OzHarvest

App design to reduce household food waste by changing people’s behaviours

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Concept client:
OzHarvest
Australia’s leading food rescue organisation

​Team:
Steven Peng | Wayne Tan

Duration:
2 weeks

Skills used:

• Research
• Surveying
• User interviewing
• Note-taking
• Competitive/comparative analysis
• Affinity mapping
• Journey mapping
• Ideating
• Sketching
• Wireframing​
• Usability testing
• Prototyping​​​

Software used:

• Sketch
• Invision

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The brief

To get people to reduce household food waste through the use of technology

The challenge

OzHarvest are highly successful in the ‘food rescue’ chain — connecting food providers with the beneficiaries of the charities

But on average, Australian households waste
over $3,800 each year ​that is never eaten

Therefore there is need to get people to reduce their household food waste by changing their behaviour

The approach

Design approach

The classic double diamond approach by the Design Council was used in this project.

• Discover - Finding out as much as possible about OzHarvest, why people waste food at home, and how to change people's behaviour
• Define - Focussing on what is needed for people to change their behaviour in regards to household food waste
• Develop - Creating an app that would motivate, teach, and act as a 'trigger' to reduce household food waste
• Deliver - Presenting our app

Design Council © 2018

What will success look like?

Less food waste in landfill

• Reduction in food waste
• High downloads
• People regularly using the app
• People talking about the app

The research phase

How to change behaviour

In order to reduce household food waste, we need to get people to change their behaviour. According to behaviour scientist BJ Fogg,  the Fogg behaviour model explains how a change in behaviour requires sufficient motivation, ability and a trigger all at the same time to be successful.

© 2018 BJ Fogg

Lacking a 'trigger' for successful behaviour change

Insights

• People are motivated when they feel like they are making a difference in a financial, environmental or humanitarian way
• Organisation, planning and effort are barriers to a reduction in food waste​
• Currently the 'trigger' is missing for a successful behaviour change in food waste
• Apps can provide a personalised, real-time, on the go solution

Affinity mapping of survey results

Goals

Business goals
Reduce the amount of food waste that gets sent to landfill

User goals
Eat food that is healthy, quick and easy to make

The design phase

App design to change food waste behaviour

• Make it easier for individuals to reduce their food waste through the help of recipes and meal planner functions on our app
• While motivating those individuals to keep making a difference by tracking their contributions to their savings, people in need and the environment

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TARGET: People who cook at home and want to make a difference but are unsure how

SOLUTION: Provide the motivation, education and trigger for individuals to change their habits regarding food waste

Personas & User flows

Sketches/Wireframes

• Sketching concepts
• Lo-fi wireframing 
• Mid-fi to high-fi wireframing for testing

Sketches being refined

Prototype

• Show money saved/ other goals to help keep user motivated
• Sends small reminders everyday (that can be set to certain times)
• Meal planner
• Recipe search has filters
• Recipes have adjustable servings
• Shopping list sorted by recipe

​Usability testing

• Paper prototype
• Clickable prototype
• 2 rounds of usability testing (Paper and clickable prototype)
• Iterative design after each round

Phases

We divided the features into different phases of the app to ensure that we can concentrate on the core functionality, get it made as quickly as possible for feedback and testing and not over complicate the app. To assist us we looked at the effort/cost vs impact of the different features.

Feature prioritisation

User journey

We decided to leverage OzHarvest's partnership with Woolworths to further streamline the user experience.

Our app

Further testing and iterating are required, along with the design and implementation of phases 2 and 3.

Open prototype

© 2020 Steven Peng