Designing a mobile app promoting sustainable food practices through composting
Role
UX & UI Designer
Duration
2 weeks
Discipline & Tools
Figma
FigJam
User Research
Impact/Effort Matrix
User Persona
The Challenge In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30-40% of the food supply. The EPA estimates in 2010 there was a baseline of 218.9 pounds of food waste per person sent for disposal. In 2010, the USDA estimates food loss and food waste at 31% of the food apply, equaling $162 billion.
The Solution design a platform that will promote users to engage in more sustainable food practices such as composting.
Compostable is an app that centralizes resources for users to find composting tutorials and nearby compost collections. Rather than perusing through thousands of Youtube videos and written tutorials on various blogs, Compostable offers users a simple solution. Users are able to find highly rated compost tutorials and videos, as well as step-by-step written tutorials, to quickly learn how to start composting, which materials are safe to compost, and begin their sustainable living practices with ease.
Overview
Research Findings Through a series of behavioral interviews with three users aged 32, 35, and 52. From this user research, I discovered that even though users were separating their garbage as per the city’s stipulations, they were unsure of how much of what was being placed in the compost bin was actually being composted. Furthermore, users stated that once the trash was taken out, they had absolutely no knowledge of what was being done with it. It was clear users tried their best to follow the infographic glued to their trashcans but when confused, resorted to their best guess. Most users have good intentions and are motivated in becoming environmentally sustainable in terms of food waste, but t
Problem Statement users don’t really know where to start and therefore find it time-consuming to begin their composting journey.
Empathizing with users This target user behavior was delved into deeply with a user persona and further explored using an empathy map.
The goal Compostable’s mission was to create an easy-to-follow path to encourage users to take some initiative in developing their own sustainable practices like composting.
Design solution Compostable includes UI illustrations that aid in identifying the correct resource quickly. The color scheme chosen emulates that of mother nature with browns and earth tones, and green giving it a more lush and vibrant feel. In order to account for visually-impaired users, I made sure to include sections with high contrast, large bolded headers, and iconography that would feel familiar to users.
Process
The Compostable app accomplishes the main goal of providing users with a centralized resource for the know-how of composting, ultimately saving them time as they embark on their sustainability journey.
Usability Testing In a survey with 3 potential users, features they found most helpful were the ability to ‘favorite’ a topic and project, toggle between video and article for any given topic, and keep track of which projects were in progress.
Learning Opportunities This project taught me how to consider that each user may have a different way of absorbing information; some people learn better through visuals and some learn better through written steps. Either way, thinking through the lens of users with different learning styles allowed me to think through how to design an app for people with varying styles of thinking.
Next Steps for this project would be to further iterate by performing additional tests and potentially explore implementing a social feed to further engage users and foster a deeper sense of community.
Results
Major Insights
Value/Effort Matrix
It was important to make an informed decision on what features needed to be prioritized over others. I began to construct a prioritization matrix (value/effort matrix) to organize different features in the app based on value and effort to visualize important decisions based on objective criteria instead of subjective opinions.
User Persona
After conducting my user interviews, I was able to develop a persona that would be a representation of our target users - meet Priya.
