Designing With Web
Part 3 · Phase 1: Prototype

Group 3

Our group

Our subject

Our subject is Reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse.
It comes from the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal number 12, which is entitled "Responsible consumption and production".

Our research question

How can individuals and organizations contribute to better food waste management collectively and individually?

Project 1 · GooDish

Context

Over ⅓ of the food produced globally is wasted; in Europe, ​33 million people cannot afford a quality meal every second day. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), 39% of food waste generated in 2019 came from food service and retail. That represents an annual loss of around 143 billion euros.

In 2021, there are around 7.9 billion people in the world; by 2050, this number is expected to increase by 2 billion. That means more food needs to be produced and, if things remain the same, more will be wasted. Connectivity between individuals and organizations can start making the path towards a society where no one has to struggle with hunger.

Target + persona

We are targeting this project mainly for large operators in the restaurant industry such as hotels, restaurants, grocery stores, and all those agents who handle great amounts of food every day. An example of this is a coffee shop that didn’t sell all its croissants the day before and doesn’t want to throw them away; our proposal is to connect it with a charity association willing to collect and distribute those croissants.

With the help of our project, we can reduce the amount of food waste that is well preserved to be eaten, but won't be sold at stores anymore. The surplus food will be taken from our partners to charity organizartions who'll be able to reduce their food expenses and spend the leftover money in something else that supports their cause. Operators taking part in our project can benefit on a wide scale. They can contribute to the commonweal and gain tax benefits in the process according to the amount of leftover food produced and avoided.

Persona

Service offered

Our project is both a mobile app and a website. Operators that are willing to give their leftover food to charity can join in our project by filling their company information to our database. Once the operator is part of the project, they can inform if they have some leftover food that is still safe to eat and want to donate it. This way people who may not the resources for a proper meal won't need to struggle with hunger.

Features + user flow

Features

User flow

User flow

Illustrations

Benchmark

References

Project 2 · (Virtual Fridge)

Context

When? Where? Who? Why? Explain the specific context of your project.

With the number of hungry people worldwide slowly increasing since 2014 and tons of food being wasted and lost every day, it is imperative to reduce food loss and waste.

In the Food Waste Index 2021 report released by the United Nations, it can be found that food waste that occurs in households is particularly high, accounting for 11% of the total food available to consumers (waste rates in the food service and retail sectors are at 5% and 2% respectively). One of the main reasons causing this is because people are confused by the expiration date of different foods or because they forget food which is bought.

As the result, 121 kg of food is wasted globally at the consumer level each year, of which 74 kg is wasted by households. In 2019, there are 690 million people worldwide who do not have enough to eat and this number is expected to rise significantly due to the impact of the epidemic. In addition, there are approximately 3 billion people in the world who cannot afford a healthy diet. In this context, consumers need more advice and guidance on reducing household food waste.

That's why we plan to launch the Virtual Fridge program in France to help individual households better manage the food they store at home through a simple expired food management software so as to help reduce household food waste.

Target + persona

For whom? Describe the users and beneficiaries of your project, and then suggest a quick persona (refer to Part 2 of the course for methodology tips).

Since the project is dedicated to reduce home food waste by developing a home level food management software, the user could be the household members including both adults and children. Also, students like us, we live along or with our roommates in apartments. Sometimes, it is hard to remember what kinds of food we have

By more effectively managing food and reducing home food waste, several benefits can be identified. Firstly,it can save more money from purchasing less food; secondly, methane emissions could be reduced due to less landfills; there will be also less pollution in food producing, transporting and selling thanks to lower demand of food; more people without stable food supply will have higher chance to eat. Therefore, the beneficiaries of the project in summary are household, atmosphere, scarce resources (electricity, land, water), homeless, refugees and asylum seekers.

Persona

Service offered

What? How? Explain how your solution works, what it enables the user to do, and how is solves the initial issue.

In the project, Expired food management software will be developed to allow shoppers to scan the food that they buy from markets. In this case, expiration date of each scanned item will be identified and stored in the app. When the expiration date of the foods that have not been eaten is approaching, the system will alert to remind users to eat those foods soon, reducing throw of expired foods.

Features + user flow

Explain what features your project involves and hierarchize them from the most important one to the least. Remember: a feature is a verb + a noun, it describes an action that the user can do.

Then, for your first and most important feature (the key feature), write down and draw the user flow: what steps will the user have to go through, from the initial situation to the final situation? Again, refer to Part 2 of the course for methodological tips.

Features

User flow

User flow

Illustrations

Find pictures that describe the universe around your service (context, users, places, technologies…). Don't try to illustrate the final service that you may have in mind but instead, its context. Basically, translate the keywords you used in the descriptions above to pictures.

Benchmark

List competitors or related projects, and describe how they relate or differentiate to your project.

References

Books, films, articles… list every reference that may be relevant regarding this project, and explain why.