UX Case Study: Food Sustainability — Connecting Producers With Users
Project 1 @ Ironhack São Paulo
The first project at Ironhack’s UX/UI Design Bootcamp inspired us to solve a wicked problem in just 5 days. The challenge consisted of going through the first 3 phases of the Design Thinking Double Diamond process:
- DISCOVER: picking a wicked problem and performing quantitative & qualitative research to empathize with the users;
- DEFINE: gathering insights based on the previous research and detecting the main pain points for the users;
- DEVELOP: diving into divergent thinking to ideate possible solutions, picking a solution and designing it to present in a 10min pitch.
Phase 1: Discover
DIVERGING: Introduction, Rip the Brief, Quantitative and Qualitative Research
Step 1: Team Intro
A couple of hours into the first morning of the Bootcamp, the class was divided into random teams of 3/4 people.
I was partnered with Bruno Araújo, a language nerd, and Danilo, a cheese bread specialist — who ended up being the most wicked partners.. in the best possible way!
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Step 2: Ripping the Brief
Our challenge was to solve a wicked problem. But… what exactly is that?
A wicked problem is “… a class of social system problems which are ill-formulated, where the information is confusing, where there are many clients and decision-makers with conflicting values, and where the ramifications in the whole system are thoroughly confusing.”
We had 10 minutes to pick one of the wicked problems suggested by Ironhack — and we quickly decided to go for Food Sustainability.
Why? Because even though there has been a rise in consciousness in regards to good nutrition and fair consumption, organic food is not yet accessible to everyone, and the current models are unsustainable. So, our challenge was:
How might we help communities access the seasonal produce of their region, fueling fair and honest relationships between producers and customers?
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Step 3: Quantitative Research (Survey Canvas & Google Form)
To ensure we were solving a problem that actually exists in people’s lives, we had to empathize with these people. So, we decided to conduct user research.
User research is the process of understanding who your user is (what their needs, goals, and motivations are) in order to help uncover the problems they have.
We started by filling out a Survey Canvas to help us structure what information we wanted to learn, who we needed to learn from, what we already knew and exactly what questions we needed answers to.
We decided to focus on young people who live in São Paulo, who buy/cook their own food and who are financially independent. To gather more insights, we decided to dive into quantitative research.
In quantitative methods such as surveys, analytics, and formal experiments, the researcher seeks to measure aspects of users and user behavior in a way that can be quantified and used for statistical analysis.
We created an exploratory survey using Google Forms (click here to view it) and shared it on different platforms. By the end of the first day, we had obtained 14 valid responses and a whole lot of data:
- 77% of respondents are aged between 26 and 35;
- 62,5% of respondents prefer to shop at supermarkets;
- 69,2% of respondents believe organic products are more expensive;
- 92,3% of respondents frequently use food delivery apps;
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Step 4: Qualitative Research (GOOB — Go Out Of the Building)
Even though we knew that most of our users preferred to shop at supermarkets, we consciously decided to flip the coin and go out of the building to conduct qualitative research at an organic street market.
Qualitative methods such as interviews and field studies are often more exploratory and seek to get a more in-depth understanding of the individual users’ or user group’s experiences, motivations, and everyday lives.
We planned an interview guide in order to understand the user’s relationship with organic produce as well as their shopping habits.
Some of the questions included ‘how can you identify an organic product?’, ‘what exactly do you look for when searching for vegetables or fruit’, ‘how do you plan your shopping?’ and ‘what are the biggest struggles you face during your shopping experience?’.
We then hit the market and ended up interviewing 6 people. We took no more than 5 minutes with each and managed to get much deeper insights.
Phase 2: Define
CONVERGING: Insights, Theories & Opportunities - Affinity Diagram, HMW’s, Empathy Map, User Personas, Storyboards, User Journeys
Step 1: Affinity diagram
The insights collected from the quantitative & qualitative research were so complex and diverse that we decided to use a visual tool to analyze them and find connections. For that, we used the Affinity Diagram.
