While people intend to eat the food that they make at home, the reality is that busy lifestyles and the monotony of repetitive leftovers often lead to tossing it out and getting food elsewhere despite their good intentions. The idea of sharing food with neighbors is dismissed due to lack of personal connection needed to initiate such a familiar interaction.
A food-sharing app that fosters a sense of comfort and trust, empowering individuals to initiate sharing food within their communities with ease and confidence.
If people are open to the idea of food sharing as a solution, is there a barrier preventing people from acting on it?
To further understand the relationship between grocery shopping habits, and food waste in the home, I conducted a diary study to gather data on behaviors over time.
Participants were influenced by other members of the household's desires to order takeout, diverting from the initial plan to eat at home, leading to tossing out food.
2 out of 4 participants tossed food because they were tired of eating it after multiple days.
1 participant accepted food shared with them by a family member, which they did not eat and ultimately tossed. This was a red flag to pay attention to...
Using the data uncovered in the diary study to direct my interview guide, I interviewed 5 of the diary study participants.
Despite intending to save money by eating at home, when faced with leftovers from they night before, they don't want it.
Busy schedules often thwart intentions as groceries bought with the plan to prepare meals at home go unused when individuals are away.
People like sharing food with people they know and trust, but hesitate to initiate this kind of interaction with people they don't know.
In the moments when people are experiencing the pain points of busy lifestyles or meal monotony, the idea of sharing food with neighbors has crossed the minds of the participants, but they don't act on it. People don't feel that they know others well enough in their community to initiate an offer to share food with them.
People who want to cook and eat the food they buy, need a solution for when busy schedules or lack of interest in their meals get in the way, so that they can avoid the frustration of food waste while still striving to meet their goals of eating at home for health or financial reasons.
→ HMW facilitate trusting connections within communities so that people can help each other waste less food?
→ HMW support people who intend to have meals at home but have busy schedules that keep them away, leading to throwing out food?
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HMW help people who want to eat at home avoid meal monotony so that they can have more meal variety?
Narrowing down the goals, needs, pain points, behaviors, & motivations from the data led me to identifying two personas outlining 2 underlying frustrations with the overarching hurdle of hesitancy to share food with others.
User Persona 1 (click to enlarge image)
User Persona 2 (click to enlarge image)
Coming out of research, it was apparent that a potential solution of food sharing could address the problems that were being experienced by Annie and Zack, so I jumped into brainstorming features for the MVP (most valuable product) that would be needed such as:
Virtually all of the critical features identified are interwoven together. I now needed to map out the user flow of key flows to ensure each step of the experience was considered.
Task Flow 1 (click to enlarge image)
Task Flow 2 (click to enlarge image)
Task Flow 3 (click to enlarge image)
Now, I wanted to take a closer look at companies that are in the sharing/selling space to see what I could learn before entering the design phase.
Olio is a local sharing app that allows users to post items (food and beyond) to give away, lend, or sell. While this is a great concept, opening up the items to be shared beyond food could cause hesitancy around some picky food eaters. The app also includes a feature where you can set goals as well as a forum to chat with Olio users nationwide. I wondered if there would be value in having a more narrowed focus.
Too Good To Go connects users to restaurants to purchase 'surprise bags' consisting of food items that the store would have tossed at the end of the day. The process of requesting a surprise bag on this app is very straightforward flow, allowing busy people to participate without feeling like it is a time commitment. There could certainly be an opportunity here.
I liked how Too Good To Go gives users the option of browsing items nearby via list & map view. The individual item screens arrange the content so that my eye is immediately drawn to the most important information first.
Olio's design for adding an item to share with the community lacked context for me. I felt like the 'quantity' section with the options for answers might not pertain to all potential items that a user might add.
Nextdoor serves as a platform for neighbors to connect, share information, and engage in item sales. The app has faced criticism for the prevalence of negative speech across the platform. While it is a great product to connect community members, there might be an opportunity as I enter the design phase streamline the path to users meeting their goals by minimizing the opportunity for distractions as seen on this app.
Buy Nothing app promotes a cyclical economy, allowing users to share unwanted items that might be treasures for others. While some communities actively use the app, others opt for a presence on Facebook. Clearly there is not a strong incentive to use the app since the user's goals can be fulfilled through using an alternative platform, resulting in a distinct brand identity.
Facebook Marketplace operates as an integrated platform within Facebook, leveraging its extensive user base for buying & selling items. The inherent trust in this platform is partly due to users being able to view profiles of buyers & sellers, and seeing if they have mutual friends, likely contributing to an increase in trust. Facebook Marketplace has strict guidelines regarding item listings which is something to think about when proceeding into design. Given the significant of food and its consumption, authenticity in posted content is vital to aligning expectations.
This led me to create a feature roadmap that I iterated over the course of my design process.
What started off as a navigation map turned into more of a combination between a nav map and app structure map. This hybrid deliverable helped me not only lay out what screens should belong where, but also helped me to think about how to navigate between the screens and content.
App structure map (click to enlarge image)
Now was time to begin sketching out key screens for the design. Laying out the sketches to create a wireflow was helpful in bringing myself through the flow from the user's perspective.
Low-fidelity wireframes (click to enlarge image)
Due to time constraints, I wanted to test early to receive feedback and discover any issues related to accessibility, app structure & UI, as well as determine whether there are any gaps in the flows or the features selected to include in the MVP.
I tested out the following flows with 3 participants:
Users felt the social stories led to a cluttered visual design
Navigation tabs made it unclear how to find share activity
High-fidelity wireframes (click to enlarge image)
I facilitated 3 moderated usability tests to test out the revisions made based on the mid-fi usability testing, as well as receive feedback on the visual design and determine if there were any remaining issues related to accessibility.
I tested out the following flows with 3 participants:
The participants commented on the branding feeling welcoming and friendly, particularly the illustrations. They felt the flows were intuitive and how it felt like other apps they are used to using on a regular basis. This time around, participants arrived on the 'Shares' tab (formerly named 'Activity') and found the content housed in this area of the app in line with their expectations.
Despite the fact that the stories feature was not included in mid-fidelity testing, I decided to add the feature back into the design as it is critical to distinguishing this products from the competition. A flow of users interacting with this feature as well as the other revised aspects would need to be tested.
The design and testing phase of this project fell under a tight deadline, so I made an impulse decision to remove the social stories based on feedback after mid-fi testing. I decided to add the feature back into the design after high-fi testing as it is critical to distinguishing this products from the competition. A flow of users interacting with this feature as well as the other revised aspects would need to be tested.
This project really highlighted the importance of checking that all design decisions are tied back to user goals, even when a user provides feedback that presents itself as a quick fix!
Inspired by the positive feedback from participants, I've decided to pursue this project and make it a reality. More details coming soon :)
