Community Tree

Adobe’s Design For Change Creative Jam

Team: Rickie Huang, Michelle Raudsepp, Li Yao | Role: UX Research, UX Design | Time: Two Weeks | Tools: Google Docs, Miro, Adobe Xd

For Adobe’s Design for Change Creative Jam, our team was one of the top ten finalists with our app design for Community Tree, an app that aims to facilitate interactions between volunteers/donors and food distribution agencies.

Watch the finale on Facebook and look out for Team MICA5 (timestamp 1:03:30)!

01. Understand

Project Brief

The pandemic is dramatically increasing food insecurity and straining an extremely stressed supply.

Loss of employment and income will continue to increase demand for charitable food delivery and meal offerings, as will the closure of in-person educational systems, which were once a fundamentally nourishing source for school children. Everyone involved in the food supply chain is interested in advancing the quality of groceries and cooked meals and increasing the nutritional value of the food for families. This is a shared goal for nonprofit organizations, kitchens, pantries, food banks, distributors, and recipients alike.

How can we empower the parties involved to improve the system and better the nutritional value of stocked and served meals?

The Challenge

Design a mobile phone app that empowers a specific audience to help improve part of the food collection and distribution chain. The app must provide a mode of measurement or service to single or multiple systems. The audience may be a party involved in some way in the supply chain or a messenger of public service (much like a watchdog monitoring and promoting awareness) around the severity of the insecurity issue of your choosing.

Issues to consider as your problem focus:

Nutrition. How might we evaluate and match the nutritional value of meals and foodstuffs with the dietary needs of those who receive them from charitable meal programs and food pantries?
Local action. How might people directly help those in their community without the means to eat healthful meals?
Food waste/farm fresh. How might we reduce global food waste and better use “ugly” produce and/or unused goods? How might we better connect farms to food banks and inject more fresh foods into the distribution system?
Family guidance. How might we educate families on well-balanced meals through pantry-provided goods?

02. Research & Analysis

Take-Off

The team spent the majority of the first week researching various aspects of food insecurities and how we could contribute to help solve a larger problem. We brainstormed ideas like how to educate users to reduce their own food waste by keeping track of the food items in their fridge and pantry, how to educate users to grow their own foods or donate leftovers and seeds, and even redesigning an existing app for a prominent figure in the food distribution process (like a non-profit group).

We decided to move forward with Berri, an app dedicated to educating users on how to reduce their food waste by keeping track of the food items in their fridge and pantry, providing notifications for what items are near expiration, and recommending recipes to ensure items are used.

Key Findings

We created a survey that asked potential users about their grocery shopping habits, pain points, frustrations when organizing their fridge and pantry, and wants and needs for both, among other things. We found a few key points that were universal to all survey participants:

The Pivot

We often met with our professors and even had a chance to meet with members of SOdA, the Digital Society, to get feedback on our ideas. They both appreciated the idea but wondered if there was a way to insert ourselves into the food distribution process a bit more, asking questions like:

How might we solve a more crucial problem within the food distribution process?
How might we create something that fits the caliber of Misfits Market?

We were able to contact a director of a local food program in Maryland and learned a lot about food distribution agencies and their struggles. They told us that food distribution agencies often have difficulty maintaining secure donations. Meanwhile, grocery stores, restaurants, and individuals often feel forced to throw out food because it’s hard to repurpose or transport.

Problem Statement

With all this in mind, we asked ourselves:

How might we facilitate the partnership process between donors, volunteers, and agencies?

User Personas

Jenny, the Volunteer

Jenny is a hobbyist gardener who grows her own food. She often has a surplus of food that inevitably goes bad when she can’t figure out what to do with it and would like something to help her notify others in her community that she has food to donate to those in need.

Food Agency A

Food Agency A is a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing food waste in its community and providing accessible food options for those in need. The organization struggles with finding and maintaining secure food sources and would like to better connect with those willing to help.

03. Design

Visual Language

Community Tree connects two groups of users—volunteers and donors who want to help and agencies that need help. To showcase this, we have used leaves and trees throughout the app as symbols of community growth, nutrients, and connections. We used a green color palette and a clean, consistent design to bring users a streamlined experience and a feeling of lightness and joy. We’ve also made the tone appreciative and friendly to ensure users feel wanted and welcomed.

User Flow

Individual Volunteer: Deliveries

Our persona Jenny can volunteer to do deliveries by first confirming her address and car information. The app will match and show her a list of available deliveries. She can select a location, view location details, and get directions to deliver immediately.

Individual Volunteer: On-Site

To volunteer on-site, Jenny is matched with job sites in her area, which she can filter by distance or job type. She can see more information about the location and schedule an appointment to volunteer. Once her appointment is confirmed, she receives directions to the area.

Individual Volunteer: Donations

Jenny can also choose to donate food items she no longer needs. Community Tree has made it easy for her to input items by searching for an item or scanning a barcode. In this case, she scans an item, adds in its quantity, and chooses how it will be donated - either picked up by a volunteer or dropped off. In this case, she chooses to have it picked up and is matched with a volunteer who will soon be at her location picking up the items!

Another option when donating is to drop the items off at the location. This is similar to pick-up, but in this case, Jenny is matched with an agency that either has the storage space or has requested the item and can go there herself.

Food Agencies: Item Requests

On the agency end, there is a different interface. The wishlist shows the requested items and their statuses. Food Agency A can add items, enter their details, and submit requests. Once a matching donation is found, they will receive a notification and be able to view its details.

Final Designs

Individual Volunteer: Deliveries and On-Site

Individual Donations: Pickup and Drop-Off