Thesis Thoughts

by Anupma Rajani

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Concept Statement + User Journey (5E)

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Competitor Landscape

Another part of the research was to understand the competitor landscape. I looked broadly at food industry trends and mapped the services in each stage of consumption cycle. Although I did not find any particular service that helped reduce food waste except the meal-deal services but they offered a totally new model which eliminated grocery purchase completely from the cycle. 

You can find the complete presentation here.

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Research+Concept Experiment

Capturing thinking, Feb 2016

Experiment with Max: Earlier in the process (in February) I partnered with my classmate Max and shadowed him while he was grocery shopping to understand how he made the purchases decisions; what to buy and how much and how and his girlfriend went about planning for their groceries.

The next step was a design experiment. As a part of the experiment Max, shared his grocery receipt with me and looked at all the items and sorted them based on ‘how long they would last’ and sent reminders/ recipes to max to use items that would otherwise go bad.   

Experiment setup: How it works

Idea simulation using text messaging

At the end of the week, Max did mention that he found the reminders to be helpful. Although he didn’t finish cooking the exact recipes that were sent, he did use those ingredients for dishes he usually cooks. This was a great learning in further defining the concept. Also, in our conversation at the end of that week, he said that they ended up using ~80% of what he bought. 

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Progress..

It’s been really long since I posted the last update here. Amidst spring break, travel to Helsinki for the Interaction16, attending job interview AND working on prototype iterations and testing it I (almost) struggled to find the time to update my progress here. However, I was writing everything that I wanted to share on my whiteboard & notebook to ensure I don’t forget about it and have it documented in some form. Here is the image of my whiteboard:

Here is a quick look at my notebook sketches for documentation. In the next couple of days I will post images/ slides and drafts that sit in my system to capture how my approach has evolved over the past few weeks. 

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Thesis Update

In the effort to identify the story I’m trying to communicate for my thesis,  I used the Storymapping framework we learned in Donna Lichaw’s class on Narrative & Interactivity. What stuck with me the most about this framework was that every powerful story has three important points - the beginning, identifies the primary actor of the story and their current state of life; the hump through which a person travels, from knowing their problem to finding a point of resolution; and the end which is about how a person feels at the end of it all.   

Here’s is the concept storymap and a usage storymap I came up with based on the Value Proposition statement I posted a few weeks back. 

CONCEPT STORY (Download here for better resolution)

USAGE STORY (Download here for better resolution)

Apologies for this low-resolution images, Tumblr reduces the image size and in this case, the text is barely readable. Please view the maps here for better understanding. 

Also, if you’re someone who can relate to this story or have thoughts that you’d like to share, feel free to drop a note! 

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Refined Idea + Criteria Matrix

Based on the discussion with Eric I refined the criteria and made them more specific and clear with respect to my project. Below is the refine matrix.  

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Ideas + Criteria Matrix

Version 1 (Discussion notes with Eric) 

[Assignment Brief]

To help you focus your thesis exploration moving forward, make a matrix:

On the horizontal axis, list your Ideas (just a concise title, not the whole description)

On the vertical axis, list your User Criteria and Personal Criteria

Check the boxes where they intersect, and see which idea hits the most criteria. Most likely, in the process of doing this you will need to edit some criteria, think of new criteria that are important to you, and/or decide to eliminate some that aren't critical. Also, it is possible you will see which idea gets the most "points" but realize in your heart you don't really want to do that one, but another one instead. Anything that helps you narrow down is good.

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Thesis Concept Statement / Value Proposition

For time-starved millennials “FoodTrack”IS A #zerofoodwaste app that assists you to only buy what you can consume and consume all that you buy. Unlike, other recipe and shopping list apps, FoodTrack is context-aware, it adapts dynamically to your schedule and learns your food habits over time to simplify food planning.