An Affinity Diagram is a method used to cluster findings so that you can physically see trends and relationships in data.
We went through all of our research notes and wrote all the insights down on separate post-its. We then headed towards a big empty wall and started organizing the post-its by profile, consumption habits, preferences, etc…
By the end of it, we arrived at a series of mind-boggling conclusions, which helped us truly understand our users' pains.
Our users want more information about the products, more convenience in accessing them and specially a lot more transparency in regards to their origins.
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Step 2: HMW statements (How Might We)
As we were finally visualizing all the data, we started to get bogged down with all the info. That’s when we decided to have a go at HMW statements.
“How Might We” (HMW) statements are short statements that start with the phrase “How might we…” and end with an opportunity. HMW statements were developed to quickly turn problems into opportunities.
We started by using a silent voting technique where all members of the group voted for the most useful insights on the Affinity Diagram. We then discussed these insights, why we considered them relevant and how they connected.
Based on this, we generated, together, a bunch of HMW statements. We posted them on the wall so that everyone could see, then we read them out loud and again, silently voted on the one(s) we felt should be prioritized.
This was a great way to measure our team’s temperature and open some conversations. We discussed our choices again, we found links between them and by the end of it, we chose one piece of the problem to focus on.
How Might We help millenials build a trust relationship with the origins of the product?
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Step 3: Empathy map
At this point, we wanted to reach an empathy level where we could look at the world through our user’s eyes. To do so, we created an empathy map.
An Empathy Map is a method used to synthesize rational and sentimental aspects of our users through their situation, acts, feelings and emotions.
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Step 4: User personas
We now had a better understanding of our users, but we still needed a way to properly showcase them — and that’s when personas came in.
Personas are composite archetypes based on behavior patterns uncovered during the course of our research. They describe demographics, behaviors, and attitudes and should reflect user needs that will translate into product decisions
Meet Ana, our primary persona. She’s 29, a nutritionist, very busy with work and also very passionate about healthy eating. Then meet Maiara, one of our secondary personas. She’s 25, a freelance writer and an activist for planet sustainability. Finally, meet Roberto, another one of our secondary personas. He’s 33, a web developer and wants convenience above all else.
What do they have in common? They are millennials, middle-class, highly educated, tech-savvy, work long hours and don’t have much free time.
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Step 5: Storyboards
To properly visualize Ana’s (our primary persona) story, we decided to create a storyboard illustrating her typical shopping experience.
Storyboards demonstrate user scenarios, allowing us to think about the context in which the product will be used. It encourages critique and is cost-effective.
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Step 6: User journeys
To help us identify Ana’s pain points even better, we decided to create a user journey map. The idea was to find opportunities to make her journey better.
“A customer journey map is a visualization of the process that a person goes through in order to accomplish a goal. It’s used for understanding and addressing customer needs and pain points.” - Nielsen Norman Group
How did we do it? We mapped out Ana’s journey to the supermarket on a typical Saturday morning. We identified her touchpoints, inserted her goals and actions into a timeline and then filled it with her thoughts and emotions.
We concluded that Ana’s biggest frustrations were:
- being stuck in traffic on the way to/from the supermarket plus having to find a spot to park
- facing a supermarket full of people mindlessly shopping
- realizing how little choice there is of organic produce, and how much more expensive it is
- not being able to understand the origins of the products and being confused by the labels
- facing super long queues at check-out, while stressing out with slow workers, loud customers, etc..
- having to carry heavy bags back to her car/apartment
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Step 7: Problem statement
Pointing out Ana’s main frustrations really helped us understand how we could better her experience and ultimately define our problem statement.
A problem statement is a clear and concise description of the issue(s) that need to be addressed by a problem-solving team. They are created based on the pain-points and opportunities you uncovered during the research phase.
Middle-class millenials need a way to buy trustworthy organic products becasue they feel like they can’t rely on lables and can’t find credible information about the products that they consume on a daily basis.
