The disposal decision:
primary and secondary research
This project builds on primary research conducted in EMDD 620 Design Thinking (Fall 2025) by Ava, Femi, and Selasi, who first identified contamination patterns at Ball State waste stations. The EMDD 640 team extended that work through observation, interviews, and journey mapping, situating findings in a broader secondary literature on campus recycling behaviour.
Ball State's recycling program, managed in partnership with Republic Services and the Muncie Sanitary District, accepts paper, cardboard, glass, metals, and specific plastics collected in blue bags. Despite this infrastructure, empathy research consistently found the same pattern: students slowed down at waste stations but rarely read signage. The physical act of sorting was happening in a near-total information vacuum.
▸ RESEARCH METHODS + FINDINGS
| Method | What we found |
|---|---|
| Observation (Woodworth, DeHority, Student Center) | Students paused at bins but rarely read signage. Greasy pizza boxes were the single most common contamination source. |
| Interviews with Sustainability Officers and Republic Services staff | Contamination rates were high enough to divert entire loads to landfill. The Muncie facility enforces a strict 10% contamination threshold. |
| Journey mapping with ~10 students | Confusion peaks in rushed between-class moments, when the disposal decision happens in under five seconds. |
| Discourse analysis (Ball Bearings, Reddit) | Students expressed frustration at unclear rules, inconsistent bin placement, and scepticism that recycling is actually processed. |
| Secondary research (Noh, 2021; Cho, 2019; Yusoff et al., 2024) | Recycling participation is driven by perceived behavioural control and clear guidance, not general awareness. The gap between intention and action is widest at the point of disposal. |
"Students broadly knew recycling mattered. They did not know, at the moment of holding something over a bin, what Ball State's specific rules were — and existing infrastructure wasn't telling them."
The synthesis: recycling at Ball State is not a logistical problem or an awareness problem. It is a narrative coherence problem. The institutional story of sustainability does not connect, at the moment of disposal, to the student standing over a bin with a greasy cup.
Not an awareness problem.
A narrative coherence problem.
The existing tools operate at the wrong moment. Posters and orientation modules build awareness weeks before the disposal decision happens. They cannot intervene at the bin.
Sort It Out is designed to. It is a mobile AR sorting game, triggered by a QR code at the physical bin, that intercepts the student at the exact moment the behaviour it is trying to change occurs.
▸ HOW MIGHT WE
How might we design a transmedia experience that uses narrative, interaction, and participation to reshape how students understand and engage with recycling, meeting them at the moment the disposal decision happens?
▸ DESIGN PARAMETERS
| Parameter | Rationale |
|---|---|
| Site-specific | The game at Woodworth is not the same as the game at DeHority. Each location carries narrative text developed with its community. |
| Mobile-first, no download | Students are on their phones at the bin. A QR code triggers a mobile browser experience. |
| Consequence-based, not instructional | Wrong sorts trigger an explanation before the item resets. Every error is a teaching moment. |
| Part of a larger storyworld | Sort It Out is one node in a transmedia documentary campaign — the physical touchpoint connecting digital and real-world layers. |
Measurable target: a 20% improvement in correct recycling behaviour in two dining halls by end of Spring 2027 deployment.
Sort It Out as one node
in a larger storyworld
The project is structured as a transmedia campaign. Sort It Out is the spatial node — the only component that can intercept a student at the physical bin.
▸ THE FULL TRANSMEDIA SYSTEM
| Node | Format |
|---|---|
| Documentary | How Does BSU Recycle? |
| Explainer Series | TikTok and Reels |
| Sort It Out | AR game at the bin (this project) |
| Street Quiz Videos | Gamified, shareable |
| Recycling Leaderboard | Residence hall competition app |
Sort It Out's game loop runs on three motivational layers: immediate feedback (sort correctly, score points; sort incorrectly, learn why before the item resets), social competition (live leaderboard ranking floors and halls), and collection (a campus-wide stamp map driving students to visit multiple bin locations).
A location-specific splash screen appears: "You're at Woodworth — let's see what ends up here."
Items appear as AR overlays on the camera view. Flick each toward the correct bin. Wrong sorts trigger a one-line explanation before the item resets.
Completing a location updates your floor's campus ranking.
A digital dining coupon, negotiated as a campaign partnership, motivates students who won't move for environmental conviction alone.
The mechanic,
demonstrated
Two prototypes are in development.
The first is a working web build demonstrating the core sort-and-explain mechanic. Waste items are launched toward the correct bin in an Angry Birds-style interaction. Wrong sorts trigger a brief explanation before the item resets; correct sorts score points. Built mobile-first in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, playable in-browser without a download.
The second prototype layers the mechanic onto photographs of actual campus bins, simulating the AR experience: waste items are sorted against real images of the bins a student would see at Woodworth, closer to the intended in-context experience.
▸ SCOPE NOTE
Full AR implementation, including geofencing, QR trigger, live leaderboard backend, and location-specific item sets, is outside the scope of these prototypes. They are proofs of concept for the interactive layer, not the finished product.
Testing plan
Testing is structured in two phases aligned with the production and deployment timeline.
▸ FORMATIVE TESTING (Spring 2026)
Think Aloud walkthroughs with 5 to 8 students per round. Participants narrate what they notice, question, or feel while using the game. The facilitator listens without guiding. This phase will surface friction in the sort mechanic, explanation pacing, and spatial overlay clarity.
Concept testing questions after each session: Does this make sense? What would you change? Does this feel relevant to your daily life?
Early social media analytics from the Explainer Series, using saves and direct message shares as leading indicators of content resonance before full deployment.
▸ SUMMATIVE TESTING (Spring 2027)
Pre and post surveys measuring recycling confidence, correct item identification, and self-reported disposal habits, administered at move-in and before finals.
Physical contamination data from Facilities Planning and Management and Republic Services, compared against a Fall 2026 baseline. Primary goal: 20% improvement in correct recycling in two target dining halls.
App analytics tracking sorting completions, contamination score changes, and leaderboard performance across residence halls.
Semi-structured exit interviews with 10 to 15 students capturing which story elements were most memorable and most likely to have changed behaviour at the bin.
"The test is not whether players found the game fun. The test is whether, the next time they stand at a bin holding a greasy cup, they know what to do."