Design Criteria Smart Environments - bounswe/bounswe2025group5 GitHub Wiki

Projects should aim for accessible, inclusive smart environments that foster cooperation and community impact.

“Smart” means responsive, adaptive, and people-centered, not simply automated.

Inclusive Design

The principle refers to design for the widest possible range of users across ability, language, culture, age, and background. It also favors solutions usable without special adaptation.

In our project requirements:

  • We allow user account creation and customization, and unregistered users to have limited access. This supports inclusivity by allowing flexible levels of participation and personalization. (Requirement 1.1.1.1, 1.1.1.6, 1.1.1.7, and 1.1.1.10)

  • We ensure even the unregistered users to be able to benefit from community content, broadening inclusivity across engagement levels. (Requirement 1.1.1.10)

  • Waste tracking with charts and bar graphs supports multiple modes of understanding, including historical data to show the progress, aiding users with different cognitive styles. (Requirement 1.1.2.4, 1.1.2.5, 1.2.2.1, 1.2.2.3)

It is possible to include multi-language support for posts, notifications, and the UI so that the app accommodates diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds.

Valuing Contributions

This principle requires to recognize and highlight positive contributions, provide feedback loops, and encourage participation through visible impact and recognition.

In our project requirements:

  • We provide users to like and add comments to posts to provide immediate feedback loops that validate contributions. (Requirement 1.1.4.6, 1.1.4.7)

  • Gamification and reward system endure user achievements to be visibly recognized. (Requirement 1.1.3.2, 1.2.3.2, 1.2.3.4)

  • We display rankings and different leaderboards, gives public acknowledgment to top contributors and motivates participation. (Requirement 1.2.3.1, 1.2.3.5, 1.2.3.6)

  • Waste reduction statistics on the profile let users see and showcase their personal impact. (Requirement 1.1.1.6, 1.2.2.2)

It is possible to introduce a “impact tracker” (e.g., showing how many people engaged with a post or were inspired by a tip) to make users feel their input has wider value.

Community Health & Encouraging Dynamics

This principle aims fostering collaboration and constructive dialogue, encouraging diverse participation and respect, and discouraging monopolization of discussions or resources.

In our project requirements:

  • Posts and comments provide spaces for constructive dialogue and knowledge sharing. (Requirement 1.1.4.1, 1.1.4.7)

  • Country-specific leaderboards prevent domination by users from regions with different waste-management policies, supporting fairness and diversity. (Requirement 1.2.3.5)

It is possible to add simple guidelines like short reminders about respectful communication or automatic prompts discouraging spam posting to provide respectful interaction.

It is possible to implement an Inline Comment Assistant that gently pops up a non-blocking reminder (e.g., "Remember to be respectful and constructive!") if a user is typing a comment that contains certain high-intensity or negative language, promoting a healthier tone before submission. Or just a friendly reminder that is not dynamic that always says for example:"Be healty also in your language"

Detecting & Responding to Harmful Behavior

This principle requires mechanisms to identify harmful patterns, enable reporting, and ensure fair resolution of conflicts.

In our project requirements:

  • Users can report inappropriate content, and moderators can delete posts if necessary. (Requirement 1.1.4.3, 1.1.4.4)

  • Fraud prevention ensures fairness in leaderboards by avoiding duplicate or misleading waste logs. (Requirement 2.1.4.1)

It is possible to add automated detection (e.g., filters for offensive keywords or spam) to support moderators and reduce harmful activity more effectively.

Visibility of Community Impact

This principle requires making community-wide progress visible and showing how individual contributions shape collective outcomes.

In our project requirements:

  • Waste reduction analytics and visual reports show both individual and collective progress over time. (Requirement 1.1.2.4, 1.1.2.5, 1.2.2.1, 1.2.2.2, 1.2.2.3)

  • Leaderboards highlight achievements of the top contributors, reinforcing the community impact. (Requirement 1.2.3.1, 1.2.3.5, 1.2.3.6)

It is possible to add a shared dashboard that aggregates community-wide results (e.g., “Together we reduced 100kg of waste this month”) to increase collective motivation.

Design Patterns

This principle emphasizes adaptive interfaces, collaborative intelligence, inclusive visualization, and community analytics to improve collective benefit.

In our project requirements:

  • Real-time waste tracking and batch data entry provide adaptive interfaces responsive to user needs. (Requirement 2.1.3.1, 2.1.3.2)

  • Semantic search helps surface relevant content and collective intelligence. (Requirement 1.2.5.3)

  • Graphs and charts for waste reduction progress are inclusive visualizations. (Requirement 1.1.2.5, 1.2.2.3, 2.1.2.3)

  • Leaderboards and achievement badges serve as community analytics, surfacing both strengths and areas of improvement. (Requirement 1.2.3.1, 1.2.3.2, 1.2.3.6)

It is possible to introduce alternative modalities (e.g., color-blind friendly mode, audio summaries of analytics, vibration/haptic notifications on the mobile app) to further improve accessibility for different user groups.