CASE STUDY | WASTEWISE
CLIENT
Foodwise
(Spec project)
MY ROLE
Led Project Outline, Research Initiatives, UI Design, Prototyping
(Team of 3 UX Designers)
TIMELINE
2 Week Sprint
Foodwise is looking for help in getting people to reduce food waste and wants to explore the role that technology could play in engagement and innovation.
INTRO
The first milestone we worked towards for Foodwise was finding our Minimum Viable Product. I led our team through a series of research initiatives to uncover the insights that helped bring our mobile experience to life.
We focused on an IOS mobile app aimed to incentivize and make users feel accomplished to reduce their personal waste based on insights from our on-the-go user.
WORK OVERVIEW
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Survey | 16 participants
User Interviews | 6 participants
Affinity Mapping
Persona Creation
Competitive & Comparative Analysis
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Users need to be motivated to compost habitually so that they can reduce their waste without it taking up too much of their personal time and feel like they are making an impact.
So, how might we…
provide incentives to motivate people to reduce waste and to form habitual behaviors?
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Story Board | to further illustrate and empathize with Josie’s scenario.
User Flows | to show how she might utilize the app to log her compost & redeem rewards
Sketching
Style guide
Wireframes
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I led our team in the prototyping process as we made various iterations, tested it out internally, to understand how our user would use this app
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This sprint was focused on a branded MVP prototype. The next steps would be test the viability and usability via Usability Testing and iterate based on results!
Is a discount on their next grocery bill a good enough incentive for our user? Is this app fun and easy to use? Will they want to share with friends?
WHO IS FOODWISE?
Foodwise is a non-profit dedicated to growing thriving communities through the power and joy of local food. They create exposure for the small farmer to their local community by connecting farmers to farmer’s markets in the Bay Area.
GAINING INSIGHT
To understand the pain points and behaviors users experience with food waste, my focus was to conduct User Surveys and 6 User Interviews. I posed questions to help uncover how users feel, what obstacles they have, and what might motivate them to reduce their waste.
User Survey Results
*16 survey participants
35%
Of respondents said that 10-40% of food bought gets thrown away in their household
63%
Of respondents said saving money motivates them to reduce their food waste
13%
Of respondents said that they use composting as a way to prevent food waste
Through Affinity Mapping, I uncovered 3 key patterns from 6 User Interviews.
User Interview takeaways:
They have a morality issue/guilty conscience with wasting food
Not wasting money is a key motivator to not waste food
Understand food waste is a global issue, but if it cuts into their personal time, they won’t go out of their way to learn how to compost
*different colors represent 5 anonymous participants
“Biggest motivator [to not waste food] is the thought of money going down the drain”
-Vern
Meet our favorite user, Josie Parker!
THE PROBLEM
Problem Statement + Solution + C & C Analysis + Features
As a team, we uncovered…
Josie needs to be motivated to compost habitually so that she can reduce her waste without it taking up too much of her personal time and feel like she is making an impact.
So, how might we….
Empower Josie to move from empathy to actionable steps about food waste by providing tools and resources [about composting] that are simple and easy to use?
Make it more convenient for Josie to reduce food waste?
Provide incentives to motivate her to reduce waste and to form habitual behaviors?
Our plan to incentivize
We will design an app focused on on the go incentives that make Josie feel accomplished to reduce her personal waste.
Looking to gamification competitors
I conducted a C&C Analysis of popular reward apps that users mentioned they use often like Starbucks, water drinking apps and apple watch fitness to compare features, reward redemption flows, and how users receive positive feedback when they receive rewards. I ultimately uncovered ways to simplify so users could form habitual behaviors around composting without it taking up too much personal time through the use of gamification.
Emphasis on rewards feature
After defining the importance to solve for incentives for Josie, we prioritized a rewards feature as well as a notification system to help motivate her. Additionally we wanted to create a digestible centralized hub of educational resources so she can access all she needs about composting in her area.
Must Have
Reward feature
Compost Progress
Calendar
Notifications
Should Have
Educational page to show what you can/can’t compost
Verification feature
Could Have
Donate feature
City partnership
Location service
Share progress with friends
Won’t Have
Delivery service to compost drop-off site
Meal planning feature
IDEATING THE SOLUTION
Story Board + User Flow + Sketching + Style Guide + Initial Wireframes
Josie’s Sunday night
I created a story board to further empathize with Josie’s scenario
Josie logging her compost
A happy pathway for Josie to log her compost, receive points, and redeem rewards!
Ideating the Dashboard
My Partner’s Sketches
My Sketches
Creating consistency
I created this style guide in order to maintain consistency among team members. I utilized the colors from the Foodwise website and edited to emphasize the fresh green and pop of orange for clear CTAs. The absence of black and hand drawn icons give an almost childlike feel where just about anyone could play!
Josie logging her compost
Josie redeeming her rewards!
PROTOTYPE
Josie is busy and doesn’t always remember about compost day.
But, she gets a notification reminder that she can make an impact with one simple step!
She gets redirected to her dashboard where she can log her compost, and see how many points she has until her next reward.
If she has enough, she can then redeem her reward and have the option to share with a friend or use at her local grocery store or farmer’s market.
Next Steps
This sprint was focused on a branded MVP prototype. The next steps would be test the viability and usability via Usability Testing and iterate based on results!
We understand cash rewards might be tricky to execute in a business model, but our goal for this MVP is first to see if users will want to use this app that coinsides with their composting pick up schedule (or drop off). Is a discount on their next grocery bill a good enough incentive for Josie? Is this app fun and easy to use? Will she want to share with friends?