ABOUT THE PROJECT
Fresher is a mobile app concept for accessible tracking of at-home grocery freshness.
The Challenge:
Consumers have concerns when it comes to tracking groceries: lack of an organizational system and difficult to access reminders. The audience tends to forget about the groceries they have at home due to stress and scarcity of free time, so the UX must be simple to use and act as a guiding hand to freshness for the user.
My Role:
• User Research and Analysis
• Persona Creation
• Point of View Statement
• Journey Map
• "How Might We..." Statements
• Design Concept
• Wireframe Sketching
• Prototype Creation
• Product Story
I used the Experience Design Framework guide to creating a user product during my process. This guide granted me organization so that I could flourishingly craft my research and design.
• EMPATHIZE:
• Surveys, In-Depth Interviews, User Personas
• DEFINE:
• Journey Map, Point of View Statement
• IDEATE:
• "How Might We..." Statements, Design Concept, Wireframe and Prototyping
• DELIVER:
• Product Story, UX Case Study, Presentation
CONDUCTING USER SURVEY
I conducted a user survey to gain helpful user insight and to address more specific issues within the design challenge.
Results:
• 53% of surveyed users responded that they do not cook for themselves often.
• 76% of surveyed users said that the reason they do not cook for themselves often, is due to a busy schedule.
• 65% of surveyed users responded that they forget about the food in their fridge very often.
• 88% of surveyed users recorded that if there was a way to make utilizing fresh groceries easier, that they would be interested.
CONDUCTING IN-DEPTH INTERVIEWS
I conducted in-depth interviews with users from the target demographic to gain more specific insight into the problem in order to create more precise User Personas.
1) INTERVIEW 01 - Michael Rea
Age: 19
Gender: Male
Job: Full-time Undergraduate Student
College: The University of Kansas
Interview Synopsis: A sophomore at KU living in an on-campus fraternity house. He has roommates and shares a mini-fridge with one other male. He has three meals a day provided to him by his university, besides on weekends. On the days he does not have a provided meal, he cooks for himself. He usually shops at stores such as Walmart. Because he does not cook during the week, his food goes bad often, making him feel sad, upset, and angry. He typically knows what is in his fridge, but would find a sheet to track groceries on to be helpful.
2) INTERVIEW 02 - Jessica Lynch
Age: 20
Gender: Female
Job: Undergraduate Student and Intern
College: Texas Christian University
Interview Synopsis: A senior at TCU living with four other female roommates in a one-story, off-campus house. She grocery shops about once a week at stores like Trader Joe’s or Target. She cooks often for herself and sometimes for one other roommate as well. She does not cook anything extravagant, due to feeling like she does not have the time. She often lets fresh groceries go bad, feeling wasteful when seeing the expired items. She thinks using a reminder system or list would be helpful in this situation and believes this is a good problem to address.
3) INTERVIEW 03 - Carter Koziol
Age: 21
Gender: Male
Job: Full-time Undergraduate Student
College: The University of Arizona
Interview Synopsis: A senior at U of A living in an off-campus house with four other male roommates. He grocery shops about once a week at stores like Safeway and Costco. He cooks for himself often, but experiences sadness, loss of hope, and feeling like the day cannot go on when discovering his food has expired. To avoid this issue, he usually only purchase items for the week that he knows he will eat, but still feels as though an alternate form of a list would be helpful. He usually has one located on his fridge but thinks there is a better way to create a list.
USER PERSONAS
The research gathered from the survey and interviews helped me create two User Personas. These personas were referred to for the entirety of the design process in order to make the product desirable to the target audience and user.
• Each persona focussed on the goals, needs, frustrations, and behavior of the user, which provided insight into the user's probable experience with the product, seen in the Journey Maps.
1) USER PERSONA 01 - Busy Bailey
USER PERSONA 02 - Tense Trent
POINT OF VIEW STATEMENT
The Point of View statement identifies the user, what the user's need is, and why it is insightful.
• Stressed college students and young adults need a simple and usable solution for the recording and reminding of fresh groceries on top of other daily tasks because they hope to worry less, become more organized, and be more useful with food and money.
JOURNEY MAP
The Journey Map includes a scenario that the user, Busy Bailey, is placed in, her expectations, emotions, and her experience with the problem.
DESIGN CONCEPT
• We will design an application experience and reminder system that is organizational and valuable so that busy students and young adults can feel in control of tracking their available groceries for less waste, better health, and a more organized life.
"HOW MIGHT WE..." STATEMENTS
The HMW Statements helped to outline the intended experience for the primary user and the desired effect in order to prepare for the design process.
• Considering Emotion…
• How might we design a grocery tracking application that adds value to and reduces stress from your daily schedule, while creating a way to easily manage food?
• Opposite of Pain Points…
• How might we make it simple to track expiration dates more precisely?
• Creating an Analogy…
• How might we tracking groceries feel like triumph and less like a chore?
WIREFRAME SKETCHING:
In these wireframe sketches, I mocked-up information, layout, and direction for the design to prepare for visual design.
Findings
• Users found the "Item Lookup" section to be confusing and under-developed. It needs to be expanded into a date base food item categories for the most accurate expiration dates.
• Users valued the idea of having a notification center and indications of notifications for easy accessibility.
• Users expressed interest in a list view with filter options in the "My Fridge" section for better organization and easier, on-the-go viewing. Users also suggested a color-coding system to aid in this simple, yet helpful organization.
Design Solutions
• The "Item Lookup" section was simplified to a data base with images of products sorted into categories for easy searching.
• A notification bell was added to each screen to indicate when a user has missed notifications. Upon clicking, this bell leads the user to a list of all recent notifications.
• The "My Fridge" section was given a filter system for options like sorting by date, etc. in list view, complemented by color codes of red and green to indicate freshness. A line of text was added to each item for more viewable information, reading "This item expires this week".
After sketching and creating mid-fidelity layouts for each screen, the Visual Design was created in Adobe XD. I gathered user feedback on my design, layout, and function during the design process, and was able to create a strong Visual Design idea.
During the design process, the goal was to create a sleek, modern, and clean design that appeals to busy and younger audiences. The goal of the Fresher design was to make groceries cool again, using a bright blue and neon green for contemporary details. The modern look is reflected in the main typeface as well, using a geometric serif font to achieve the desired appearance. The blue and green were also chosen to reflect a clean and fresh feeling.
Food imagery of vibrant vegetables, plates, and more were also used to give the reader visual clues and to put meaning and emphasis back into fresh food.
PRODUCT STORY
For the Product Story, an outline and visual representation was created to show how the product adds value to the user’s daily life.
WHAT HAVE I LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT?
• Research is the backbone and biggest pillar in determining what a problem is, what can be done to solve it, and who needs to be catered. Without research, this project would have been designed based on what I need as a user, not based on the overall audience's wants and needs. Research is imperative and is necessary for every step of the process.
• Precise personas are important. Without personas that strongly reflect the target user, the design concept will fail. Personas give insight into every aspect of the process and allow for a successful end result.
• User feedback during the process is a must. One cannot design well if it is not received well by the user. Design, at its core, is for human use. Because humans are at the center of design, it is important to gather feedback when moving through this process and creating Visual Design that they are expected to use.
THANK YOU.
