Sustainabli
An app that allows one to track their food waste habits and monitor their overall sustainability.
Sustainabli is an innovative mobile application aimed at combating food waste and promoting sustainable practices among users. The app provides a convenient platform for individuals to record their grocery purchases, track perishable expiration dates, and monitor their food consumption patterns. By doing so, users gain valuable insights into their food usage habits, ultimately empowering them to reduce waste, save money, and lead more sustainable lifestyles.
I first came up with the idea for this application early on, when I first started living on my own, noticing how wasteful I could be even when I generally don’t eat out. The idea of a system of recording and tracking your food’s expiration dates seemed like a “no-brainer” but after some research, there were very few existing applications that aimed at tracking food waste at all. Sustainabli is my solution to that technological gap between organic perishables and our environment.
Timeline
June, 2023 - July, 2023
Tools
Figma
Miro
Microsoft Excel
LucidChart
Role
UX Designer & Researcher
Project Overview
Problem
Food waste is a significant issue due to the lack of awareness and organization of perishable food items' expiration dates, leading to unnecessary wastage and financial strain on households.
Goal
My application aims to minimize food waste, stretch users' budgets, and promote sustainable habits by providing a user-friendly platform to save and track food expiration dates effectively.
Research Summary
After conducting a comprehensive audit of competitors and their offerings, I moved onto interviewing potential users of the application aged 25-45. All members of this group solidified previous hypothesis that adding items to the application to monitor items in their fridge is essential. This primary group also confirmed that the need for a streamlined and efficient platform is important to their user experience so they don’t have to spend too much time on the application.
In addition, a main theme that emerged was the need for privacy and limited data-sharing. Features such as a Community could be helpful in terms of sharing relevant articles and news but users ability to interact with one another was deemed unimportant and even risky to most users. Other users also expressed interest in a gamification aspect to the application so that they could be encouraged to solidify their habits through positive reinforcement.
Persona Development
Following a preliminary round of interviews involving six participants, I successfully identified two distinct personas, providing valuable insights to steer my design process for the application. My aim was to address user pain points while also incorporating features aligning with users' desired elements for an optimal user experience.
Problem Statement and User Journey Mapping
Many individuals, including myself, find it difficult to keep track of all the items in their fridge and when they may expire, leading to massive amounts of accumulated waste between millions of people. In addition to this, these same people end up losing money by throwing out items of food that they paid for. This application aims to bridge the divide between you and your fridge by allowing you to record and get notifications about what items in your fridge may be expiring soon so that you can make a plan to finish them before they do. Thus, Saving money and reducing our impact on the planet.
Key Objectives:
User-Centric Design: Create an app with a seamless and delightful user experience, ensuring that users of all backgrounds can effortlessly navigate and utilize its features.
Minimize Food Waste: Develop a solution that empowers users to proactively manage their food inventory, reducing the likelihood of food spoilage and unnecessary waste.
Enhance Cost Savings: Implement features that enable users to make informed decisions about their groceries, leading to better budgeting and reduced spending on unnecessary food replacements.
Environmental Impact: Promote sustainability by encouraging users to adopt eco-friendly practices, such as mindful consumption and sustainable meal planning.
Effective Data Management: Design a robust database system that efficiently stores and retrieves food item information, ensuring accurate and timely notifications for upcoming expiration dates.
Target Audience:
The app primarily targets environmentally conscious individuals, budget-conscious households, and users seeking a more organized approach to managing their perishable food items.
LoFi Wireframing & User Flow Iteration
This subsequent phase involved creating lo-fi wireframes based on the initial paper prototypes, and devising a user flow conducive to usability testing in the first observational round. The primary goal of this iteration was to collect valuable insights from participants, identifying elements that appeared superfluous or intricate, while also observing their natural navigation tendencies when guided through specific tasks within the flow.
