Avoiding Food Waste at Homes
The real-world problem for my project was food waste at homes. In partnership with the head of the University of the Arts London’s digital team, I was part of an ambitious project with the purpose of designing an app to avoid food waste at home aiming to have healthier families.
To comply with my non-disclosure agreement I have omitted confidential information related to ual. All the information in this project is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of ual.
The challenge –
Limiting food waste at home in 6 weeks
Our goal for the project was to limit the food waste of families at home.
Our ambitions were to create a digital solution used by families that monitors their food waste.
My role
I designed ‘What to Cook’ app between September 2018 and October 2018.
This mobile app was the result of a project I developed throughout an online course of 6 weeks at the University of the Arts London (UAL) through multiple phases of user experience design, from understanding and empathizing with users through users' journey map and personas, to flow map and prototypes.
Kickoff -
The design approach
After running background research on food waste at homes, I conducted a survey on six families of two to six members each.
This study goals were:
1. To evaluate the quantity of food wasted at homes.
2. To know the reasons behind this waste.
I have used the below UX tool (post-it) to organize the survey results and properly deduct my conclusions.
Post-it UX tool for data collection from survey. Photograph taken by me.
The discovery
My findings have led me to discover that:
1. Families who do not have a stable routine and a stable amount of people to feed, waste more food.
2. Families who cook before finishing leftovers waste more food.
3. Most families are in a hurry and don't have time to use cooking scales; Instead, they randomly cook which can increase their food waste.
Synthesis -
Developing customers’ journey map
As a further step, I used the results of my findings to develop customers' journey map, users' personas, storyboards, flow maps, and low-fidelity/ high-fidelity prototypes.
User’s persona
This lead to my formulation of the question:
“ How might we improve the experience of limiting food waste for families at homes while being healthy? ”
Interaction design -
Site Map
I developed a site map and a user flow diagram to showcase potential user interactions with my food app, including user log in, the questionnaire, create profile and other sections.
Site map designed by me on Adobe XD.
Initial wireframes -
Sketches
I developed rough sketches wireframes of how my app would look like. Many frames were changed and redeveloped on a later stage.
Introducing ‘What To Cook’
App interface designs done by me on Adobe Sketch.
The Impact -
Satisfying feedback
The overall feedback was rewarding. The users who tested my app were very happy with the overall brand identity (colors, fonts etc..) and experience. They added that the experience of surfing in the app was very smooth and user friendly in terms of monitoring their food waste at home.