[Assignment Brief]

This is your first draft of a concise summary of your thesis idea. Value propositions are a helpful tool to synthesize the essence of your thesis concept into three categories: user, offering and benefits. Come to class with 2 or 3 different variations of your own value proposition for your best idea so far. The below form is adapted from Geoffrey Moore's marketing classic Crossing the Chasm, but this statement does not have to have commercial/market goals in mind. You will iterate on this again after labs on use cases and competitor analyses.

MY PRODUCT NAME [general category]

FOR (target audience)

WHO ARE/WANTS (need),

[PRODUCT NAME] IS A (specific market category)

THAT (key benefit).

UNLIKE (competition),

[PRODUCT NAME] IS (unique differentiator)

Example: "TYPEY" [website]

FOR type enthusiasts WHO need to learn and use fonts, "TYPEY" IS A typeface encyclopedia THAT is enthusiast-generated. UNLIKE MyFonts, TYPEY is crowd-sourced and community-driven.

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Prototype 3

Last week, we were asked to present an alternate low-fidelity prototype in class. The goal of the assignment was to explore a new idea/ direction (highlighted in my previous post) and imagine a target user's reaction to it. I used my assumption map from the last term's research and also spent a few hours at Trader Joe's, observing and speaking with a few people about their grocery shopping and cooking behaviors. Here are some of the slides I presented as a part of my direction, research/ findings and idea sketch.

Overall, based on the feedback I heard from my classmates & Eric, I feel intervening at an early stage in the cycle was more promising because it offered many different ideas to mitigate the problem of excess/ unused food. Also, using the community as a way to learn about consumption behaviors & assisting people to make better purchase decisions was interesting to people. 

There were some questions about how the app would work to get this information and when will the use see it (like, while he is in the aisle, before checkout, at checkout, etc.). I need to identify these interactions in the user journey. Another challenge I see with this approach is that, to begin with; it will require the user to input a lot of information for the system to learn an individual's usage pattern, meaning, a much higher level of commitment from the users, which might not be desirable.

I am excited about this approach, it has the angle of the (food) community which worked well in the previous prototype (FoodBuddies), with subtle interventions to bring behavioral shift wrt individual food consumption (my personal criteria). Let's see how it evolves!

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Thesis 3 - New directions

You can’t waste what you don’t buy in the first place.

I think this describes my new direction in the most fundamental manner.

In the process of creating alternate ways to channelise surplus food in the home, I did not explore the fundamental causes that lead to surplus food/ bulk purchases in as much depth. This came up in my discussion with Theodore Ullrich, my thesis advisor when he asked me what is it that makes people buy in excess? I dug deeper into this, brushing my previous research about date labels and learning about the people purchasing behaviors wrt grocery shopping.

In my desk research, I came across some interesting articles around people perceptions and behaviors regarding food purchase & consumption.

Food Date Labels 

Bulk Shopping and Food waste

Awareness among consumers

How bulk purchases is a waste of money?

These new learnings + conversations with my classmates and Ted (my thesis Advisor) led me to the new direction. Here is my first stab on a more specific idea for my thesis.

A crowd-sourced tool that assists your food purchasing, preparation and planning activities based on how much food you need at every turn and every meal such that you buy what you can consume and consume all that you buy. 

Who is it for? Millennials (21-34 years, male and females) at the beginning of their careers, who are starting to form households, are time-starved want to use technology to make food planning and consumption faster, easier and more efficient.

Where do they reside: New York City

What will it do? Eliminate surplus + impulse purchases and suggest easy ways to integrate grocery purchase in daily food planning.

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Evaluations + Reflections

Last semester, I explored two approaches to reduce food waste in the home; one was a system to inform people about the safety of the food items in a more transparent way (compared to the date labels).  The Second approach focussed on creating alternate channels to mitigate food waste of perishables (fruits, vegetables, etc.). The process of working and testing these concepts led me to confirm some of my initial findings and behaviors that people have wrt. food:

Date labels are important to people. Most people perceive them as the measure of food safety.

When people go grocery shopping, they have every intention to consume all that they buy.

Lack of time, planning and schedules come in the way of people and their food consumption (cooking) at home.