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Step 8: Hypothesis statement
Having defined our problem, it was time to set some hypothesis on the table.
A hypothesis statement is a prediction that can be tested or an educated guess. Designers create these predictions about what they believe will happen in their experiments in order to gather answers to their questions.
To do so, we wrote down a series of hypothesis statements, keeping in mind different aspects of the project, and then used the same silent voting technique we had used before to come up with our final hypothesis:
We believe creating a mobile app for middle-class millenials to connect directly to organic producers will achieve a much more pleasant, trustworthy and convenient shopping experience.
Phase 3: Develop
DIVERGING: Brainstorming, Mindmapping, Ideating and Wireframing
Step 1: Brainstorming
We were now finally ready for the Develop phase of the process — it was time to get our hands dirty and brainstorm our way into a solution!
“Brainstorming means using the brain to storm a creative problem and do so in commando fashion, with each stormer attacking the same objective.” - Alex Osborn
How did we do it? We set a 5-minute timer, picked a pile of post-its and individually allowed ourselves to generate lots of ideas, even crazy stupid ones. Once the time was up, we read our ideas out loud, found some links between them and also laughed at a few... with no judgment… of course.
It was a fun, relaxed and informal process, but by the end of it, we felt immensely overwhelmed… “Where do we go from here?”
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Step 2: Mindmapping
This was where mind mapping came in handy. With so many ideas on the table (on the wall, in this case), we had to figure out what to do with them.
Mind Mapping is a method to visually represent ideas supporting non-linear thinking. It takes the form of a diagram that connects information around a central subject.
Our central subject was “Connection User — Producer”. We picked some ideas from the brainstorming session, grouped them in different categories, had even more ideas, connected the dots and found much deeper meanings.
When we finished, we all agreed that this was our AHHA moment!
It almost felt as if our brains synched and somehow we were able to visualize our solution, as if it was already a thing, right there, in front of our eyes.
This was when “trust the process” (a phrase we’d been hearing all week!) finally made sense. This was when “the process” conquered three new fans!
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Step 3: Ideation — Round Robin
Riding on this creativity (/ telepathy) wave, we decided to pick up some pen & paper and get started with Round Robin, a cool ideation technique.
This “additive ideation” technique allows for a team to work together without wasting time discussing the pros/cons of an idea. This is a fun way to explore where an idea can go and get out of our trained mindset. This is also a great practice for letting go of our designer ego and embracing collaboration.
How did we do it? Each one of us had an A4 sheet of paper folded in 3. In 3 minutes, each one sketched one concept. When the time was up, we passed our paper to the person on our right. In 3 minutes, this person had to expand on our concept — adding to it, questioning it, etc. We passed it on again and then discussed all of our ideas.
This ideation exercise was great to get some obvious solutions out of our heads, start a conversation and bring together all our different perspectives.
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Step 4: Ideation — Lo-Fi Wireframe
It was time to bring all of our best ideas together. We got another piece of paper (the last one, I promise) and together, we ideated our final solution.
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Step 5: Ideation — Mid-fi Wireframe
Once we were confident with our solution, we decided to split tasks. It was the end of day 4 by now and we had to get started with our presentation. So, the boys went on to work on that while I ‘digitalized’ our solution.
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Step 6: Presenting our Solution
Without further ado…
Allow me to introduce you to Produse — a mobile app that uses the power of tech to connect the producer with the user.
The main vision for this app is for it to be a two-way street, benefiting both users and producers by building a trust relationship between them.
— WHAT IS OUR VALUE PROPOSITION?
For users… it will allow them to buy organic products from trust-worthy producers, without the hustle of having to search where to go, drive to a market, read a gazillion labels or carry heavy bags back home. The app will allow them to have a more convenient and pleasant shopping experience while buying fresh organic products and helping out local producers.
