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Prompt
In 24 hours, solve a community-based problem
Our team of me and three other designers were given 24 hours to answer this open-ended prompt. We honed in our focus on food insecurity among college students, as well as food waste. Our system quickly connected discounted local meals to students. My role included user research, competitive analysis, ideation, and high-fidelity prototyping
Define a Problem
45% of college students face food insecurity
Food insecurity is when a person does not have reliable or steady access to a guaranteed meal. Across the country, due to a lack of income or accessibility, countless of college students need a surefire way to be able to eat. Compounded with that, restaurants waste tons of food at the end of the day. How can we reduce food waste by using those meals to combat food insecurity among students?
Survey Analysis
We needed to find a way to point students to discounted meals as quickly as possible
Our surveys from over 30 college students revealed that food outside of a meal plan or campus just cost too much. If there's a discounted meal around, there isn't an easy way to know much about it. Student feel like they also don't have time for meals due to the workload of school, perhaps with an added job.
Competitive Analysis
Other services used an interactive map, but without an option for a quick choice
Two apps really stood out or us in terms of being able to connect users to discounted restaurants around a local area, Food for All and Hooked Deals. Both made use of an interactive map to show users where they can find restaurants offering discounted meals, but none allowed users to tweak preferences. Both apps were big influencers on our ideation and design phase.
Food For All, an app that connects users to discounted meals, also a donation hub
Hooked Deals, a service allowing users to show promotion deals to restaurants for discount
Redefined Question
How might we provide students with limited money and time food from restaurants at close, which would otherwise be wasted?
Ideation
Based on research, we decided "swipes" system allowed users to choose discounted food quickly
Our team iterated through ideas about our own interactive map to find deals on meals, as well as an option to select quickly, and a preferences screen. Due to time and scope, we had a lot of ideas that didn't make the final prototype, they were a good bridge into what we ended up with. Our favorite was the quick selection screen where a user is presented one option at a time and can swipe left or right on it based on if they like it or not.
Grouping from rapid fire ideas, not all of our ideas made it to the final iteration
Information Hierarchy
User flow helped us plan screens, but due to a lack of time we had to scale back
Our teammate, Jina, made a really awesome user flow chart on what screens would be on our app and where they'd lead after interactions. The rectangles represent screens, while the diamonds represent interactions. Unfortunately, we had to cut a lot of content from the user profile screens and the impact screen. The impact screen was to include metrics on how many meals were saved due to eduEats.
Created by Jina Lee
Visual Style
Our playful style is meant to ease the user and invite them in
We make use of rounded corners, fun illustrations, and a non-formal sans serif font. Since food insecurity isn't an easy problem to deal with, we want the user to be invited in with a friendly style meant to assist them as quickly as possible.
Component Design
While iterating, I learned that I'm passionate about design components and systems
Fun fact of the day: while we were mocking up final solution screens, my teammate mentioned that I'm very "professional" and precise with how I design. I wasn't sure what she meant by that, but then I realized how meticulous I was about spacing for buttons and cards, and how much I liked laying them out. This could be useful for when a group needs a well-laid-out design system. While not all of them were in the final solution, my components are below
This becomes green in final prototype
Final Screens
Listening to research, we prioritize information like discounts and food location
As mentioned before, we had to jump right into hi-fi prototyping due to time running out in our contest. You'll see in our card design that the discount is the biggest element, and the only other type is how far away the restaurant is. The goal is for the user to get what they want as quickly as they can.
Answer #1
Quickly match to discounted restaurants locally
Our research revealed that students don't have the time to eat restaurant food. Inspired by Tinder, we adopted a style that quickly sifts through discounted restaurants for a quick decision
Answer #2
Interact with map to find closest restaurant
Survey respondents also indicated that it's important for food to be accessible by proximity. Our interactive map allows a user to find the closest discounted food for them.
Answer #3
Tweak preferences to find favorites
The preferences option is a surefire way to customize food orders exactly to your liking, and then find those discounted options around you.
How Will I Improve
Think holistically while still caring about the small details
I spent too much time adjusting elements pixel by pixel, in terms of spacing and alignment. While it's good to care about the fine details, I need to learn how to take a step back and understand if what I'm doing at the moment is the most important task to be done for completion by a deadline.
What I Learned
I'm interested in design systems and I will improve with using them
My precision and care with components makes me believe that I should further what it means to create one, in terms of creating more variants for components like buttons, menus, and nav bars. I'd love to read up on Atomic Design so I can fully understand building a system from the smallest bit to the largest part.
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