ReFresh
Role: UX researcher, UX/ UI Designer
Timeline: 5 days
Tools: Sketch, Invision, Google slide
The more you reuse, the less goes unused
An app that will track home cooks’ ingredients and offer creative recipe suggestions based on what they already have in order to reduce food waste.
Team : Lynda Irawaty, Ethan Van Sant, Connor Kirkley, Danielle ZN
The Story
During my UX diploma program at BrainStation, we paired up with a team of 3 other UX designers.
We were given a problem space to tackle the food waste challenge.
“How might we help individuals or organizations reduce their food waste using digital technology?”
Using the Google Design Sprint technique, we did creative problem-solving in 5 days. The process started from secondary research, user interview, crazy 8 ideation/ sketch, wireframing, prototyping, usability testing, iterating based on feedback, and final presentation.
The Problem
From our primary research, we found that the history of food waste went back to post-world war 2, when consumers had more food than they needed, compared to during the war.
Closely linked to globalization, in an ever more networked world, supply chains get longer, and everything is available everywhere the whole year-round resulting in abundance.
50%
of food worldwide never gets consumed
40%
of wasted food occurs at the consumer level
11%
of worldwide greenhouse emissions contribution
Consumers follow a “take-make-consume-dispose” cycle, often wasting before the food even gets inedible.
The Insights
We interviewed different types of Home cooks; mothers cooking for a family, couples, single busy professionals, and college students.
Through the interview process, we learned that most users view wasting food as a negative experience, for many reasons, whether waste of energy, time, or money. But they are not sure how to reduce this issue.
🧑🏻 Singles & 👩🏻❤️👨🏻couples
Smaller households are more wasteful because of poor planning, they frequently purchase ingredients for specific recipes or impulse buying on sale items. So they often left with unused ingredients and little plan to repurpose.
👨🏻👩🏻👧🏻👦🏻 Families
They are usually more creative with repurposing ingredients as they eat out less and have more people in the household to eat the leftovers.
How Might We
inspire Homecooks to plan and creatively repurpose ingredients so that food waste is ultimately reduced?
Persona
Based on our research findings, we created our persona from a smaller household so we could focus on alleviating their pain points to address their needs.
MAKE A MAP & CHOOSE A TARGET
User Journey
Understand current Homecooks’ cooking experience
We identified opportunities by understanding how they complete the task, then targeted the most critical moments in the Homecooks’ journey. This is when ReFresh could help them better plan and reuse their leftover ingredients.
SKETCH AND DECIDE
Ideation and Concept
Each of the designers sketched a set of crazy 8 blue sky thinking ideas, then each presented their ideas. We voted on the exciting ideas to narrow down options, then we voted for the best ideas we would like the team to pursue. Amazing ideas generated quickly, feedback gathered, discussed, and by the end of the day, we had a pretty solid solution.
For the existing technology, I had an idea to use AI image recognition technology to scan leftover ingredients in the fridge or pantry. Then the app will recommend creative recipe ideas based on the ingredients’ availability, personalized to users’ dietary and meal preferences.
USER INTERFACE
Brand & Visual Identity
My biggest contribution to this project was in concept, branding, UI, and high-fidelity mockup.
I suggested ReFresh as a brand name because it was a catchy name for a food app that repurposes ingredients creatively. The color was inspired by food to keep it fresh and appetizing.
The font combination between two sans-serif fonts, Montserrat was selected for its legibility and Nunito because it gives a good balance pairing combination.
The flat style for the icons and illustrations was designed for a modern playful look and feel.
TESTING WITH TARGET USER
Usability Testing and Feedback
After the prototype was injected with branding and colors, the high fidelity prototype was tested with 5 different target users.
Feedback & Iterations
Users found the onboarding was too long, there were some unnecessary steps. So we removed some screens, such as the measuring system and cooking time, and add the “skip” button for more user control.
There was some inconsistency in the recipe verbiage issue and recipe names. Iterations are done to keep the consistency and clearer hierarchy of recipe names.
“+ Add” button purpose was not clear and confuse users. After we placed the “+ Add” button more strategically, now users could perform the task.
Before : Onboarding was too long
After : Retain necessary onboarding steps and as an option users could skip it
FEATURES & PROTOTYPE
Our Solution
Feature 1 - Browse recipes based on available ingredients
Relevant recipe recommendations
The recipe recommendations are personalized based on users’ taste preferences and cooking history. For new users, meal and dietary preferences could be added during the onboarding
Explore recipes based on what they have
Users have a choice to cook now (they have all the ingredients), later (missing a few ingredients), or next time (missing most of the ingredients)Plan and bookmark recipes
Users can plan ahead and bookmark a recipe to cook for next time or save favorite recipes
Feature 2 - Add and keep track of the ingredients
Easily scan ingredients with the camera then the AI recognition technology will add them automatically to the pantry. Users can also use voice and type.
ReFresh will keep track of users’ ingredients and recommend the next recipes based on them
Feature 3 - Create a shopping list from the selected recipe
ReFresh will create a list to help you shop and because it knows what you have, you won’t miss an item or buy any item that you already have
Future
Measurement of Success
Key Performance Indicators that will help to measure the success of the product include:
Brand awareness - Social shares from users promoting their participation & achievement in an effort to reduce food waste
Net Promoter Score (NPS) - How likely they recommend the app to their friends
Average session time - How long per session and how frequent the users use the app
Opportunities
Future business explorations, that could help for the scalability of the app
Partnership with grocery services for online ordering and delivery
Premium service to offer services for Homecooks aspire to be a chef or food blogger, to promote their recipes and cooking videos on this platform to gain followers. Data analytics for traffic could be offered as well