foodSafe
I was tasked with identifying pain points regarding experiencing food insecurity as a university student and designing an interface equipping students with the know-how and skills needed to alleviate some of the burdens and stressors of cooking and eating as a college student.
User Experience, User Research
Problem
How might we create a supportive & sustainable community for students to relieve the social & mental burdens of food insecurity?
After some preliminary research, I found that over 39% of undergraduates and 23% of graduates at 4-year universities experience food insecurity. Among these students, food insecurity adversely affects 74% minorities: LGBTQ, POC, etc. — students living independently without external financial supportUser Research
During the process of researching, I understood that we couldn't realistically eliminate the financial burdens of food insecure individuals. Instead, I wanted to better understand pain points in their lifestyle and address them with clever and thoughtful design solutions.
Through user interviews, I found the following key factors that students consider when sourcing and consuming food:
100% value affordability
89% value
time & convenience
time & convenience
89% value nutrition
44% value enjoyment & variety
Taking these user priorities into account, I wanted to approach designing this platform in a way that would help them save time and money when deciding on what to cook and eat.
1. Education
2. Resources
3. Community
Process
Post-research stage, I began mapping out the user flows for the platform that would host a shared community, centralize all local food resources, and also recommend nutritious and beginner-friendly recipes.
1. A social feed for sharing recipes and initiating meetups
2. A recipe search-and-browse page
3. A pantry that keeps track of leftover ingredients
4. A map that visualizes local events and stores
5. A chat room with fellow users and peer help services
Upon testing with users, I decided to dial back on the social and chat functions and instead focus on maximizing impact and usability in features emphasizing cooking and finding resources.
Results & Next Steps
The end-result was the foodSafe app which allows users to tap into a vast library of local food resources and in-app recipes tailored to their specific needs and abilities.
After fleshing out the holistic design vision for the platform, I’d like to spend more time thinking of ways to help students not just in the kitchen but also outside. Given that we’ve now equipped students with the know-how and the capabilities to tackle intimidating obstacles associated with food insecurity, I want to direct focus onto providing more tangible, offline resources for them to refer to.