Food for thought
Empowering post-secondary life journeys through an app that simplifies student life and fulfills their quest for sustenance, by addressing food insecurity.
Overview
Background
In November 2022,
I participated in a UX Design Challenge held by the McMaster Design League. It was a fun-filled learning journey as it was my first-hand experience with Figma. I had a blast transforming my ideas through design while working with two of my other design mates.
Timeframe
48 hours
Role
Design and Prototype Lead
Team
Harpriya (that's me)
Kshitij Anand
Ishani Pandey
The Problem Statement
Aiming to design the 'Most Essential App for Students'.
A solution that answers this question:
What does a student need the most?
The target user currently struggles with...
1. Transitioning into post-secondary school from high school and isn't quite sure on how to tackle a completely different lifestyle away from home.
2. Allocating time for a social life, physical activity, extra-curricular, academic studies, personal care, which include sleeping, eating, and having leisure time.
3. Feeling 'FOMO' and insecurity from those around them who have quickly adapted to the new life.
Tools
Figma
MIRO
Adobe Illustrator
LucidChart
Award
'Honourable Mention' at McMaster Design League 2022
Deliverables
User Research
User Personas
User Journey
User Flows
Low-fidelity wireframes
Interactive Prototype
Pitch Presentation
Target Audience
Post-secondary students
Narrowing down the problem
We decided to focus on the pressing issue of Food Insecurity and daily challenges of students. The students tend to skip their daily meals due to time constraints, lack of sufficient funds and no knowledge of cooking. They also have a FOMO - fear of missing out, when they cannot keep track of various events happening around them.
Finding out participants' current habits
Research and Uncovered Insights
It is extremely crucial to deeply understand what problems the target users are facing. In order to get a deeper background context, it is beneficial to look at the existing solutions they have and if these solutions are able to fulfil their needs. In order to get an outline of the problem space and users' daily habits, I conducted a survey with 30 participants and held 4 interviews. By interacting with these people, I understood their needs and pain points.
Here are some of the findings.
Research Methods
User Surveys
User Interviews
30 Surveys + 8 interviews
18/30
respondents said that they skip meals every week to meet deadlines and demands of their hectic schedule."It is quite difficult to search or think about what to have during peak course-load."
22/30
respondents said that websites and food-delivery apps were their go-to options when it came to searching for food as it offers wide variety of offers and consumes less time."It is hard to find affordable options around the campus."
23/30
respondents said that they either do not find or find it very difficult to access reasonable food offers and free food events easily."I end up picking up cheap fast food options when healthy ones are just out of reach."
What were some of the user groups?
Meet Stella, the starving student...
After conducting user research and interviews, I got a basic understanding of our potential users and thus framed our persona in order to actualize the user. I, kind of, forced myself to get the needs and desires of users into writing. This practice helped me align the future decisions with real needs.
Here are the low fidelity and polished versions of the persona - Stella!
Analysing Stella's As-Is situation
How does Stella look for food at present?
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What does Stella struggle with the most?
Stella's Pain Points
I was able to get a better perspective of the pain points of the user group after analysing their responses.
Finding the right time and ability to cook for themselves, lesser healthy yet affordable food options around the campus and lack of good connections are the major struggles that students go through during their transition from high school.
Putting our thinking caps on
A glimpse of the Ideation journey
During our ideation journey, we diverged and came up with a bunch of ideas. After a rigorous brainstorming session, we decided to work on ideas that were both feasible and impactful.
How did we predict our user flows?
User Flow
The user flow diagram was focused on creating a simple yet useful experience for the users after analyzing their needs.
As a user of this system, I need to:
- onboard myself
- set up my profile, food preferences & dietary restrictions
- explore about happening events
- build food communities and join new ones
- plan my daily meals
- share food recipes with friends
- track my activity progress
- record sleep patterns and daily water intake
- plan my budget and set reminders
To empower students with food options that fit their daily needs, ultimately leading to self-fulfillment and improved well-being, I tried to focus on:
1. Removing barriers to accessing food and food knowledge by providing food navigation supports.
2. Increasing Food Literacy among students by providing a platform to share recipes.
3. Offering budget-friendly food options by advertising free-food events.
4. Organizing and planning daily meals & activity schedules to encourage healthy lifestyles.
5. Improving social networks by providing a chance to build communities.
Bringing our vision to reality through design
Wireframes
I created wireframes to better depict my understanding of the entire user flow. I began with creating low and mid fidelity prototypes, demonstrating our vision for the app through design.
How did we style our visual aesthetics?
Style Guide
I created a visual design system for the app to make the process of creating high-fidelity screens easy. I decided to maintain consistency with the fonts and visual content for an appealing yet convenient experience. The reason of choosing green as a primary colour for the visuals was to relate it from this thought.
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Bringing life into design
What does Food for thought offer?
1. Personalize your needs
Add your preferences and needs to find best options!
When students are onboarded over the app, they can share their preferred language along with food preferences, dietary restrictions, number of meals they have daily to find out the best possible plans, events and deals. By making the flow easy to understand and follow,
the intent is to make the experience welcoming!
2. One stop shop
Find everything you need in one place!
The Home feed provides an overview of everything in a single place so that one can look for best events around, their daily meal plans, activities and upcoming events on the go.
3. Discover best offers and events
Discover food festivals and enjoy food at discounted prices!
The Discover functionality helps students explore free food events happening around them, register and get tickets for attending events, enjoy food at discounted prices and even track their upcoming events.
4. Join communities
Find friends and communities with similar food interests!
Catering to the usual FOMO of the students, the Community helps them to grow their social circles by finding new friends, chatting with them and checking out trending groups and communities with similar personal interests and food preferences.
5. Plan easily
Plan what you need and organize your daily schedule!
The Plan & Organize function allows students to easily manage their grocery budgets, meal plans and activities.
Making the designs better
High fidelity designs
From initial wireframes to high-fidelity prototypes, I meticulously designed every pixel to breathe life into 'Food for Thought.' Join me on a journey through the evolution of ideas, where precision meets creativity in shaping a user experience that resonates with the daily needs of the students.
What did I learn throughout the process?
Reflecting on the project outcomes
Background research and brainstorming in order to narrow down to a specific problem area play a vital role in design thinking and forming important decisions. It takes time to build up a new project from scratch when you are completely novice to the tool. I took a little time to get a hold of figma and at the same time, I am proud to complete my first Designathon within the 48-hour deadline.
Small steps towards more opportunities
Honourable Mention in McMaster Design League'22
Background research and brainstorming in order to narrow down to a specific problem area play a vital role in design thinking and forming important decisions. It takes time to build up a new project from scratch when you are completely novice to the tool. I took a little time to get a hold of figma and at the same time, I am proud to complete my first Designathon within the 48-hour deadline.
