Reducing Food Waste
Overview
We were assigned of designing a mobile-responsive website centered around social impact. My team and I refined our focus to crafting a platform dedicated to assisting mindful consumers in minimizing food waste within their households.
My Role
Within my team of three, my role centered on UX research and comprehensive UI design. My primary focus encompassed enhancing the user experience (UX) and crafting the user interface (UI) for the website. My tasks spanned from conducting user interviews, analyzing outcomes, and crafting user personas and journeys, to guiding the design process from initial sketches through to the final prototype.
Tools
Methods used
User Interviews, Affinity Map, User Persona, User Journey, User Flow, App Flow, Site Map, Problem Statement, Feature Prioritization, Sketching & Design Studio, Prototyping & Iterating, Usability Testing
The Challenge
Our goal was to design a mobile-responsive website that serves as a platform for conscious consumers, enabling them to effectively reduce food waste within their homes while fostering a strong sense of social impact. The solution should seamlessly integrate user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design elements to create an engaging and user-friendly platform that empowers users to make informed decisions, take actionable steps, and contribute to a more sustainable future.
What was causing problems?
With the global issue of food waste comes the opportunity for significant improvements in preparing and supporting consumers with the knowledge and tools necessary to combat these challenges. At the consumer level, a lack of awareness, improper meal planning, and misconceptions about expiration dates lead to substantial food wastage in households.
How might we offer a comprehensive solution that empowers conscious consumers by providing resources and strategies to reduce their food waste?
Design Process
Empathize
Interviewing consumers about their goals
In order to initiate data collection, we recognized the importance of directly engaging with users to understand their overall experience with food waste. To achieve this, we crafted a screening survey aimed at selecting interview participants based on specific criteria.
Individuals who predominantly
prepare their meals at home.
Regular buyers of fresh
produce and perishable goods.
What were participants really saying?
By using affinity mapping, we saw repeated patterns in the information we collected about how users deal with food waste. This helped us organize and understand the data better. Then, we turned the important findings into clear categories to guide how we will design our website.
Define
Who are we designing for?
We found it important to use our research findings, along with the challenges and goals of our interview participants, to create a persona.
This persona became a helpful way to remind us of who the user will be.
From shopping to throwing away
We charted the journey our persona would undertake, tracing his actions from shopping to the point of food waste. This process revealed pain points, frustrations, and emotional encounters at each stage. By identifying these challenges, we gained insights into what aspects to address when seeking a suitable solution.
Ideate
What are the features the product needs?
With the insights we gathered from the research phase up to the ideation stage, we began to contemplate the crucial features that are indispensable in the product design process.
Design
Designing the Product
During the design studio sessions, we created rough sketches of proposals that integrated our features. This allowed us to exchange ideas, collaborate on refining design systems, UI elements, user flows, and more, and offer feedback on which concepts would progress to the next round of ideation within the design studio.
Following this initial brainstorming, we advanced to the development of a Mid-Fi prototype.
User Interface
Before embarking on the creation of the High-Fidelity Prototype, I made several design decisions to ensure a cohesive and visually appealing user experience. I carefully selected a very simple color palette that not only resonates with the brand's identity but also contributes to an intuitive and engaging design layout.
High-Fidelity Prototype & App Flow
Before developing a high-fidelity prototype, we conducted an initial round of usability testing. Based on the valuable feedback gathered, we refined the design to create an enhanced version, integrating essential modifications, and supplemented it with a comprehensive style guide, images, and UX writing taxonomy.
Test
Testing “Saverie” with potential users
To assess the usefulness of our product to users, we conducted two rounds of usability testing involving a total of 5 users. During these sessions, we obtained feedback on mid-fidelity designs and implemented revisions to address any problem areas for our hi-fidelity design.
Here are some significant numbers of changes we had when comparing round 1 and round 2:
In addition
The Saverie App
In addition to the progress I've made in my current role, I'm excited about the possibility of developing an innovative app to complement our existing product. This app would serve as a user-friendly platform, seamlessly connecting conscious consumers with practical tools to reduce food waste.
It would provide features such as personalized meal planning, real-time inventory tracking, and expert tips to empower users on their journey toward waste reduction.
Other Projects
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Roamefy, is a trip planning tool to help travelers plan their trips within seconds. Trip planning takes hours of research and browsing lots of different resources, Roamefy simplifies this by generating a curated travel itinerary based on traveler preferences. Take a look at the solution.