People have strong personal preferences in food. Social-psychological drivers hugely influence people's food attitudes and behaviours. (#Feedback FoodBuddies, food sharing community)

Food is inexpensive and readily available for most middle class consumers in NYC - which makes it not precious at all to spend the time and energy to go an extra mile to save food. (#Feedback FoodBuddies, food sharing community).

Also, recently I read “Waste Free Kitchen Handbook” by Dana Gunders. In the book she talks about simple strategies for everyday life for efficient food consumption in homes like; how/ where to store particular food items in the refrigerator, optimal ways of using the freezer, creating a family meal planners, household uses of scraps, composting, etc. Dana points out tips to reduce food waste at different stages of food flow in homes which reminded me of the user journey map I had created last semester to identify different user activities in a food consumption flow. 

Revisiting it now and mapping the explorations so far, I feel I missed exploring ideas around people’s behaviors around food planning and purchasing, which could further drive (or develop) better food-consumption habits and perhaps reduce food waste. These are the aspects I am focusing on my subsequent research+prototyping investigation.

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Prototype - 3

[Post 3 of 3 in the FoodBuddies series] 

For the final iteration of the thesis prototype, we were asked to refine the idea and present it as a user story, the way it would be if this product was for real. So, in the 1.5 weeks before the final presentation, I pushed the idea of a food-sharing community into a platform that allows people to not just share surplus food ingredients but also food stories - learn new recipes, get inspired, come together for cooking/ eating and in the process save money by wasting less food and earning points to redeem food vouchers!  

‘FooDBuddies’ app focussed on people who lived in the same neighborhood or shared a common place (like school, workplace), where they met everyday. 

Below are some of the notebook sketches/ draft for the user story and the app.

App on-boarding:

Key features:

The final concept presentation and the user story can be found here. 

The app was the culmination of the ideas I had in the process of conducting various food experiments ( Oct’15 - Dec’15) in my neighborhood, in the SVA-IxD studio and talking to my colleagues & professors in the program, friends in the design community and the users who were part of my research. Big thank you to all. :)

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FoodBuddies - Prototype 2

[ Post 2 of 3 in the FoodBuddies series]  

This prototype aimed at building the food-sharing community within the IxD studio. To get started, I created a #foodbuddies slack channel and invited all the participant who signed up through the survey (ref. to previous post for details) in order to communicate and share updates about the experiment. 

This is how I envisioned the overall system setup: 

Participants would use the slack channel to share updates about the item they want to give/ take. The Studio refrigerator would have designated bins to organize and store food items and for the purposes of this test, I would monitor the overall activity of the system and act as a backend to send updates, reminders to the community for optimum usage of shared food items. 

In addition to the Slack channel, I also designed a few collaterals that would go on the fridge and can be used to inform the users about the current status of the shared food items, while they are in the kitchen space. 

The diagram below identifies the key interactions (steps) followed by the user to Give/ Take food item within the community:

A critical part of the user interaction was the Inventory list on the fridge which, users updated every time they shared an item. The design of the inventory list form went through several iterations before arriving on the final design. 

Initial paper mock-ups to test the designs with the users

Filled-in inventory list (User testing)

The user testing was critical in validating my own assumptions for the form design. I learned that the elements in the form were perceived differently in analog medium compared to a digital medium like an app/ website. For example: The grey square boxes were designed as a ‘scale’ to measure quantity/ time in this case but users understood them as text input fields (image above). I took this feedback to simplify the design further so that people could quickly update the list without spending too much time in understanding the design. 

Inventory list iterations

Final designs for user testing 

  FoodBuddies @svainteractiondesign

On Fridge collaterals

Bins in the fridge to organize shared food items

Prototype in use (Dec’15)

In-Class Feedback: 

Overall the concept was well received but there were some concerns wrt having both digital and analog ways of interacting with the system. People liked the simplicity and ease of use of the analog system but also acknowledged the ubiquitous nature of the slack channel that let users access the inventory list anytime anywhere.  

