LEGO
A new feature on the LEGO website that enables users to get rewarded for giving back used LEGO to help close the materials loop.
Background
For the last three years I have been working towards creating a zero-waste household. But I noticed there was still a lot of plastic entering our house in the shape of....LEGO! I did a little research and found out that you can’t put LEGO pieces in the recycling bin. With a recycling feature like this, LEGO can take responsibility and adopt a more circular business model.
(Note: this is a concept project for LEGO, I am not personally affiliated with LEGO).
Problem
We have a plastic problem. It is polluting the natural world and it contains toxins that also harm us. LEGO is the 2nd largest toy producer in the world and is responsible for a lot of plastic pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
Solution
A new feature that incentivizes LEGO owners to give back their used LEGO so that the pieces can be reused (or recycled). This avoids LEGO ending up in the landfill or the environment and it reduces the use of oil and energy.
My role
End-to-end UX & UI designer.
Timeline & tools
5 week (20 hrs per week) in 2021. Built with Figma, Miro, Google Forms and Whimsical.
Process
Based on the Design Thinking approach, these are the phases I went through in the process of designing this new LEGO reuse feature:
Empathize → Define → Ideate & Design → Test & Improve → 🌈
01. Empathize
Desk research:
the facts
LEGO sells 70 billion elements per year in more than 130 countries. That means that right now there are at least 78 LEGO pieces per person on this planet!
Lego has set a goal of making all its bricks from ‘sustainable materials’ by 2030 (recycled and plant-based sources). But so far just 2% of products have been made from plant-based plastics and so far none from recycled materials.
Without reusing and recycling existing LEGO, there won’t be a real reduction of LEGO’s environmental impact. Plant-based plastics practically behave the same way regular plastics do in the environment and have their own disadvantages.
Read more about this topic in this article in Yale's Environment magazine
Desk research:
trends
Brands like Patagonia, Marine Layer and IKEA are taking their commitment to sustainability and circularity to the next step. They all recently launched programs where you can trade in your used clothes or furniture for store credit or cash. This inspired me to work with a reward systems as well to make it as interesting as possible to take the effort of giving back your used LEGO.
Patagonia Worn Wear
Marine Layer Re-Spun
IKEA Buy Back & Resell
Ch-ch-ch-changes!
I initially had a platform feature in mind where LEGO owners can sell, buy and trade LEGO. It turned out to be too hard to find enough people that had sold or traded their LEGO. And I learned that LEGO already owns an online selling and trading platform, called BrickLink.
So I changed my focus to a feature that enables people to give their used LEGO back to LEGO, so that it can be used as a resource for new LEGO sets. Mainly by reusing the pieces and in some cases by recycling them.
This would truly make LEGO a more circular business and it provides an opportunity to close the materials loop!
Interviews
I did five 1-on-1 interviews with people that had all bought LEGO before on LEGO.com.
I mainly wanted to find out people’s attitude towards recycling and sustainability in general to see if this is a feature that would appeal to them. I was also able to dig a little deeper to find out what would motivate people to use a feature like this.
Findings
One of the most surprising things I learned is that there is such a mismatch between the desire of LEGO being made in a sustainable way and the limited awareness of any of the sustainability efforts LEGO is already undertaking. There is clearly room here for LEGO to communicate this topic more prominently to satisfy this unmet need.
Limitations: I do realize that saying that you care about sustainable production might be a more socially desirable thing to say. I only interviewed a small number of people (5) and mainly recruited them through my own network.
Survey
To increase the sample group for my research I created a short survey with Google Forms. Ten people filled it out and all had previously bought on LEGO.com. I asked people about their LEGO buying habits and about their attitude towards recycling and sustainability.
These are the results that stood out:
Most respondents have passed on LEGO to other people and in that way recycle LEGO.
They do on the other hand find it very important that LEGO is made in a sustainable way.
All respondents are familiar with recycling and have a positive attitude towards it, they like to do their part for the environment.
…..this might explain why they are not very concerned about the environmental impact of LEGO products.
Key takeaways
After creating an affinity map to further analyze the interview data, these would be the main things I kept in mind going forward:
LEGO buyers like to know more about LEGO’s sustainability efforts and they support a recycling feature.
Preferred ‘rewards’ are: store credit, VIP points (for the real collectors) or the great feeling of donating LEGO for a good cause.
People buy LEGO at a variety of different places, online and in stores.
Make the process of giving back LEGO as easy and convenient for the user to create the biggest impact.
02. Define
User personas
I ended up with two personas because I found that people with kids have different needs and habits than the people without kids that are more in it for personal fun and collecting.
