Waste Not, Want Not

Mobile App

The Problem :So many people struggle with household food waste. They fall victim to overbuying, the convenience of eating out, and improper food storage. Which leads to food spoilage and consequently food waste. Which not only negatively affects our wallets, but also the environment.

The Solution: We believe providing tailored recipes, expiration reminders, & a spoilage tracking system to users who struggle with excessive household food waste will lessen it. 

User Research

We focused on the “What” & “Why” of user’s food waste. Through 6 1-on-1 semi-structured interviews, 32 surveys, and 5 competitor analyses.

We worked to identify what is wasted, why it’s wasted, & what users are willing to do to combat food waste.

Key Findings:

On a daily basis, most people eat out more than they cook.

The top 3 wasted groups of food groups are whole veg/fruits, leafy greens, & milk.

Some want to improve their grocery buying habits.

Convenience drives people to eating out, and excessive eating out is a common cause of household food waste.

Over buying for variety or select items in bulk are common causes of food waste.

Affinity Diagram

After our six interviews, we gathered their data and sorted them into the following categories:

  • Background on the interviewee

  • Current eating habits

  • Ways to improve

  • What was wasted?

  • Things going well for users

  • Best Buy vs. Expiration dates

  • How careful are people about food waste

  • Food waste causes

Story Board

Tayah and I started out wire-framing and sketching separately so we could explore what each of us envisioned the app to look like before bringing our ideas together.


Lo-Fi Wireframes

Style Guide

Mid-Fi Prototyping

Mid-Fi User Testing

Our user testing success rate was at 64% so we gathered all the users main concerns, like the ‘talk-to-text’ option, they felt as though they would more than likely type out the grocery item instead of using talk to text since they are already navigating through the app with their fingers. The testing also showed some prototyping errors that we had to go back in and adjust.

Final Prototype

Lessons and future opportunities

We learned that ‘talk-to-text’ was not something the users gravitated towards and that constructive criticism is very high-valued because that made our app design a lot smoother. Future opportunities could be to create a platform within the app so you could connect and encourage friendly competition on reducing waste. Another opportunity could be a donation system so any food items that you are not planning on using before the expiration date could be donated to a local shelter.