Foodle
Providing better solutions to never put food to waste again
USER PERSONA
Using the qualitative data from the interviews, we defined the target user profile to visualize various aspects of their behavior and motivations.
BACKGROUND
The issue of food and food waste is one of the most pressing challenges facing the world today, encompassing both social and environmental considerations. By throwing away food, we are also wasting the resources and energy used in its cultivation, harvesting, transportation, and packaging. The extent of this problem can be seen in the statistics from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which reports that food waste is responsible for 10% of total greenhouse gas emissions, a staggering amount that rivals the emissions produced by all cars in the US and Europe combined.
In Catalonia, an estimated 262,000 tonnes of food is wasted annually, 7% of total food purchased, resulting in 35 kg of food waste per inhabitant per year. In Barcelona, households generate the largest percentage of food waste at 58% of the total volume.
Imagine it as a personal assistant that you can easily refer to when you are not sure if the sprouting potatoes in your pantry are still safe to eat and when you don’t know what else to do with them.
OVERVIEW
Foodle is designed to help young people discover suitable ways to save their food at home. It is an app that uses an iterative process or decision tree to navigate and narrow down possible ways to handle their food, hence, preventing them from wasting it.
It should be noted that this project was accompanied by UI/UX lectures once a week during the course. I also worked in a team of 4, all with different backgrounds and design experiences.
Client
Student Case Study at Escuela Superior de Diseño, Barcelona (2023)
My role
Research, concept formation, visualization (from sketch wireframe to high-fidelity prototyping), design system, testing
How might we make young people more aware of responsible food consumption?
Initial Challenge
How might we educate busy young professionals with adaptable information to prevent food waste?
Core Challenge
We learned that most of them usually don't know what to do to maximize the food they have at home and how to avoid wasting them.
To let us effectively address these issues, we have formulated our problem scope:
REDEFINING THE PROBLEM SCOPE
To have a better understanding of the problem at hand, we did another round of interviews with a focus on the following areas:
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The current general knowledge about food waste prevention
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The type of information they need
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If education is really the right way to go
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The pain-points associated with food management
BENCHMARKING
We followed this with another benchmarking to help us determine which features are currently available and effective for users in the market. We discovered one app called FoodKeeper by USDA, which closely corresponds to a feature we intend to have in our product—proper food storage.
Foodle User Flow
USER FLOW
We constructed a user flow to provide a visual understanding of Foodle's navigational structure, capturing different flows for each scenario in the user story.
After several iterations, the high-fidelity prototype was created and we, once again, put it to the test which in turn led to some minor adjustments. Here are some of the app's screens:
PROTOTYPING AND USABILITY TESTING
We did a sprint of usability tests in which we engaged in an iterative approach of testing our product, from low to high fidelity, to ensure that our design and the features we incorporated were accessible, free from usability issues, and useful to our target users.
CONCLUSION AND LEARNINGS
Responsible consumption is a huge topic to tackle, so we decided to focus on the issue of food to narrow down the area of investigation and seek viable solutions. The food waste issue is not a new topic of interest. A lot of people have attempted to solve this problem and many applications have already existed but are not certain effective. This made it more challenging for us as we had to figure out a new user-centered design to try solve this issue, something that will bring value to the users.
The development of Foodle required us to do a lot of research and design thinking techniques. A lot of time was spent on desk research, interviews, data analysis, and ideation. One of the misconceptions we had was the idea to improve the experience of food organization and planning from when they shop from the groceries. It was a mistake because all the ideas we could possibly think of already exist. Also, when we assessed this against the problems and needs of the users involved, we realized that it doesn’t directly solve the issues. So we had to revisit our data and re-sort them.
We were reminded by our teachers not to fall in love with the ideas we create. It’s quite true as what I had observed with my team members. When they were so convinced with what we have formed and found out it’s not going to work, it disheartened them. So I knew I had to step up and put myself out to get to the solution concept we now have, that is, an app that uses a decision tree to provide the appropriate method to maximize food use.
Doing sprints was the key in making our design a success. By testing our design ideas as we developed them, it allowed us to discover the usability issues fast and continuously improve the interface and experience of our digital product. It was liberating to learn that in creating a user-centered design, nothing works perfectly for the first time and there will always be something to enhance as you test it with different users. Hence, it is crucial to identify the MVP of the product to concentrate on the features that appeal more to the user.
If I were to do this project again, I would form the interview questions differently as a lot of them seemed redundant and I would look deeper into the people’s habits, what they really waste and what causes it. I would also seek for an expert in the field (which we have failed to do) to learn the viable ways to handle food accurately, and what they think we should do to avoid food wasting.