Usability Testing and Affinity Mapping
After the initial round of usability testing, I conducted affinity mapping to organize and categorize various comments and themes related to the ease of use and pain points encountered by users while interacting with the low-fidelity prototype. Through this process, I identified three primary points of resistance that users faced during their interactions with the low-fidelity prototype and user flow.
#1: Users expressed that they perceived a surplus of steps between searching for items to add to their fridge and actually adding them. Moreover, the flow felt cumbersome because users had to manually input the item's expiration date, and they preferred an option to scan the product's barcode for quicker addition.
#2: After users logged in, they noticed the Assessment tool, but it did not provide clear indications of whether it was a mandatory step or not. Furthermore, users were uncertain about the purpose of the Assessment Tool and what it was assessing. Participants were not informed that this tool served as the baseline metric for designing their challenges and metrics section.
#3: Users experienced uncertainty regarding the purpose of the messages section, and they expressed concerns about potential privacy risks associated with having a newsfeed and limited user interaction (no need to message each other). Participants indicated a preference for accessing their newsfeed within the community instead of the Tips and Advice flow, which was established in the prototype.
High Fidelity Iterations
The subsequent phase involved creating lo-fi wireframes based on the initial paper prototypes, and devising a user flow conducive to usability testing in the first observational round. The primary goal of this iteration was to collect valuable insights from participants, identifying elements that appeared superfluous or intricate, while also observing their natural navigation tendencies when guided through specific tasks within the flow.
Further Rounds of Usability Testing
After conducting additional iterations and usability testing, I identified significant constraints that users encountered with the High Fidelity iterations of the Sustainabli prototype. Although the user flow showed remarkable improvement, there were still crucial aspects related to accessibility and information architecture that required enhancement for the platform. Additionally, I made significant improvements to the assessment section, aiming to increase users' understanding of the assessment tool's purpose and value, and its correlation with personalized user experiences on the platform. While encouraging users to engage with the assessment, I ensured that it remained optional rather than mandatory.
Three further themes were determined as pain points for participants.
#1: To enhance accessibility, it was crucial to segment sections on all screens, thereby improving color contrast and incorporating negative spacing between options. Furthermore, opacity was increased in specific sections, like Item Add/Remove, to minimize user confusion and clarify whether additional actions were required.
#2: During the login process, participants expressed confusion regarding the login and registration procedures and were unsure about the steps to reclaim their credentials if forgotten. To address this issue, the registration and login screens were redesigned and iterated upon to provide clarity and ease of use.
#3: The Community section underwent a redesign to enhance user understanding and make the prototype more explicit about the meanings of certain items, available options, and the overall purpose of the community section.
Reflection & Future Considerations
This project was a personal passion of mine, where I merged my own experiences with my love for pragmatic design and the desire to contribute to a more sustainable future. However, I did encounter some constraints that restricted the project's scope, which I intend to take into consideration.
Limitation #1: Food Database & Development
A proper Food Database & Development is essential for your app's functionality, allowing users to enter or scan foods and track expiration dates. However, maintaining data accuracy, managing user-generated content, database size, and barcode scanning can present challenges. Overcome these limitations by collaborating with reliable food databases, encouraging user feedback, regular updates, data validation, and efficient database management.
Limitation #2: Robust Metric & Challenge Sections
A robust Metric & Challenge sections are essential features of your app. The Metric section helps users track their progress and achievements, while the Challenge section motivates them to set and accomplish goals. These sections enhance user engagement and contribute to a fulfilling user experience. However, ensuring the accuracy of metrics and designing compelling challenges may present some challenges. Overcome these limitations by implementing reliable tracking mechanisms and carefully crafting motivating and achievable challenges.
Limitation #3: Time
With a limited timeframe of approximately a month and a half, time emerged as a significant constraint during the prototyping and testing phases. This constraint considerably reduced the scope of the original app design and prototyping implementation. For future projects involving full app ideation, design, and testing, I would aim to extend the project timeline to allow ample runway for proper planning and development. By doing so, I can comprehensively account for all aspects of the project, ensuring a more thorough and successful application delivery.