One suggestion was to keep the interactions primarily analog and use slack channel to only post updates/ photos of the inventory list from time to time.

Going forward, I am excited to continue this experiment within the FoodBuddies community at IxD irrespective of the direction my thesis takes from here. 

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FoodBuddies - Research Plan 2

[This post is delayed by a few weeks due to finals schedule at school followed by the holiday season. My humble apology for the same, I would make it as detailed as possible, capturing everything from my process & written notes. This is 1 of 3 posts in the FoodBuddies series, from the Fall’15 thesis progress.]

After presenting the ‘FoodBuddies’ concept to the class, I also had a chance to discuss it with Amit Klein, my mentor during the internship and someone with whom I had been discussing my thesis interests since the past summer. During our conversation about the food-sharing community and how it was working efficiently in my neighbor/ friends group, he asked me if I was focussing this system for a particular target audience like? He also informed me that, being in New York for considerably long time his hypothesis is that a similar system may not resonate with the city dwellers in NYC neighborhoods, primarily for the limitations of time and effort vs. the end result (which for them is primarily, self-fulfillment). This conversation was pivotal for my next steps.

For the second prototype, I pursued the idea of the food sharing community and conducted more research with a goal to identify the target audience for whom a system like this would be most suitable. My hunch was that it may work in:

Work Place - as people meet there everyday and also it’s easier for them to bring in and share food items with each other in office space. Getting food items that they need may also save them a trip to grocery store (TIME is key for these users).

College Campuses - as student community is cost sensitive and often lives on tight budget, using a system like this to save money is an incentive for them to use it.

To test this, I worked on two things - connect with a workplace that may be interested to test out a system like this and second, reach out to people (Survey)  in both these user groups to see if they would be interested to participate. After sending out emails to some of the people in my network, I was fortunate to get introduced to David Wright at LiveIntent who invited me to their office for a presentation and discussion with some of their employees. It was an insightful discussion that helped uncover some new challenges of operating this kind of food-sharing system in office. For example: 

What happens if people bring in the food but there are no takers? Who takes responsibility of it? Is it additional ‘foodwaste’ in office? 

How will this system affect the productivity (time spent in this transaction) of the employees? 

How do we make sure people who participate are actually committed to this system?                                                                                                 

To learn about the interest levels in the employees, I sent out the survey  (Credits - The National Wasted Food Survey Journal was an incredibly useful resource in the creating this survey) to all the participants with the CTA to signup for participation. I also sent out the survey in the department at SVA to learn about the general food behaviors of student community and also, see if they will be interested to participate. Some of the key behavioral findings from the survey were: 

Complete survey report can be found here. 

Interestingly, out of the 10 people who signed up to participate in the FoodBuddies experiment, 7 were students. So, for the next version of the prototype I decided to set up the experiment at SVA - Interaction Design dept. and invited the participants. 

Also, the discussion at LiveIntent sparked few ideas which I captured in this storyboard doodle: 

More details on the design and execution of prototype 2 in next post.

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FoodBuddies - Concept Test 1

As a next step, I tested the idea of a ‘food sharing community’ in my neighborhood. I contacted my neighbor/ friend and asked her to invite one more person who would be interested to participate, her friend invited one more, this way we created a small group where each person had one common connection . I proposed a food sharing community as a channel to facilitate (& motivate) people to share the raw food items that they know, they wouldn’t consume due to time/ taste/ schedule constraints.

As a part of this experiment I conducted a small workshop to explain the motivations and also initiate the activity by sharing some of the perishables that I had before my week long trip to India. 

To simulate the food trasactional experience, we used a IM group service where participants shared items that they wanted or had to offer to the community. Here are some of the snapshots from the ‘FoodBuddies’ interactions. 

