2021 YES! Awards Show:

Best UX

Research

Best UX Visualization

Best Interactive Immersive Experience.

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Project Oberview

Project Overview

FoodNet is an application that uses Augmented Reality (AR) technology to facilitate and simplify the food donation process by utilizing existing resources and contributing to a healthier food distribution network. The application makes it simpler for people to donate food by identifying items that food charities need.

Challenge

We aim to tackle social injustices by focusing on food distribution and waste. As food rescue organizations work in silos to collect surplus food from food industry donors, we are looking to help them to organize.

Vision

FoodNet's vision is to contribute something to a city of experiences that allows us to actively play a part in the fight against food waste.

Goals

Research on a relevant social problem: Food waste.
Present a solution for this problem with a system or application.
Develop an app that uses AR.
Demonstrating the app's technical feasibility despite challenges.

The team behind FoodNet

The team behind Foodnet

Nicole Aranzanso

Interaction Designer

Zimron Cupid

Interaction Designer

Julian Mutis

Interaction Designer

See here
Behind the Scene

Our Values

With our research, we determine our values as a team and therefore the values of FoodNet. Social injustices taught us the importance of Community, Collaboration, and Taking Action to change for a better society. Understanding these values was key to approaching our project from the perspective of the people. Is the people who have the power for change and where the real motivations and frustrations come from.

Community

Collaberation

Taking Action

Research

We gathered both qualitative and quantitative research that has helped us to further develop our concept. Our quantitative research reaffirmed our beliefs that we can aid in the fight against food waste management. Our qualitative research has helped us form a story around those beliefs and ultimately come up with the system we created.

Origin & Research

Origin

The Black Lives Matter movement was an inspiration to look for the cause of social injustices. So during the discovery and the research stage, the team wanted to highlight social injustices and how they were fought against through various platforms (i.e. art, music, protests, organizations, and products)

The research defined that the fight against social injustice is tough. Without the help of organizations and the right tools, it can be difficult to spread the message and help to empower those that are facing injustice. During the ideation stage of this project, we started to conceptualize the idea of an organization that aims to combat social injustice. By connecting alike organizations together the initiative would allow them to pull resources and funding, get the message out faster, and educate and connect individuals.

Food Distribution

Food distribution affects social inequality in positive or negative ways. It is a problem when it is poorly organized and food doesn't reach segregated communities. Also, it can become an opportunity to solve gaps in food distribution and contribute to the well-being of these communities.

Some opportunities can be found in food distribution when we focus on education, food waste, and social inequality. For that reason, we decided to contribute to the process of Collecting surplus food from different donors in the food industry for easier distribution to communities in need. We want to help all parties involved (donors and charities) with a platform that allows them to share resources.

Quantitative Data

Food Waste

58% of all food produced in Canada is lost or wasted.

35.5 million tonnes.

1 Third of that food can be "rescued" and redistributed to communities who need it.

Distribution of visits to food banks in Canada

Target 18-30 age range

Tech savvy

Digital Native

Have Responsibilities

3rd Largest group donating food

can influence younger generation

Distribution of food waste in Canada 2010 & 2014

Processing

Transport and Distribution

Restaurant & Hotels

On farm

Retail

Consumers

International catering

2010

2014

Consumers are responsible for a large amount of food waste. An opportunity to minimize their footprint with education.

Quantitative Data

Insights

Our research reaffirmed our beliefs that we can aid in the fight against food waste. We created a story around these beliefs in order to ideate a food management system. Our Human-centric approach allowed us to focus on the donors as a powerful source of change. We found that the food donation process can be tedious.

Human-Centered Design

"For the people, by the people."

This is a quote that better represents FoodNet's Human-centric design approach. Getting this close to people helped to create a Persona that represents the donors' perspective as a target User. It is here where Anant is introduced as an individual who has a full story and his motivations are well rooted in his childhood.

Persona

Anant, 29

| Toronto, ON | Accountant

Anant is a community-oriented person who values collaboration. Having experienced food scarcity in his family during his younger years, he appreciates the assistance his family received from the local community, which shaped his personality and behavior. He empathizes with people facing similar challenges and believes in giving back to the community. He identifies as part of a minority.

Interests

Contribute to the local community.
Care for those close to him.
Actively participate in the community and promote helping others.

Skills

Empathetic towards other people.
Collaborative.
Tech Savvy.

Persona

User Research

System Map

FoodNet is an application that collects information from charities and food industry organizations to identify opportunities for better food distribution. These distribution networks can be complex and operate in silos. FoodNet is proposing a platform that helps this network to be in sync and make the donation process simple and efficient for donors like Anant.

Donor

Simplified Map for Anant

FoodNet provides only the necessary information so the user has clear, quick and easy options to donate.

Donor

Reasons to Use the Platform

The problem of food should be the problem of each individual in their local area. By facilitating this process for potential donors, they will be able to contribute to the communities in need in the local area. This tool is going to contribute by informing and simplifying the donation process and making it as easy as an in-store purchase.

Journey Map before FoodNet:

This is the current journey of Anant when he goes grocery shopping and faces the opportunity of donating food.

Journey Map after Foodnet:

FoodNet is a platform and an application in the phone that bridges the gaps in Anant's journey to donate food.

Journey & System Maps

User Flow

We elaborated the user flow from the gaps we found in the journey map. Anant's frustrations were opportunities to develop a solution to smooth his experience in his donation process. Eventually, this was the starting point for the User Flow and later the wireframes.