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Google Phone Mail-Back Service

Redesign of the out-of-box experience for a new Google Pixel phone to encourage recycling
New Google Pixel phone coming out of a shipping box, data being transferred from an old phone that's then put in the same box for mailback, instruction booklet with free shipping label, and computer screen showing the rewards earned from recycling your old phone
^ Problem statement
Invention and distribution of new technology leads to disposal of old devices, often in the trash. How might we reduce the harm by increasing rates of reuse and recycling for old cellphones?
^ Client
Google (hypothetical, we didn’t contact them)
^ My role
  • Contributed extensively to the design of the overall service
  • Performed a stakeholder analysis
  • Built a Figma prototype of our proposed OS changes
  • Created Photoshop visualizations of the mailers and instruction booklets
^ Details

Timeline: May to June 2021

Team size: 3 students

Tools used: Figma, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, Microsoft Publisher

^ Key learnings

Skills: Enumerating and analyzing stakeholders for a complex project.

Lessons: Success metrics can be difficult to define when your goal is global-scale impact. For example, the materials recovered from recycled phones often don't go back into other electronic devices, so measuring an increase in available materials for building new phones likely doesn't make much sense for our project.

Contents

Summary
Research
Literature review Existing programs
Planning
Client selection Success metrics Stakeholder analysis
Design
Physical components OS changes Incentives
Next steps
Design modifications Proposal development
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Research

Literature review

As part of a larger effort in our Sustainable Interaction Design course (part of the University of Washington's Human-Centered Design and Engineering program), we performed an extensive review of the literature on digital waste and recycling.
Miro board with categorized findings from our literature review

Key findings:

Icon of computer on fire
E-waste recycling is often done by poor people in unsafe conditions.
Icon of the word New
Carriers incentivize people to frequently replace their phones.
Icon of a closet
People keep old phones to avoid their data being lost or stolen.
Icon of recycling symbol with question mark
Information about how to recycle phones is hard to find.
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Phone recycling drop box

Existing programs

I conducted a thorough analysis of existing phone recycling programs offered by device makers, carriers, and recyclers, which include:
  • Drop boxes in stores
  • Trade-in kits you can order by mail
Box with shipping label and phone to be recycled
  • Store credit as incentive
  • Data destruction promises
  • Ethics certifications for recyclers
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Planning

Client selection

Since UX for phone recycling includes both packaging and OS features (data transfer and deletion), we focused on the two companies who can control both: Apple and Google.

Although Google only ships a small number of phones itself, using them as a pilot could lead to eventual partnerships with other device makers to support recycling of around 70% of the world’s smartphones.

Global smartphone OS market share

Stacked line chart of global smartphone market share, with Android growing from zero in 2009 to 70 percent in 2024 while iOS varies between 20 and 30 percent

Data from StatCounter

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Computer monitor showing a dashboard with various charts

Clipart by Pixabay user 200degrees

Assembly line icon based on art by Noun Project user Made

Success metrics

We developed a list of metrics to track our design's ecological and financial sustainability:
Icon of phone going into shipping box
More Pixel phone buyers return their old phones for recycling
Icon of phone surrounded by a recycling symbol
More purchases of refurbished phones (to match the increased supply from the recycling program)
Icon of assembly line
Greater availability of recycled components and materials to use for making new phones
Icon of bar chart with one bar extending down from the axis and a larger bar extending up
Program cost fully offset by:
  • Reselling still-usable phones
  • Production cost reduction due to cheap recycled components/materials
  • Revenue from new customers for online services (see below)
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Stakeholder analysis

We enumerated the stakeholder groups needed to implement an update to the recycling mail-back program, both teams within Google and other companies involved in the phone recycling process.

I then completed an analysis of the benefits each group would gain from the program and barriers that might hinder them from supporting it.

Diagram with boxes for Google internal teams and outside companies that would need to be involved to implement our recycling program changes
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Design

Phone shipping box with label showing a landfill and messaging to promote recycling old phones

Packaging

Shipping box

To minimize the need for more materials to support our design, we decided to urge the customer to reuse the box they receive their new phone in to send their old phone back for recycling.