User flow
There is one main flow that I focused on for this feature and it is based on this scenario:
Brandon Long (user persona 1) mainly buys LEGO for his kids. They buy a new set about every month so it can get expensive. Brandon cares about the environment and always tries to give away used LEGO to make sure they don’t end up in a landfill. Brandon buys mainly on LEGO.com and therefore has a LEGO.com account.
1
2
3
Business goals
This feature is quite a move away from LEGO’s current business model. In this Venn diagram I thought out how this feature would align with the current business goals and how this would practically work. Some business goals come from LEGO’s annual reports and website, like ‘become a more circular business’ and ‘staying relevant for future generations’. I also made sure to think of the technical side of collecting and processing used LEGO (like cleaning and sorting!) so that they can be reused.
03. Design
Roadmap & UI requirements
This is always the trickiest part: translating all of the research findings into a visual design. Small steps are the key here, starting with a product roadmap, then browsing online for inspiration and then just give it a go and start sketching.
Some of the challenges to solve through ideation were:
How can users give their used LEGO back to LEGO? What is most convenient and fits their needs/habits?
How would the reward system work? To get as much used LEGO back, the reward would ideally be higher if you give back more.
Wireframes
I kept a lot of the design of the form similar to the LEGO check-out form because that’s familiar to most LEGO buyers. The most challenging pages to design were the landing page of the new feature and the confirmation page, especially the ordering of the information.
Below you see a selection of 8 wireframe screens.
See here the evolution of the confirmation page. I made changes based on feedback I got on my wireframes in a group critique session. Version 1 had too much information in a small space. I then created version 2 & 3 and asked people which one they liked the most.
Version 1
Version 2
Version 3 = winner
Logo & UI kit
LEGO has a sustainability section on their website (hidden in the footer) that recently got a make-over with some great illustrations and it’s own color palette that’s quite different from the rest of LEGO’s branding. Inspired by this, I created a new logo for the feature and adopted some of the new, lighter colors in my UI kit.
UI design applied
It was so much fun to create these high-fidelity wireframes! I really wanted to keep the fun and playful LEGO feel and also introduce this different style that’s used in the sustainability section of the website. Here I will discuss a few screens and the story behind them. Check out my prototype to see more!
I started off with the idea that people could enter the product number of their LEGO set so that they could get a reward based on the original value. This made it unnecessarily complicated and what if people just want to give a tub of random LEGO? I landed on this simpler system that is based on weight.
The reward system
The two options to get your LEGO to LEGO are to ship it or drop it off. I learned that people with kids like to buy LEGO at various stores and it would be great if you can go shop, drop off your used LEGO and get your reward all in one place.
New feature on landing page
Here you see the page where the user can choose their reward. I added the option to donate to Teach for America because that’s already possible on the LEGO website. Because I learned that people love giving their LEGO to friends and family I added an option to gift your store credit to someone else.
Form to ship your used LEGO
04. Test & Improve
Usability testing
To test my prototype I set up separate Zoom calls with three participants aged 27 - 68. I asked them to open the Figma prototype on their computer and then share their screen and talk out loud about what they were doing, seeing and expecting. I used a test plan with pre-defined tasks for the participants to do.
Results
Overall the test went very well and all participants were able to successfully perform the tasks I asked them to do. I got a lot of practical question about how things would work with shipping and weighing, which is great because that tells me that this feature felt very realistic to them! One thing they were missing though was a short overview of how the process works right at the beginning.
In the feedback grid below you see more of the test results and everything in the ‘change’ section is what I prioritized at this point and improved.
IBM feedback grid
Improvements
I made seven changes to the prototype based on the test findings. I’ll discuss the two changes with the biggest impact:
Simplify!
I simplified this hero image on the landing page because it was a bit too much information right at the top of the page.
‘How it works’
Here you see my process of creating the ’how it works’ section that would go at the top of the landing page under the hero image.
Prototype
This is the final prototype of the new LEGO feature that includes the priority revisions I made.
Next steps
The next step would be to design the page for dropping off your LEGO. It would help the user find the closest store that accepts used LEGO. There are also some practical issues I would love to work on more like how the rewards get processed in-store and what if you don’t have a printer? I’m secretly hoping that LEGO is already working on a program like this. I found a startup online that completely takes care of this process for companies that want to operate in a more circular way by reusing existing products. It’s clearly taking off!
Reflection
For this project I really enjoyed creating the visuals and make them fit in with LEGO’s style of playful, fun designs. I approach all my projects in a holistic way and this project in particular was a chance for me to think of a product that fits in with LEGO’s ambition to become a more circular business and that works from a business, social and environmental standpoint. I believe that we as designers can have a big impact on reducing wastefull practices by keeping the long-term impact of a product in mind.