Design Process: How Can We Minimise Domestic Food Waste in a Creative Way?
The full process of designing the app: Demeter. A domestic food management app that aims to prevent food waste by providing possible recipes based on the contents and combinations of a user’s pantry.
Problem:
‘UK households waste £13bn of food each year or roughly £470 per household’.
Brief:
This brief was self-initiated from my own experience. It is alarming how much household food waste is wasted on a weekly basis and I wanted to explore ways in which a digital product could help tackle this societal issue. The final product is now being developed to be launched as a standalone application.
Constraints
- Product solutions must be digital and mobile-based.
- Feasibility: product must be developed on a small budget.
Developing a User Persona:
User Examples
- Families.
- Children.
- Students.
- Users interested in the environment.
- Savvy users interested in saving money.
Sample User
Bio
Jayne lives with her partner Chris and 3 children aged 9,12 and 16. She works as a hairdresser and makes the sole buying decisions for her families food shopping. She said she “finds it a challenge, regularly budgeting, buying and cooking for 4/5 people within a limited time, after full-time work”.
Motivation
- Interested in the environment.
- Concerned about the level of food waste her home throws away on a monthly basis.
Goals
- Actively wants to set a good example, teaching her children about the importance of recycling and the value of the: Environment, Food and Money.
- Would like to be more creative in the kitchen.
Pain Points
- Concerned about her children's diet; eating healthy, well-balanced meals.
- Is price sensitive.
- Is dubious about her children’s over-use of technology.
Conclusion
It is clear that Jayne would benefit from having a hassle free-way of finding new healthy recipes that are not too time-consuming, but are also healthy for her dependants, whilst eliminating food wastage and thus saving money.
“I’m concerned with how much food we throw away each month”
Affinity Diagramming
Rather than blindly ideating on a solution, I interviewed a range of users about their current grocery shopping. I Used affinity diagramming to collate all the collected research, to draw patterns and begin to identify trends in behaviour and concerns. This would then help design a solution better tailored to the needs of users.
Insights
- The real concern about food waste because users struggled to maintain a pantry, leading to wasted food, time and money.
- Users mentioned that they would like to be savvier but also creative with their shopping, with minimal effort.
Ideation
Following initial user research. There were several rounds of ideation. Where I cam up with a variety of ideas and concepts, reflecting the needs and concerns identified from the user research. Finally, I decided on which function ideas would be best suited to help alleviate the problem of food waste.
Concept
Demeter is a domestic food management app that aims to prevent food waste as well as providing possible recipes based on the contents and combinations of ones’ kitchen.
Functions
- An expiration date, tracking solution that scans barcodes and automatically discovers the name and expiration date of each item. If it is produced, it will calculate the average lifespan, notifying users when use-by dates are approaching to help prevent unnecessary food waste. Though this can also be done manually for fruit and vegetables that may not have a barcode.
- Suggest recipes using an algorithm based on the remaining contents of your kitchen. The results can be gathered from external food blog partners e.g. ‘BBC Food’, though users can also make and share their own recipes.
- Helps write smarter shopping lists within the app, optionally tracking your buying behaviour and making suggestions e.g. auto-populating particular recipe ingredients.
- Data can also be shared utilising the internet of things platform if the user has a smart fridge.
Task Flow
To better understand the user flow in maintaining and using pantry content I mapped the necessary processes. This also allowed me to better communicate what benefits could be achieved by using the Demeter digital app solution.
Interaction Map
Before wireframing it was important to plan the user flow, reviewing usability heuristics to explore how a user would successfully navigate and interact with the different app functionalities.
Low Fidelity Wireframing and A/B Usability Testing
Following interaction mapping, the concept I developed a range low fidelity wireframes, that were then tested with users. Following feedback, the interaction map was then reviewed and revised accordingly.
Key User Testing Insights
- App should be straightforward but allow for creativity in recipe selection and generation.
- The app should feel and act personal, as an assistant.
- Any colours should be minimal and modern.
- User should have the ability to manually add items to their pantry as well as scanning.
- Users should easily be able to rectify any mistake in stock levels.
Further User Research & Style
To help build a style board together with users, I conducted a focus group. Participants were asked to generate synonyms relating to the concept of ‘food shopping’, ‘cooking from recipes’, ‘your kitchen’ and ‘wasting food’.
Colour Association
After generating their adjectives, participants were asked to come with two or three colour associations that they associate with these words.
- Organised
- Creativity
- Personal
- Nourishing
- Resourceful
Users decided that the colours should be a mix of blue: representing wisdom heritage, trust and green: representing sustainability.
Resulting Style Board
For the next step, I created three mood boards with different curated interpretations of the keywords from the previous user exercise. These quickly generated boards were then viewed for five seconds only and rated on a scale of 1–10. Five seconds is too short for reading copy or for noticing specific details but is enough for forming an impression on the overall visual style. The below mood board was the highest scoring, which I then developed into a style board with specific typefaces and colour choices reflecting the earlier user research.
Mockups & Product Development
Mockups were produced and several more rounds of user testing were carried out to test the usability of the product. Mockups were revised and iterated following user revisions.
Conclusion
What Went Well…
- The app has an individual and consistent style.
- The app is multi-functional though all functions relate to solving the problem of minimising food waste (pantry monitor, shopping list, recipe generator).
- Potential to expand app’s functionality and accessibility by adding voice interaction.
What Could Be Improved…
- The app cannot solely be guided by intuition and requires the user to become familiar with its layout and functionality.
- It is unclear how potential revenue stream(s) could be introduced.
- The functionality of the filter options must be further iterated to improve user functionality.
- The app is branded in a personal way but there is no mention of the user's name/identity which would make the app more personal to the user e.g. ‘Hi Jayne, what can I help you with today’.
Please click here to view the prototype at your own leisure.
To view more visuals please visit our website: https://www.diagraam.com/demeter.
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Elliott
Diagraam Design
