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Nudging people to reduce their food waste at home
Timeline: 3 months.
November to January 2023
Role: research, UX design, UI design
Context
This project is a concept that explores food waste behavior in household and our aim was to create small but impactful changes in behavior that will lead to a more sustainable and economical approach to food waste.
As a member of an international UX design team, I collaborated on the research and execution of the UX process. In addition, I led potential features and was in charge of the UI.
The challenge
Through our research, we have found that people produce a lot of food waste. They are aware that it is a real problem, however, they have not found real solutions to reduce their waste or are not motivated enough to adopt changes. The main challenge was to create a simple and encouraging solution to encourage them to change their behaviour and reduce their food waste.
The solution
To address this problem, we created a smart interface on a refrigerator that helps people reduce their food waste in a fun way through weekly challenges, a leaderboard or by visualizing their impact. We also added features to track freshness of products and give them ideas for dishes they can cook with the leftovers.
The design process
DOING THE RESEARCH
In order to better address the topic, we conducted both primary and secondary research. Our research focused on the behaviour of families and students regarding food waste in their homes.
2. DISCOVERING THE PROBLEM
People generally don't know what to eat and it becomes a difficult task. But above all, 80% of the people we interviewed waste food for several reasons: excessive purchases, not knowing what to do with the leftovers, by habit...
3. UNDERSTANDING PEOPLE
Most people are uncomfortable with the idea of throwing away food, but don't know how to avoid it. They want clear guidance.
4. IDEATION
How can we encourage people to change their habits so that they reduce their food waste? How do we make eating a more enjoyable experience? Finally, how do we create a simple, practical and fun solution that addresses their different issues?
5. TESTING AND ITERATE
We decided to ask for feedback at each stage of the design: during the lo-fi wireframes, and then for the hi-fi wireframes. Based on this feedback, we were able to make improvements and finally create a prototype.
6. DESIGNING
After the end of the project, I decided to make the UI.
"I'm aware that food waste is not cool but I never know what to do with my leftover food or sometimes I forget what I bought and it ends up going bad. So I end up throwing them away in most cases."
How it impacted people
Based on 5 qualitative interviews.
90%
of people have become aware of the leftovers in their fridge thanks to the tracking feature.
90%
of people think that this solution can encourage them to change their consumption habits through gamification.
5/5
of people find that this solution meets their problems and environmental issues.
💡People would benefit from personalised recipes and meal inspirations because it takes time and energy to always plan meals.
💡It is frustrating for those affected by food waste to convince others to do the same because they do not know what solutions or systems to offer them.
💡Most of the people who answered us share the same point of view: they care about environmental practices that reduce food waste, but have constraints that prevent them from being consistent.
💡They usually throw away food for various reasons. The main reasons are: not consuming food before it goes bad, over-preparing, date label confusion, overbuying, and finally poor planning.
💡Their shopping list is usually not optimized, so they waste a lot of time wandering around the various department stores.
💡They have several constraints that they encounter when trying to reduce food waste: no incentives to change their habits, lack of inspiration in relation to food scraps, don't know what actions to implement concretely.
💡Cooking requires mental effort, people consider it a chore and usually have no inspiration. Very often they don't know what to eat. Especially since they need variety.
Get to know the user better
Based on 8 qualitative interviews and a survey conducted on 19 respondents.
And the problems they are facing
In order to generate potential solutions, we conducted an HMW session based on the problems people were experiencing.
First tests and iterations
Before
For example, one of the iterations we did was the left panel for the profile. Indeed, the people we interviewed found that the dahsboard and the profile were too similar.
After
Therefore, the left panel has been reduced in order to differentiate the screens.
Final solution
How can we encourage them to reduce their food waste?
The main challenge was to develop a solution that encourages them to reduce their waste. We discovered through our research that people are aware that food waste is not cool and want to change their habits.
But these changes are difficult for them to make. That's why we integrated gamification and their environmental impact into our solution to encourage them to reduce their waste easily and in a fun way. For example, there is a leaderboard every week based on the person’s impact and on their profile, they can see what is their impact.
Also, not knowing how to reduce their food waste? We added a feature that gives them a challenge and help if needed.
Throwing away food because it's past its expiration date? They can track their groceries and are alerted when a product is about to expire.
Plus, another incentive tells them what's still good to eat in their fridge, even if the product has expired, because most of the time they just throw them away. It allows to give them some meal ideas.
Finally, in addition, we also created other solutions for each problem they face, depending on their importance. No inspiration for what to eat: we added an inspiration feature like Pinterest to help them come up with ideas for dishes. We also added a shopping lists that adds their recurrent groceries.
Main takeaways
WHAT I LEARNED
I learned how to better collaborate and communicate, given our international team. I also had the opportunity to look more into the design process and understand the different tools in more detail.
MISTAKES AND STRUGGLES
One of the most important challenges was project management. In order to move forward, we created a roadmap on Notion.
WHAT I WILL DO DIFFERENT NEXT TIME
I think it would be better, especially for a team effort, to create and finalize the design guide or the design system before starting the UI. This would allow to move forward asynchronously while keeping a coherent design.