Food Sustainability,
A farmer’s inventory app
Food Sustainability, A farmer’s inventory app
role: user experience and UI designer and researcher
Duration: 28 weeks
Tools: Adobe XD, Indesign, Agile work methods
Context
For my senior project, I decided to look at the issues around myself. Due to the restrictions of COVID-19, I found that the problems around me and that affected people I know as well generally had to do with food waste. During this pandemic, grocery markets were considered places to avoid due to how often it can be seen as cramped and tight, as well as ordering out can be enjoyable but overall pricey. I found that I was wasting more food at home and decided to explore why more and it took me down an enlightening path. I began looking into just not my own food waste, but how much is actually wasted on a productional level. I talked to farmer’s markets, looked at entries from individuals who worked at grocery markets and what is wasted at restaurants and local cafes. Through talking to families, I found that people enjoyed and often preferred going to farmer’s markets but often found them unaccessible due to transportation or due to operating hours.
This project will be divided into two sections due to my progress and reassessment of goals.
Section 1
Problem
A substantial amount of food is being wasted on a productional level due to various reasons.
Goal
To help farmers in markets to allow them to efficiently sell their produce, but also create a sense of comfort with the household users that their food is safe to eat.
Research
Journey map
I started by talking to dairy farmer in Canada through the app reddit. It allowed me to really look at this problem through a personal view. It raised concerns of weather, labor, and machinery shortage issues, while it did this it made me question whether this scope was a little too big. I decided to narrow down and I began talking to households and a farmer’s market in Lexington, MA.
Some of the issues raised by families were sanitation, handling, cost, distance to markets. Some stated that they would prefer farmer’s markets over supermarkets due to this. At supermarkets, multiple employees and shoppers every day handle the products that may end up in your cart causing worries with how clean our products actually are.
While talking to several members of the Lexington Farmer’s market I found issues pertaining to pre-ordering, accessible information, issues with inventory and sanitation. To the staff over at Lexington, getting people in and out was the main priority for everyone’s health and safety. While I learned that farmers themselves were unable to set up online ordering due to not having a reliable system to count their own inventory. To solve the three problems; accessible information, sanitation and time efficiency, and lack of inventory software, I decided to tighten my focus on the farmer’s side of things.
Empathy Maps
I was able to collect all the thoughts that came up in my conversations with the staff over at Lexington Farmer’s market and I broke it up into four categories as shown above.
Three of the points that stood out were:
Accessible Information: What we have vs. what we don’t have.
Safety and Regulations: Covid and pre ordering hours depending on age group.
Online ordering and Delivery: Will being able to delivery help our business in these times?
Made Conclusions
Farmer’s markets weren’t accessible for everyone.
There isn’t a point of sales or online ordering system in place that caters to farmer’s themselves.
Keeping track of inventory is what prevents produce farmers from doing online ordering.
Foot traffic and getting people in and out as quickly as possible was one of the number one priorities for market staff.
Households are interested in online ordering and delivery options.
Sanitation is a priority for everyone.
Next Possible Directions
AR shopping experience where the user can view their produce before pick up. This would solve for the issues of accessible information and time efficiency.
POS/Online ordering platform for farmers. This would solve for the lack of inventory infrastructure that keeps farmers from online ordering, it would also solve all three issues: time efficiency, sanitation and accessible information.
A produce shopping app that lets the user browse through multiple stalls before arriving for pickup or delivery. This would solve for time efficiency and accessible information.
An inventory display for farmers to keep their produce organized. This would solve for the issue of lack of inventory applications.
Section 2
Current Objective
To create a user friendly app where farmer’s can keep track of their inventory while also fulfilling orders throughout the day, market to market.
How the solution connects back
By creating an inventory centric platform, It was giving smaller farmers the ability to sell more of their produce through other means such as online ordering and delivery without the worry of not having enough produce or too much at any given time. It allows for better preparation so that at the end of the day less food is being unsold and wasted.
Navigational Chart
Lofi Prototyping = Paper Prototyping
Brand Design
Mood board
I wanted to highlight three attributes that I wanted to fit the application the best.
Upbeat
Want users to feel excited to start their market day. Will use fun color palette and motivational jargon.
Organized
Want users to feel confident in how much produce they actually have. Will use a clear system and be straightforward with the user.
Informative
Want users to stay updated. Will use notifications and clear informative graphics to convey different needs.
Final Product
Usability testing
15 Participants
Tasked each participant with being able to clear an order completely.
9/15 took 7 clicks to complete. (correct)
3/15 took 8-9 clicks to complete.
3/15 took more than 10 clicks to complete.
I found that users were trying to complete the task by trying to restock through the product description page. It shows that some improvements could be made to have more than one path accessible.
Reflection
Through this project, I was able to build a relationship with members of a community to narrow down on the problem. Learning about a subject that I had given no thought to prior was an amazing experience.
With continuation I would like to improve/add:
I would like to test with a farmer for the whole day.
Implement more details into delivery services.