Freeidge
Making it easier to creatively reduce food waste at home
Context
I created this design with another student who I found a mutual passion towards mitigating negative environmental impact.
Problem
Americans waste about a third of their food. (United States Department of Agriculture) A big part of that problem starts in the fridge! (Resources, Conservation and Recycling Journal, Volume 150, November 2019)
Product
FREEIDGE (FREE YOUR FRIDGE) is a speculative mobile application designed to help users reduce food waste at home in more ways rather than just cooking!
Role
Product Designer
Timeline
Jan 2021 - Apr 2021
Tools
Google forms, Procreate, AdobeXD, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop
Understanding the Needs
We distributed two online surveys, a primary survey to focus on understanding our potential user base and a secondary survey to refine our product concept. We gathered 77 total responses from individuals ranging from age 20 to 50 years old, most of whom identify as busy professionals.
Excess Expiring Ingredients
67 out of 77 participants reported often discarding expiring ingredients from their refrigerators.
Most respondents felt the need to reduce food waste at home and are interested in taking steps to live a more sustainable lifestyle.
Simple Solutions
Participants preferred spending as little time as possible in preparing and as few ingredients as possible in cooking meals. They prefer cooking fewer portions at a time and favor less difficult recipes.
The top most favored solutions were “ingredients to meal recipes,” “ingredients to drink recipes,“Ingredients to composting,” and “recipe generation by taking a picture.”
We then conducted a competitive analysis with three direct competitor apps (Empty My Fridge, Magic Fridge, Cooklist) and two indirect competitor apps (Blue Apron, OLIO). The main market gap we identified was a lack in alternative solutions to cooking recipes to divert excess food at home.
Conceptualizing
We determined the three key solutions for our design to address the user needs and market gaps we found.
Personalized creative solutions
Generates personalized solutions including recipes and alternative methods for increased ways to reduce and divert personal food waste.
Automated inventory management
Allows users to track refrigerator inventory and expiration timelines to assist with grocery shopping and meal planning.
User metrics for wasted ingredients
Allows users to track personal food waste over time to understand habits for better food waste management.
Use Cases
Based on our survey data, we imagined the following use cases for our product.
A Self Care Aficionado and Focused Working Professional
Uses the app after a tiring business trip to create a skincare concoction with remaining ingredients in refrigerator
A Busy Mom and Head of Household
Uses the app to to check on current ingredients while grocery shopping to pull together dinner for the family
Design Explorations
We created exploratory sketches and a low fidelity prototype which we tested on the Pop prototyping tool with potential users.
Prototyping Freeidge
Homepage
We chose to put buttons for managing inventory via scanning ingredients or manually selecting from a list to make it easy for the user to keep their "Freeidges" up to date.
Ingredients to Creative Solutions
Multiple creative solutions, including meal, drink, personal care, pet food, preserved food recipes, and composting methods to repurpose fridge excess ingredients based on user’s lifestyle
Automatic identification and evaluation of ingredients through photo capture
Automatic ingredient stock update after completing a solution
Ingredients Stock Management
Shows existing fridge and pantry ingredient inventory
Add ingredients in multiple ways, either by selecting from list, voice command, receipt scan, or photo scan
Clear fridge and pantry ingredients subcategories and pull down menu to add ingredients
Expiring ingredients reminder notification
User Profiles
Monthly waste metrics to track users’ waste habits and semi-annual waste trending report
Saved and favorited solutions
Shared images with other users for inspiration and motiviation
