A smart way to reduce food waste
Project Overview
Wisely is a mobile application that helps users reduce food waste. Wisely provides useful tips on food storage, and helps users keep track of their fruits & vegetables.
My Role
I conducted user research, led user interviews and ideation sessions, gathered insights, created journey maps and user flow diagrams, and created wireframes. I ran multiple iterations based on user testing and designed high fidelity prototypes.
Challenge
How might we help people live a more sustainable life by reducing food waste on the consumer level?
I devised a design process to help me achieve my objectives. I divided the process into three main phases: Research, Plan & Frame [Analysis], and Create and Iterate. Each phase is further divided into activities that help me reach my final design solution.
01 - Discover
Understanding the problem
North America has the highest number of per capita food losses and waste. Household waste is responsible for the significant portion of all food waste in comparison to other regions. ReFED estimates
US households waste 76 billion pounds of food per year.
In the US, an average person wastes 238 pounds of food per year (21 percent of the food they buy), costing them $1,800 per year.
41%
wasted
Fruits & Vegetables
31%
wasted
Fish &
Sea Food
30%
wasted
Grain &
Cereal
20%
wasted
Meat &
Dairy
Food waste breakdown at consumer level per year in the US
Food waste means wasting water which directly impacts climate!
1 wasted
Apple
250 litres
of water
01 - Discover
User Interviews
Goals
Discover the main reasons behind food waste
Find out if people understand the significance of this issue and want to solve it
Investigate methods people use to avoid food waste currently
Determine if people are looking for more effective solutions
Participants
5 participants
Face to face interviews
10-15 questions
2 Students, 3 Working Professionals
1 lives with family, 4 live in shared apartments
Insights
About two-thirds of food waste at home is due to improper storage, and thus, food goes bad before it's used.
People buy more food than they need. They refrigerate most of it and then forget about it.
Participants said that they feel bad when they have to throw away food. They are motivated to prevent waste, but their fast-paced lives don't allow them to actually find solutions.
Participants did not know which items to freeze, refrigerate, or store at room temperature to keep fresh for the longest.
Participants showed interest in reducing trash through recycling and compost, but don't seem to realize that compost is just another form of waste.
01 - Discover
Market Research
To find out what's currently available, we looked into the most popular food waste solutions. I found four major mobile applications: No Waste, FoodCloud, Olio, and Giki. These applications use innovative ideas to reduce food waste on both consumer and commercial levels, such as at grocery stores and restaurants.
No Waste helps users reduce food waste by reminding them when food will expire by simply scanning barcode & receipt.
FoodCloud is a social enterprise that connects businesses with surplus food to charities in their local communities that need it via a software platform.
Olio helps to connect neighbors and local retailers so surplus food can be shared and not disposed of.
Giki enables users to track how healthy, sustainable and ethical the companies you buy from and the products you purchase are.
01 - Discover
Empathy Map
After learning the problems users are facing, we created an empathy map to understand who we are designing for, and what will drive their behaviors.
02- Plan & Frame
Journey Map
In Journey Map we identified possible stages where we can help our users and what are different opportunities.
02- Plan & Frame
Ideation
We conducted different ideation sessions of brainstorming & sketching. It helped bridges the gap between understanding and defining the problem. Insights from our user interviews showed that the reason for food spoilage at the home occurs due to improper storage, partially used ingredients and misjudged food needs. We decided to design an application that can help people in Storage and Consumption.
02- Plan & Frame
User Flow
03- Create & Iterate
Wireframes
03- Create & Iterate
User Testing
Participants: 3
Age: 20 -30
Session Duration: 30-40 minutes
Number of Tasks: 5
Follow up Question: 10
Findings & Insights
Adding items to the consumption tracker is confusing. All the participants had difficulty in understanding the steps. Inputs for the tracker can be made more intuitive and easy.
An ability to add your own tips and share it with the community can have an added value for the users.
03- Create & Iterate
UI Design Elements
Icons from
Google Material Design
Images from
Pexels
Easily find
Food Storage Tips
Track your fruits & veggies
Make Pledges and keep a track of your impact
Next Steps
I continue to work on the project. I am taking the following steps to further improve the project:
-
Usability testing with a diverse set of users
-
Improve input methods for consumption tracker
-
Make storage tips more interactive & useful for everyone