Overall, the experiment showed positive signs for the concept of sharing food;

Participants felt good about sharing their excess food items instead of throwing in trash

Activity levels gradually increased over the period of this study

People where conscious of their dietary preference while interacting on the platform (ex: asking if a dish is vegetarian/ expiration dates)

Number of secondary use cases emerged out of this experiments like sharing food tips, recipes, planning grocery shopping trips.

what didn’t work,

Recording people’s activity using google spreadsheet (to gain qualitative insights)

There was no way for participants to evaluate their activity and quantify their food waste reduction

Feedback from class presentation: 

There were a few questions on the act of visiting someone’s place to get/ take food. Considering this could be a (seemingly) frequent activity how well would it work if the group size is bigger? 

What happens if a person is not cognizant of his/ her food supplies/ fridge content/ eating behaviors? Ex: by the time a person finds out that the leftover lettuce that he/ she thought of eating is still in fridge, it often gets spoiled.

Does have a food sharing community in a workplace/ common space make more sense? 

Who is a target audience? (Students, Recent Immigrants, Americans) 

Stay tuned for next steps. 

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Hypothesis Testing

Firstly, my apologies for this delayed update. I was travelling for a bit last month and then it took sometime to get over the jet lag and catch up on all the class schedules and homework.

While I did not post an update on the blog, I was progressing on my thesis journey. In the next few blog posts, I am going to talk about the three significant milestone that I achieved over the last few weeks.

a) Assumption map and Hypothesis - Based on User Research

b) Hypothesis testing & Learnings - Experimenting an Idea

c) Refining/ Revising the idea to design a solution - New Direction

In this post, I will talk about the Assumption Mapping exercise we did, which I felt was a good way to consolidate the findings from the dipstick user research (considering it was mostly qualitative,included a very diverse consumer segment and I extrapolated the findings into my insights) and my own thoughts.  

[Brain-dump all the assumptions you are making so far about the problem space you are interested in. Write your subject in the middle and branch out with assumptions from there, further branching out where possible with sub-assumptions you can identify. If you do this exercise for a while, you will likely discover a lot more assumptions than you thought you had. Try arranging your assumptions into groups - for example, are some about human behavior, some about technology, some about your own abilities? Organizing helps make things feel more manageable]

As next steps I worked on this hypothesis to conduct a food sharing experiment within neighborhood communities to understand the mechanics of this system.

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New research directions - Partner feedback

I paired up with Debbie to discuss some of my research so far and also what could be possible parallel research directions that could be inspiring as I move further into the process.

Here are some of her suggestions:

Recycling - What has worked, what hasn’t and where it is now? For example: Recycling plastic, people generate a lot of it and throw a lot of it. It’s a struggle for people to recycle. It’s been hard for people to recycle, especially when it was a new behavior and people do it more now. 

Cleanliness Campaign - How did anti-littering campaign and cleanliness movement in the 1970’s change the people’s perception about cleanliness in public spaces. 

Previously, in my research I came this article which highlights the key milestones of “Keep America Beautiful” a group that was formed in 1953 with a goal to to develop and promote a national cleanliness ethic.

Minimalist Lifestyle - How do they handle food? Is there anything that could be mainstreamed?

What is it about Asian culture that tends to reduce wastage?

Is there a co-relation between waste and cooking skill level?

My take-away from the conversation: Look at examples that have led people to change/ evolve their behavior in day-to-day activities for a larger community goal? What ways have proved effective to intervene in peoples’ habits? 

[UPDATED] I spent a couple of hours last weekend to find some recent real-world examples that have led people to recycle more (in US): 

Hi-Tech Carts that identify residents who do not recycle and impose $100 fine in Cleveland

2. Get Caught Green Handed Patrol in Charlotte rewards people who take time to recycle with grocery store gift cards. 

3. Mandatory Composting Law in San Francisco and installation of sealed compost bins to separate food scraps from garbage

Learnings: 

Community/ city council  has a key role to facilitate change in people’s behavior. Example: installing recycle bins and informing people was a way communities motivated people to separate their trash and get rid of it easily

Giving people a way to be recognized and rewarded for their effort is a good motivation for them to alter their behavior.

Enforce, not the most ideal but a way to identify and punish the defaulters.