Understanding the problem
Food loss and waste may cause considerable socioeconomic and environmental damage
Percentage of food waste worldwide
30- 40%
All foods produced are wasted or lost somewhere along the supply chain: Production, Distribution, Retail and Consumption
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For this project I focused on the issue of household food waste.
Effort
people try to minimize their level of effort (of course, this is subjective), so when they pass their limit, they typically prefer to throw away "spoiled" groceries and buy new ones
Budget
Many households have a budget that they want to adhere to - this could be used as a serious motivator for the users to use the app consistently
User Research. Findings
I created a survey to pinpoint the target audience, hear their concerns and motivations, and to understand if anything can capture their attention to make them change their food consumption and waste habits.
Solution
The Concept in a Nutshel
Design a mobile app that helps users find recipes based on the groceries that they have at home with minimum effort, enabling a varied meal plan while reducing food waste and unnecessary consumption.
Main Feature
A registered user can take pictures of their groceries in the fridge or shelves. A list of the identified groceries in the pictures will be created using AI.
After the user approves the list, the app will offer a variety of recipes, informing them if they need to buy any additional items.
Home Cooking
A recipe mobile app helping people to cook with the groceries that they already have at home - reducing food waste.
The 2021 Productdesign.tips design challenge:
Help people to reduce wasted food.
My Role:
Research, UX Design, UI Design
How will the users benefit from it?
Saving Money
In Israel, the cost-of-living issue constantly appears in the headlines.
Proper food consumption management will prevent unnecessary disposal and purchasing so that the household will stick to a budget.
Environment
If an average family avoids dumping usable ingredients into the trash, environmental pollution will diminish. According to the University of Haifa, consumer contribution to the overall amount of waste is estimated at up to 50%.
Delicious, varied meals
A variety of recipes based on a list of groceries and food that at first seemed to be unusable.
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General Flow
Selected Wireframes
Navigation
When entering the app, the user will directly access the camera. By swiping right, the user can go to the Shopping List, and by swiping they can go to their favorite recipes (My Recipes)
Final Design
The feature will identify the groceries and make a list, which the user needs to approve. It was important to me to let the user feel in control by enabling them to edit the list manually
Take a Picture Feature
If the AI won't be able to identify all the groceries in the pictures then the app will ask the user to help tag the missing parts, so it will keep learning and do better next time
The app will offer the user a variety of recipes while letting them know how many relevant groceries they have at home for each recipe or whether they need to buy additional ingredients.
Also, a sheet with the groceries list will appear at the bottom of the screen for quick editing
Results Screen
In this part, the user is guided through step-by-step instructions that they can check off as they go
Instructions
By pressing the 'Step by Step Process' an additional screen will open in which the user can keep track after each step.
Step by Step
By pressing the weigh-scale icon a Weight Conversion screen will open. On this screen, the user can easily conduct weight conversion.
I borrowed this concept from banking apps' exchange calculators which I changed into an interactive Conversion Table. By integrating this feature,
I removed the user’s cognitive load in a recurring task by automating the conversion for them. This means that they could get their questions answered within the app rather than relying on other tools or memory.
Conversion table
In this part, the user can see which groceries are included in the recipe and which of them they have at home. If the user doesn’t have all of the groceries, they can add what is missing to a shopping list for future use
Groceries
Each menu includes 3 categories of information: Groceries list, Instructions and Nutrition.
Menu Screen
A shopping list that the user creates while using the app. They can easily add recipes to the shopping list for a simplified grocery store experience
Shopping list
Mismanagement of food caused by overbuying driven by consumption culture
We decide we don't want to eat food we bought
We don't want to risk eating food that isn't fresh when we see that the expiry date is about to pass or has passed