Eat and save the leftovers!
Understand
2
Observe
3
Point of View
4
Ideate
5
Prototype
6
1
Test
Role
Researcher | Product Designer
_______________________________
​
Duration
3 Weeks
_______________________________
​
Tools
Adobe XD, Adobe Illustrator
​
​
​
​
Problem
Since I was working in catering at Purdue University for a couple of months, I could see how much leftover food was wasting throughout every single event. This experience led me to find out about this problem. After doing the secondary and the primary research we understood that
​
​
"There is no appropriate bridge between on-campus event organizers and students to deliver the leftover foods to the students or faculties".
Also, the lack of a given location and suitable packaging was one of the most important problems according to our findings.
​
Our goal for this project is to develop a system or service to promote food waste reduction and end hunger across university communities.
​
Our design would address an accessible pattern that could create a mutual atmosphere for students and event organizers in order to prevent food waste properly.
​
We defined our target users as:
​​​
Purdue 's students​
Faculty and staff
Event organizers
Research Methodology
​
​
​
​
Since we will be designing for a diverse student and organizer base, we want to make sure I use research methods that would help me collect insightful data to find patterns and trends.
Utilizing relevant research methods allows me to empathize with college students by providing me with a clear understanding of their wants and needs.
​
These considerations lead me to pose the following questions:
​
​​
​
​
​
"How can students make sure that the food is edible?"
"How can our design make the process simple and reliable for students and organizers?"
​
​
Primary Research
Results of the First Interview
Within the context of our design challenge, scope, and research questions, we decided to reach out to people who work at Catering & Events at Purdue University to understand the challenges from their point of view.
​
​
We interviewed a total of 5 workers in this stage. All these interviewees are the people who make the decisions for the events and they are aware of the vital rules of the organization.
Results of the Second Interview
After interviewing with the directors of the organization we developed another set of questions to collect qualitative data to gain participant input at the PU.
We interviewed PU students and the university food organization workers and consumers separately.
​
We received a total of 76 responses from 12 different PU students and workers which we were organized to gain insight on which issues to address with our design. This helped us focus on the most important problems and insights that were relevant to both groups.
Personas
We built 2 separate personas. Ones who like to do not like the leftover food and the ones who like to receive the surplus food to better understand the problem from both perspectives.
Jack
​
-
Sophomore student at Purdue university
-
work study student
-
He frequents an on-campus restaurant
-
Unsubscribing from his university's dining package
-
Feels the price of the food is increasing
​
​
Frustration
​
Constant increase in cost of food
Age 20
​
Income $7K
​
Archetype The Saver
Ariel
Age 27
​
Income $180K
​
Archetype The Giver
​
-
Successful manager and event organizer
-
Hate wasting food in events
-
Unable to donate because of traveling for events
-
Seeking a way to donate during traveling
-
Likes to prioritization for donating
​
​
Frustration
​
No prioritization of donations
Limited ability to impact naturally
Biological Inspiration
In this project, we considered the leftover food as a resource that should be dispersed like seeds of plants; food dispersing is the main scenario. We needed a context for dispersing the leftovers. Every day this scenario is performing in nature by plants. The wind is one of the most critical tools for plants for dispersing seeds to help them reproduce.
Solution
Based on this natural method, we considered a system for dispersing the leftover.
Process of Food Dispersaldfythdtfryhdtyfhnbd
In order to deliver the foods to the students, we need to design a service with three products.
​​
-
An application to notify the students regarding the leftover foods
-
A package which could keep all type of foods for a while
-
A kiosk to put the packages on it for easier accessibility
Solution- Appliction
Our design, mobile application could play the role of wind; it is
"a medium between the source of food and the receivers (target users)"
Our Goal
Disperse Through Notification
Legend
04 | 2020
FoodNet
Biomimicry Global Design Challenge
The Biomimicry Global Design Challenge is an annual competition that asks teams of students and professionals to address critical global issues with nature-inspired solutions. The challenge is hosted by the Biomimicry Institute.
​
​
The Challenge
​
How might we connect the surplus foods generated from university communities to those in need?
​
Project Brief
Task Flow / IA
Final Design
The mobiles app leverages precision notification and motivation and rewards, to encourage customers to patronize the food surplus. As the primary means of interaction, food organizations load their available food on the platform then users are notified.
Users can subscribe to foods
and events of their choice. Free
food recommendations are also
suggested
Users can see the results as the amount of money and food that have been saved during the time.
Users get notified about food
and shows location on map.
Typography
Business Convas
Final Pages
Solution- Packaging
Need a packaging that could keep any kind of food into it for donating.
Also it should:
-
Insulated for watery and oily food
-
Cheap
-
Easy to use
-
Maintain the food for about a day
-
Recyclable
-
Without chemical effects
-
Easy to prepare
-
Easy to carry
-
Keep the food fresh
-
Keep the food safe
Biological Inspiration
-
Among all kinds of nuts, almonds have a structured shell
-
The shell has tiny holes with various diameters
-
These holes make the shell light and easily absorbed
Two layers of craft paper
dergerthgedrtgh
A layer of foam
dergerthgedrtgh
-
We designed a package with a thin layers of porous foam in the wall like an almond's structure
Product Renderings
The users can check the food type and expiration date by scanning the QR code and downloading the app
Tabes and handle to carry the package easily
Label for advertising the event or restaurant
Logo
Solution- Kiosk
The kiosk is a rope shelf that holds the food packages. It will be installed on the walls. It is designed to be affordable, easy to install, and
easily shipped.
The size of the kiosk can be adjusted to fit the size of the wall
The kiosk arrives in a compact 4' * 6" box making it affordable and easy to transport
High density knitted polyester fabric expands up 2 times
Our next steps is to conduct service prototyping in other to access the potential views of consumers. We intend to collaborate with food service and organizations to test our packaging and kiosk prototypes along with the app.
We also hope to develop multiple variations of the packages to understand ways to better improve it.
Though our Kiosk is effective, we also plan to explore how we can integrate sensors and other ubiquitous computing component to make it even more robust.
Next Step