Overview

Exploring the problem space of reducing food waste, I designed an app with my group, that allows users to scan items on their grocery receipt and track their food’s expiration date. On this page I will only be displaying the work that I was responsible for in the group.

Duration:
Role:
Tools:
Jan 2021
Lead Designer
Figma, Adobe Illustrator

Problem Space

Food waste is a major issue around the globe that is not talked about as often as it should. Nearly half of all the food that is produced worldwide is wasted and this costs industrialized countries more than $600 billion dollars.

HMW

How might we help individuals or organizations, reduce their food waste using digital technology?

Research

The first step in tackling this problem space was to start asking questions. With my group I brainstormed a series of interview questions that we could ask our families, friends, and classmates. The goal of these interviews was to narrow down a specific area in our problem space that we would focus our digital solution on. Below are the results of my two interviews.

Key Findings

The interviews were very insightful and revealed some of the main reasons why food goes to waste in our participant’s households. Below are some key findings and themes that we gathered from the interviews.

Pain Points
  • Buying too much of something at expires soon
  • Buying too much on weekends and not using them throughout the week
  • Forgetting when the expiration date is
  • Shopping during the COVID pandemic
Motivations
  • Buying locally and not from a large chain
  • Buying fresh food at a good price
  • Being environmentally friendly by discarding wasted food properly
  • Trying not to waste any food and using it before the expiration date
Behaviours
  • Spending $100 - $300 a week depending on the number of people in the household
  • Buying based on how fresh the food is
  • Discarding food in a compost bin or garburator
  • Always discarding some food at the end of the week

Persona

With all of the data that we collected from the interviews, our team brainstormed on the type of audience we would target with our digital solution. We then formulated a persona based on our findings.

This is Sam. She is married and has two kids. Every week, she’s confronted with planning the week’s meals, and buying and storing the ingredients.  At the end of every week, she almost always has to throw some of her food away. This is a major frustration and costs her lots of money when added up.

Sam

Age: 35
City: Vancouver, BC
Occupation: Accountant
Goals:
  • To reduce her amount of food waste
  • To know when the items in her fridge and pantry are going to expire
Frustrations:
  • Having to throw out unused food at the end of the week
  • Not remembering when her food is about to expire
  • Wasting money on food that gets thrown out

Task Flow

With Sam’s goals and frustrations in mind, my group and I came up with a user flow which highlighted the key touchstones while navigating our app.

Sketches

As a group, we all contributed some lo-fi sketches that related to the task flow shown above. We then put all the sketches together and decided on which elements we liked the best. Below are the sketches that I made. Some aspects of my design were included in the final prototype, such as the top and bottom navigation bar, the bottom menu, and the layout of the items. We used aspects from every group member's lo-fi sketches in our final prototype.

Lo-Fi Prototype

After narrowing down the sketches that we liked, my design partner, Vanessa, and I started transforming our sketches into lo-fi prototypes. Our idea was to provide grocery shoppers with a virtual pantry that would allow them to keep track the expiry date of their food so that it doesn't go to waste.

Prototype Link

Hi-Fi Prototype

After our research members conducted a round of user testing with 5 participants, they showed me and Vanessa the results. We then made the necessary changes to the prototype based on the feedback we received. We also gave our app a visual identity, which I will display further down on this page.

Prototype Link
Scan a Receipt
After a trip to the grocery store, users can scan their receipt and FoodTracker will manually upload all of the items to their pantry within seconds.
Use an Item
On the calendar page, users can see which items are going to expire within the next few days. This will prevent them from wasting their food. By pressing on an item, they can see the expiry date as well as the price they paid. Within this view they can either use or discard the item.
Use an Item
On the calendar page, users can see which items are going to expire within the next few days. This will prevent them from wasting their food. By pressing on an item, they can see the expiry date as well as the price they paid. Within this view they can either use or discard the item.
Discard an Item
If an item was not used before its expiry date, users will have to discard that item unfortunately.

Visual Identity

When trying to conceptualize a visual identity for our app, my group and I started to come up with words that we thought best represented out app. Below are a list of adjectives that we came up with to help us with our visual identity.

• Organized
• Natural
• Clean
• Healthy

These words that my group and I brainstormed helped us in visualizing the look and feel of our app. Our next step was to gather some images and inspiration that would

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