Problem

Food Runners wanted to educate the public about nutrition, food waste, food security, and sustainability with the belief that through education more people will be encouraged to take small steps of action in the greater goal to end hunger.

There are many possible problems to address within the massive task to educate the public about nutrition, food waste, food security, and sustainability. It was our job to narrow in on the most critical problem and effective solution that Food Runners could implement to educate the public.

My Process

Our team of 3 UX designers started the project together, but extenuating circumstances led to my continuing the process alone in order to meet the project deadline.

I led team brainstorms, discussions, and meetings; designed the product vision; created the user flow and all final designs; built prototypes; ran user testing; and finalized product iterations.

1.

Dissect Problem

broke down suggested topics of public education: sustainability, food security, nutrition, and food waste.
2.

Surveys

Circulated two surveys to acquire information on how people learn about and behave when interacting with each of the four topics.
3.

Interviews

Survey results indicated most people are wasting food, so we hit the streets to talk to the general public about food waste.
4.

Persona & scenario

Through information learned in the interviews we developed a primary user persona, Mariah. She plans for meals and buys groceries accordingly, but then as the week progresses a planned meal does not get made and those ingredients end up going bad and getting tossed.
5.

MVP & Feature Prioritization

I led our team to an MVP of food preservation with thoughtful and analytical discussions our team preceded with a solution that met Mariah where she was, was efficient, and reduced food waste.
6.

Design Ideation

I led our team in design studios of rapid sketching, discussion & critique, merging and purging ideas, and repeated the process until we landed on a food preservation design concept and features that would solve Mariah’s problem.
7.

Team Hiccup

With the deadline approaching, and my team occupied elsewhere, I proceeded in the design process solo.
8.

User Flow

I took the lead in creating a user flow to map out how Mariah would move through the app, and produced a digital user flow with Sketch.
9.

Paper prototype & testing

I tested our design on users with index cards, which allowed for immediate feedback and quick iterations.
10.

Wireframes & prototype

With the usability testing insights applied I moved our paper design into digital format using Sketch, and then produced an interactive prototype with InVision.

Solution

After conducting user research it became our goal to design a solution to educate the public on food waste, and it was determined that our primary user would most benefit from a food preservation product. With our solution a person can learn about and take action to appropriately preserve foods so as to not waste or discard them unnecessarily.

UX Researcher & Designer

(and I coded this here website)

Preserve It

Preserve It

- Mobile app design -

Scope

Food Runners is a leader in the effort to keep edible food from being discarded by getting it into the hands of the hungry. Now Food Runners wants to focus on educating the public so more people can take small steps of action to end hunger.

2 Weeks

3-person team

Primary Skills Used

User Research

Data Synthesis

Usability Testing

Prototyping

Problem

Survey data (left), Persona (right).

Data results from 100 surveys.

Persona developed from user research.

My Process

1.

Dissect Problem

broke down suggested topics of public education: sustainability, food security, nutrition, and food waste.

2.

Surveys

Circulated two surveys to acquire information on how people learn about and behave when interacting with each of the four topics.

3.

Interviews

Survey results indicated most people are wasting food, so we hit the streets to talk to the general public about food waste.

4.

Persona & scenario

Through information learned in the interviews we developed a primary user persona, Mariah. She plans for meals and buys groceries accordingly, but then as the week progresses a planned meal does not get made and those ingredients end up going bad and getting tossed.

5.

MVP & Feature Prioritization

I led our team to an MVP of food preservation with thoughtful and analytical discussions our team preceded with a solution that met Mariah where she was, was efficient, and reduced food waste.

6.

Design Ideation

I led our team in design studios of rapid sketching, discussion & critique, merging and purging ideas, and repeated the process until we landed on a food preservation design concept and features that would solve Mariah’s problem.

7.

Team Hiccup

With the deadline approaching, and my team occupied elsewhere, I proceeded in the design process solo.

8.

User Flow

I took the lead in creating a user flow to map out how Mariah would move through the app, and produced a digital user flow with Sketch.

9.

Paper prototype & testing

I tested our design on users with index cards, which allowed for immediate feedback and quick iterations.

10.

Wireframes & prototype

With the usability testing insights applied I moved our paper design into digital format using Sketch, and then produced an interactive prototype with InVision.

Persona's scenario (left), Persona's user flow (right).

Persona's scenario.

Persona's user flow.

Solution

Preserve It mock-up screens with Sketch.

Marvel made interactive prototype.