Food waste is a huge problem, with over $14 billion dollars of food being wasted in Canada per year! Why does it happen and what can we do about it?
Team Members: Yasmine Ayash, Kaitlin Russell, Karine Zahabi and Javad Hakimpanah
Tools Used: Miro, Figma, FigJam, Google Forms
Timeline: 3 Weeks
This app was designed from scratch as a project for a UX/UI Bootcamp at the University of Toronto. We were put on teams and had to pitch concepts, do user research and analysis, iterate, and finally present our completed designs. We decided to create an app that would prevent food waste by helping people use up ingredients already in their fridge.
Once we had our concept, we completed 5 one-on-one interviews and one survey which received 88 responses. Our first goal was to uncover users’ food shopping patterns and habits and get insight into what reasons there might be behind any food waste, if any. Our second goal was seeing what strategies people already use to prevent food waste. From this raw data, we created a user persona to guide the rest of our delveopment process.
89% of respondents take 1-8 trips to the grocery store in a month
"Whoever is out does the food shopping, but we only do it once or twice a week."
84% of respondents were interested in receiving tips on how to store food properly
“It’s mostly the vegetables that go bad quick, I had planned to cook them but didn't find the time to.”
50% of respondents said that their food spoils in their fridge because it’s forgotten about
“My fridge is disorganized, if I don’t see something I forget about it and it goes to waste.”
Motion Designer, 29 Years Old, Toronto
Sari is a busy designer who lives with a flatmate in the city. He works remotely but still goes to the office for his meetings. He buys his groceries on the go, mostly on his way back home. He likes to cook so he often buys groceries to make sure he has them when he needs them but gets frustrated about throwing them out because he couldn’t find the time to make meals.
During the definition stage, we want to focus in on our user’s main problem, as well as any surprising insights we gathered from our research.
“We believe that tracking food spoilage in your fridge and purchase patterns for on-the-go, busy young professionals, will prevent unnecessary trips to the grocery store, saving not only time and money, but also reducing food waste. How might we help users maximize the use of their purchased items?”
- Interviewees did not respond well to language centered around "wastefulness"
- The main motivation for interviewees was saving money
- Often looked for food freshness tips on social media like Instagram or Facebook
- Expiry dates play a big role in shopping choices
Now we want to finalize our features and compare our concept to other apps on the market. After brainstorming, we prioritized our ideas for features with a matrix. Then, we checked out some existing apps, noticing where there were gaps in their functionality and taking the opportunity to create a more complete interface.
We decided that our most important features were: an inventory of current items in the fridge, a recipe suggester, storage tips, a way to share ingredients with friends, and food expiry alerts.
Now, in the final stage, we will brainstorm interfaces with sketches, develop and deploy a testing plan, and apply iOS assets to our finalized design.
Task 1: Find a recipe that uses available ingredients
The recipe page had multiple items which confused users, so we streamlined the page.
Task 2: Add an item to your grocery list
The page was fairly straightforward, the floating add button was intuitive.
Task 3: Give away an item
There was confusion over "Food Friends" and "Fridge Buddies" phrasing, so we edited and made sure it was consistent.
