tools that make environmental stewardship feel accessible and rewarding. These findings shaped distinct user personas ranging from eco-conscious teens to civic-minded educators.

Stage 2. Ideation & Conceptualization

Held collaborative brainstorming sessions with environmental advocates, student leaders, and tech mentors to generate ideas for features like real-time litter tracking, reward systems, and team-based challenges. Created user journey maps to simulate different cleanup scenarios, ensuring the app’s concept would drive motivation and community impact through gamified participation and visible progress tracking.

Stage 3. Design Execution

Wireframing: Sketched over 50 wireframes focusing on intuitive features like geo-tagged litter reports, cleanup leaderboards, and event scheduling. The layout prioritized ease of use to encourage frequent engagement among busy students and volunteers.

Prototyping: Built interactive prototypes in Figma to simulate key actions, such as logging a cleanup or joining a team challenge. These were tested with actual users during school events, gathering valuable feedback on usability and flow.

UI Design: Developed a bright, modern interface using greens and earth tones to reflect the environmental mission, paired with clear fonts for readability. User input refined key elements like iconography and onboarding screens to ensure accessibility and enthusiasm across age groups.