For producers… it will allow them to enter the tech world and finally reach a large audience. The app will allow them to connect with consumers and sell ALL of their products — including ‘imperfect’ ones. Producers will not have to deliver or market their products — all of this will be taken care of by the app (we will partner up with existing delivery apps to handle delivery).
— WHAT CAN YOU ACTUALLY DO ON THE APP?
Produse’s home screen allows for searches, filters and visualizing the top featured products. The user can filter by diet, perfection (imperfect would be something like a double-headed apple), proximity, delivery time, etc..
On the bottom navigation menu, the user can click on:
- Cart — recent activity/history, recommended products/ recipes/ producers, track current delivery
- Social — chat with producers, to ask them more about their products, or chat with other customers, to find out what they think about a certain product/ producer, to share experiences or recipes
- Profile — logout, edit account settings, see favorite products/ recipes/ producers and view recent activity
On the top-left hamburger menu, the user can access all the navigation menu items plus read the blog (with recipes), search for events (organized by our producers), and get to know our producers.
On this last one, the user will be able to chat with producers, visit their profile page, watch an intro video about them, see some behind-the-scenes photos of their production, view their location, read previous customer reviews and access the products they sell (including kits and bundles)!
— WHAT NEXT?
In terms of next steps, there are at least a million… but these are the main ones we identified: finishing the UX/UI process and then passing it onto development, looking for organic producers to partner up and structure our service, and looking for delivery partners to structure the delivery logistics.
Produse is a tech-for-good mobile app that will change the way we shop — making organic products more accessible while supporting local farmers.
Final Considerations
What did I find from the project?
I found this project to be open enough to allow for creativity and focused enough to offer guidance. It was great to apply every single lesson to the project and actually see the impact that every single step had on it. Even though it was a crazy intense week, for various reasons (new country/people/ routine), I really enjoyed the ‘learning by doing’ approach to it all!
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What would I have done differently?
In hindsight, there are a few things I’d do differently if only we had had the knowledge and/or the time. I believe we should’ve researched the market before diving into user research. It would’ve been important to find out more about the market in Brazil, how relevant it is and who’s taking part in it.
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What struggles did we have?
I think the biggest struggle we had was accidentally falling in love with a solution on our first meeting, before even identifying the problem. It was hard to let go for the first couple of days, but we kept following & trusting the process… and eventually fell in love with the problem instead.
The second biggest struggle was while interviewing, as we were almost kicked out of the street market by an angry seller who thought we were trying to steal her clients… not a great start to our research but we figured it out!
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What did I learn?
I learned that research only works if you’re open & willing to listen. I also learned that displaying our findings in front of our eyes in a visual way really helps us see the bigger picture and focus on what needs to be done. I learned that keeping Trello updated is very calming. And I learned that working together, as a team, is very challenging but also very rewarding — there’s nothing quite as magical as having several brains thinking together!
Feeling blessed for having had the chance to work side by side with these two wicked brains: Bruno Araújo and Danilo Soares.
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And finally… what did my teammates find from all this?
“It was certainly a big challenge, particularly carrying out the interviews. Despite the fact that we were all still learning the ropes of UX, I believe that as a team of beginners, we developed outstanding rapport and managed to problem-solve with great clarity and creativity. The experience went smooth-sailing from start to finish, and I couldn’t be more proud of the final outcome.”
— Bruno Araújo (connect with him on LinkedIn)
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“It was very satisfying to recognize, in practice, the efficiency of designing solutions focusing on the user. The Design Thinking process proved to be an incredible tool and helped us understand how, when and where to focus our efforts. Equally important was the dynamics of our group as we were able to harmonize our professional skills with the demand of the project. I felt generosity from my colleagues in maintaining a democratic environment without losing a sense of criticism.”
— Danilo Soares (connect with him on LinkedIn)
This post belongs to a series of publications related to my journey as a student at Ironhack São Paulo UX/UI Bootcamp 2020. Feel free to leave me any thoughts or feedback and I’ll see you in the next one! :)