I designed a wraparound sticker the customer will see immediately on receiving their new phone, and mocked it up in Photoshop.

Inner box for a new Google Pixel phone, opened to show the phone and documents including a pamphlet with the title 'Give your old phone new life', which unfolds to show instructions and a shipping label

Package insert

To make recycling as easy as possible, we included a prepaid shipping label inside a pamphlet that briefly explains the recycling program. I created a mockup of that as well.

Inner box for a new Samsung Galaxy phone, opened to show the phone and documents including a pamphlet with the title 'Give your old phone new life'

Because I believe our design's potential for world-changing impact will come with partnerships to modify the packaging of other Android phones, I also created a mockup of the insert in a Samsung Galaxy box, slightly redesigned to match their corporate branding.

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Updates to Android OS

Copy data and erase flow

To recycle an old phone, the user will first want to transfer its data to the new phone and then delete it from the phone they're mailing in. I created an updated version of this flow in Figma with added messages about recycling.

Animation of transfering data from old to new Google Pixel phone, then doing a factory reset of the old phone, with messaging about recycling on each screen

Learn More screen

To give users ready access to the information they need and want to know about recycling their old phones, I added links from the above flow to an info page I designed that describes the whole program, including the incentive structure developed by my teammates.

Phone screen showing steps to mail in your phone, information about incentive programs, and information about how the phone will be recycled or reused Phone frame

Icons based on art by Noun Project users Weltenraser, Smalllike, Cathy Moser, and Made

Photos by Unsplash users Killian Seiler and Remy Gieling and Pixabay user Bru-nO

Source for data on metal content of cell phones: Larry West, “The Benefits of Cell Phone Recycling,” Treehugger 11/4/2019

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Webpage thanking you for recycling your phone and showing Google services you can try out for free for six months to a year Computer monitor

Incentives program

Rather than providing generic store credit that would encourage purchase of more physical devices and hence more e-waste, we decided to offer long free trial periods for online services.

This screen was created by my teammate Cherise; I just added a monitor/browser frame around it for use in my Figma prototype.

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Next steps

Design revisions

Looking back at this design solution in 2024, there are two major things I would fix:

Excessive pushiness

I added text about the recycling program in seven places within the out-of-box experience, which could annoy users and actually reduce their interest in recycling.

The new paragraph on the "Copy to your new device?" screen should be removed outright; the one on the subsequent "Success" page on the old device should at least be rewritten to be less pushy.

UX for next steps after data transfer completes

Our original design

My updated version

Text telling the user that it's 'time to recycle' their phone, with a button that says 'Erase phone and recycle' Text telling the user that it's safe to erase their data, which will make it safe to recycle the phone, with a button that just says 'Erase phone'

Overly complex icons

Even when first designing the icons for the Learn More page, I was concerned about how much more complex they were than the icons in Google's original design for this flow.

Here I show an example of how an icon could be replaced with the original Google version, and another icon could be simplified to a greater or lesser degree while still being legible.

File transfer icon

Google's version

My version

Icon with two blue arrows pointing toward each other Icon with two phones and an arrow pointing from one to the other

Phone disassembly icon

Original version

Options for revision

Icon with a phone being split in half with two layers inside One icon with simple shapes for a screen, camera, button or microchip, and empty phone shell, and another icon with the top and bottom of a phone separate from the screen
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Flow diagram showing all screens in the redesigned copy-data-and-erase UX, with arrows indicating available user actions to move between screens

Proposal to Google

To move toward implementation, we would need to approach relevant teams at Google with a proposal that would likely include, among other things:

  • A detailed flow diagram for the initial prototype
  • A usability testing plan
  • A description of the business case for the redesign, including:
    • Direct profit from new online service customers
    • Reputation effects due to the sustainability value of increased reuse/recycling
This portfolio is released under a Creative Commons BY SA license.