FUNCTIONAL PROTOTYPE
Try out the functional prototype below:
We selected the following insight because we noticed that this was a repeated and common problem among the participants. They don’t know what to do and where to find the solution to this.
I don’t know how to reach people who can benefit from the food I won’t consume.
I don’t know how to not waste food I won’t consume in time.
I can’t spend too much time taking action… esp. it’s not my priority.
Here are the top 3 insights:
EMPATHY AND DEFINING THE PROBLEM
Given the initial challenge we were unaware of the problems related to food consumption and waste. So we spoke to our target audience to understand their lifestyle and approach to food management. We used the affinity diagram to group similar behavior and to emerge common issues among the participants.
I don't know how to not waste the food I won't consume in time.
Main Insight
USER STORY
As we narrowed down our focus, we drafted 3 point-of-view statements that helped us generate more clarity and describe who are we designing for specifically. From this, we took the opportunity to look back and decided to carry on with our challenge statement.
But we didn't move forward with this because we wish to create a product that is more than just an information dump.
We decided to go with the 1st concept that we believe is more fitting to address the issue we aim to solve and could generate more impact on the users. Building up to this, we initially thought of creating a website that displays all the solution information for each food—fresh produce.
Initial User Flow - website
A community platform that gives easier and more convenient access to all food banks or solidarity fridges in the area.
Concept 2
A portal that has access to possible solutions in preventing making harmful food waste.
Concept 1
IDEATION
We employed various ideation techniques to devise the appropriate solution to the problem. At first, we realized that, after doing a benchmark, most of our ideas during our first few brainstorming sessions were already available in numerous apps. So I initiated to reevaluate the data we have, explored some concepts—combining some ideas from the previous sessions, and came up with the following:
We also decided to focus on people living in Barcelona as our team was based here during the research.
TARGET AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHICS
We began by identifying the ages that fall under the young people group. According to the United Nations, these are persons between the ages of 15 to 24 years. But since our challenge relates to consumption, we expanded this by identifying what ages are classified as a young consumer—a person who purchases goods and services for personal use. And based on the diagram below, young consumers are those people under 42 years of age.
In addition, for this project, we proposed to collaborate the app with the government of Barcelona, giving credibility to the information it provides and making it non-lucrative.
Foodle, a flow-based food waste management app that helps people discover suitable ways to save their food.
Hence, here is our final solution:
Moreover, we opted to design a mobile app given the user's context and the visibility aspect to a wider audience. Based on the diagram below, internet users who use their mobile devices have exponentially increased compared to those on desktops in just a year.
Image showing the assessment of the decision tree idea, at the same time doing a lot of research on topics about the different ways to prevent wasting fresh produce (in this case, potatoes), to see if there'll be enough conditions to make it viable.
Drawing on the users' feedback—information on Google is scattered and sometimes inaccurate, we focused on exploring ways to change and improve the way they get the information they need while taking into account that it will likely be used in the kitchen while preparing food or organizing their pantry/fridge.
“I look at the website first if it’s trusted”
“The search results are complicated to read”
“I can’t find exactly what I’m looking for”
“There’s too much ads!”
“Oh… this info is different from what it says in the summary”
Here’s what people had to say:
GETTING TO THE FINAL SOLUTION
In the interviews, we learned that Google is the go-to platform when searching for information or seeking to solve a problem. So we decided to conduct a usability test to understand how the users utilize it—the process and the things they look at and consider.
We also showed this to a few of our target audiences to see if it generates interest in them. We luckily got positive responses!
SKETCH WIREFRAME
Now, it's time to visualize what we want to build. Drawing rough sketches of the screens gave us a good understanding of what elements we will include and let us establish a user flow.
Data sample from 103 participants
We also asked them which formats of presenting the information they find most effective and engaging. This helped us to conclude the optimal way to convey information through the app.
Data sample from 103 participants
Data sample from 103 participants
Sources: (1) Tilo 2021, Consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables in Spanish households grows, Agrométodos, 11 June,
(2) El Desperdicio de Fruta y Verdura en España, digital image, Ecomercio Agragrio, 17 February 2022
Sources: (1) Tilo 2021,
MORE RESEARCH AND SURVEY
Foodle is all about giving users info on the food they're interested in. We've looked into what people often eat and waste, and got input from young professionals in Barcelona through a survey. As a result, we've decided to focus on fruits and vegetables for our MVP.
