Rol
UI/UX Product Designer
Type
B2C Product Design, Mobile App
Year I Duration
2025 I 8 Months
Waste Connections
Redesigning Municipal Waste Management & Self-Service Experience
Waste Connections is one of North America’s largest integrated solid waste services companies. I worked on redesigning their mobile application and web portal, Waste Connect, transforming a fragmented utility experience into a modern, user-centered digital assistant. The redesign focused on empowering residential and commercial users through intuitive self-service features: an interactive Waste Disposal Guide (Trash Guide), real-time collection scheduling, digital bill payments with AutoPay, and an service quote flow for dumpster rentals and special bulk pick-ups.
The Challenge
Managing residential waste services is often marked by user confusion and high customer support volume. Users struggled to find accurate pickup schedules during holidays, frequently missed collection days due to lack of visibility, and were uncertain about proper disposal rules for specific items (such as hazardous materials, aerosols, or bulk waste).
Furthermore, managing account balances, setting up automatic payments, and requesting specialized services—like renting a construction dumpster—required cumbersome phone calls or navigating disjointed web forms. Operationally, the company needed a design architecture that could accommodate white-labeling for local operating districts while maintaining a unified global component system.
Goals
To solve these systemic workflow bottlenecks, Mosaico v3 was engineered around three core principles:
1
Promote Proper Waste Sorting: Create an accessible, searchable Trash Guide to educate users on disposal categories (Recycling, Trash, Yard Waste, Bulk, Excluded).
2
Increase Schedule Visibility: Design an interactive pickup calendar that clearly highlights service types, upcoming collection dates, and holiday schedule shifts.
3
Streamline Financial Self-Service: Simplify balance tracking, bill viewing, and AutoPay setup to minimize overdue payments and customer service calls.
4
Optimize Special Service Requests: Build an intelligent, step-by-step quote request flow for residential, commercial, and dumpster rental services.
5
Establish Developer Handoff Standards: Document UI states, edge cases, interactive prototypes, and white-label district themes for engineering alignment.
Research
To benchmark Waste Connect against the market, we conducted a targeted competitive audit analyzing the digital offerings of the industry's three largest players:
WM (Waste Management): The indisputable market leader by revenue and coverage. While their platform offers robust account features, their mobile and web interfaces suffer from heavy information density, making simple tasks like checking holiday schedule shifts frustrating for everyday residential users.
Republic Services: The second-largest competitor, heavily focused on sustainability and tech integration. They excel at clean branding, but their disposal guide features are buried deep within sub-menus, creating friction for users seeking quick answers on item recyclability.
GFL Environmental: A fast-growing Canadian/American competitor. Their digital experience is modern, but lacks comprehensive self-service customization for localized districts and special dumpster quote requests.
By evaluating these platforms, we identified a clear market opportunity: Waste Connect could win by combining a hyper-accessible Trash Guide directly on the home screen, intuitive schedule toggles, and a localized white-label system that adapts to district branding without breaking the core UX.
Key Insights & Design Decisions
Our research and user flow mapping revealed three major friction points that directly drove our design decisions:
1 / 3
Sorting Uncertainty Leads to Contamination
Users often throw recyclable or bulk items into standard trash bins because finding disposal rules is inconvenient.
Design Decision: I built a prominent Trash Guide feature with instant search and bottom-sheet detail cards. Tapping an item like Corrugated Cardboard or Aerosol Cans opens clear, visual instructions (e.g., "Rinse containers," "Flatten boxes") and explicitly flags excluded items.
Ideation & Iteration
Our design execution evolved through several iterative stages across both mobile and desktop platforms:
Homescreen Evolution & Dynamic UI States: We completely overhauled the legacy interface—which relied on static text rows and basic expandable lists—into a modular, card-based dashboard. The new Homescreen dynamically adapts to user account conditions:
Billing & AutoPay States: Displays real-time balance highlights alongside dynamic AutoPay status badges (AutoPay OFF / AutoPay ON) and quick-pay callout banners.
Service Pauses & Active Holds: Integrated dynamic status cards (e.g., Vacation Hold Active) that temporarily update the main hero area to notify users when pickups are paused until a specific date.
Quick-Action Grid: Positioned immediate access cards for Next Pickup schedules, Trash Guide, Additional Services (Roll-Off dumpsters, Yard Waste), and direct support options (Missed Pickup, Broken Container, Appreciate Our Driver).
District-Branded Themes (White-Label Architecture): Waste Connections operates under various localized district names. I developed a variable color palette system in Figma that allows the app’s primary headers and accent UI elements to adapt dynamically to regional brand colors (e.g., blue, green, purple, or dark themes) while maintaining identical underlying UX components and accessibility standards.
Prototyping & Developer Handoff: I built interactive Figma prototypes mapping complex user paths, including guest address searches, account linking, multi-step quote forms, and edge cases (e.g., Account Suspended or Vacation Hold Active states). To ensure seamless engineering implementation, every frame was documented with clear callout notes detailing logic triggers, button navigation paths, modal anchor points, and component variants.
District-Branded Themes
Prototyping & Developer Handoff
Core Features
1
Interactive Trash Guide ("Sort Like a Pro"): Searchable directory categorizing items into Recycling, Trash, Yard Waste, Bulk, and Excluded, featuring bottom-sheet detail cards with clear disposal rules.
2
Increase Schedule Visibility: Design an interactive pickup calendar that clearly highlights service types, upcoming collection dates, and holiday schedule shifts.
3
Account Balance & Pay Bill Hub: Streamlined billing dashboard allowing users to view current balances, access PDF bills, manage payment methods, and toggle AutoPay with one tap.
4
Multi-Step Quote Builder ("Request Service"): Guided quote wizard for residential services, HOA/Apartment complexes, and commercial dumpster rentals (Roll-off containers).
1
Next Steps
Push Notifications & Geofencing Alerts: Implementing automated evening-before reminders (e.g., "Put out your Recycling cart tonight") based on local route schedules.
AI-Powered Image Recognition for Trash Guide: Integrating camera-based item scanning so users can snap a photo of an item to instantly learn if it's recyclable or excluded.
Driver Tipping & Appreciation Features: Expanding customer support options to allow users to rate their service drivers and submit direct driver appreciation notes.