Wise Pantry - An app to help reduce food waste

A Mobile UX case study

Project Information

Year

2024

Duration

24 weeks

Figma, Adobe Illustrator

Role

UX/UI Designer

Tools

Project Overview

In today’s society food waste is a significant issue worldwide, with environmental and economic consequences. Not only does food waste in landfills generate harmful greenhouse gases, but wasting food is expensive. Because of this serious global issue, I decided to develop an app to help people curb their food wasting habits within their personal lives. I hypothesized that:

If I create an app that helps people to plan meals with deliberate grocery store lists, as well as access to tailored recipes making use of what people already have on hand, then there will be less food waste.

My end goal for this project is to develop an equitable, enjoyable, yet useful app from the ground up that can help make a difference in the world.

The Problem

  • 33% of all food in the United States goes uneaten

  • 43% of that food waste comes from households

  • 11% is the percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions from food waste

“The average American family of four throws out $1,600 a year in produce" - Feeding America

Research

In order to create an effective app, I wanted to dive deeper into the problem, to explore the main causes behind food waste and the motivators to save food to develop effective solutions.

Key Findings

According to research based off a food waste study by ReFED, a nonprofit working to catalyze the food system toward evidence-based action to stop wasting food, I discovered that…

  • Young families with high income and high education struggle the most with food waste

  • Saving money is the main incentive for reducing food waste, not environmental

  • People who stick to a shopping list tend to waste less food

  • Food expiration and best before date sensitivity is one of the main factors that leads to food waste

  • People who utilize leftovers tend to throw out less food and save more money

  • Create an app to track food expiration dates

  • Inform users on date sensitivity and leftovers

  • Incorporate a shopping feature with organized lists and pricing

  • Generate recipes for what people already have on hand

Proposed Solutions

User Personas

Meet Jackson, hardworking father of two

Meet Eleanor, a health conscious retiree

Meet Sarah, a busy marketing manager

Branding

Colors

#5628FF

#DBD1FF

Typography

#F0EEEE

#000000

For the logo, I decided to play on the W and P in “Wise Pantry” , in combining it with the imagery of a chef hat

Logo

User Flow

Final Designs

Onboarding and Login

This is what the user sees immediately upon opening the app. Users are greeted with the application’s advantages. When users login or sign up, SSO is an option for convenience.

Home Screen

From the home screen, users are immediately shown what in their pantry is expiring soon, with the addition of a visual progress bar. Recipes are suggested, directly using pantry items to help users easily find meals to cook. Coupons are included, as well as articles on food waste and cooking, for additional resources.

Grocery Lists

Users can easily shop for groceries within the app with personalizable grocery lists, all connected to their preferred store.

Recipes - Recipe Generator

Users can easily select what items from their pantry they want to cook with to find relevant recipes.

Recipes

When following a recipe, users can easily see what ingredients they already have. Users have the option to alter their pantry if they cook the recipe, as well as the option to add items they do not have to a shopping list. Users can easily find the information they want for each recipe, with the addition of storage information to promote using leftovers. Users can also easily adjust serving size to make just the right amount of food.

Pantry

Users can see what in their pantry is expiring with both textual and color cues. They can easily adjust what they have in their pantry with three options for adding items to their pantry.

Ingredient Cards

Ingredient cards help users to adjust expiration dates, and to give the users useful information regarding expiration sensitivity

Reflection

I thoroughly enjoyed this project trying to find a solution to a real world problem. It was my first mobile case study so I wanted to push myself outside of my comfort zone. Designing this mobile app from the ground up was a challenging yet rewarding experience. This project taught me the value of setting clear objectives in defining and solving the right problem, as well as an emphasis on simplicity and clarity with straight forward interactions.

in continuing the design process, I hope to conduct usability testing with real users to gain further insight towards helping people reduce personal food waste. I plan to continue to refine and improve the interaction design as well as my own design skills.

Thank you so much for taking the time to view my case study!

See more of Caroline’s work

Website Redesign for a non-profit