Pocket Pantry

a Human-Computer Interaction Design

POCKET PANTRY PROJECT

Help manage your fridge

Designed iOS application for a food recipe and fridge food tracer

Got familiar with iOS UI/UX components and design style
Designed key features of the application including feeds, cookbook, food tracer and setting interaction and UI

Problem Statement

Our data reflects that most surveyed not only feel as if they allow a great deal of their food to expire, but they largely allow this to happen because they have trouble finding recipes that can make use of the food that they have and have limited time at their disposal.

If there was a system or application that reminded them of the food that they have in their refrigerators and supplied them with recipes to alleviate some of the work of creating dishes from those ingredients, they are less inclined to have wasted food.

Our Solution

Our application, which we're presently calling Pocket Pantry, takes the guesswork out of monitoring what users presently have in their fridge (and pantry), as well as supplying them with recipes that make use of the food items that they have lying around. This ensures that very little if any of their food will be lost due to expiration. There's a unique number of systems in place to remind users that the contents of the refrigerators are nearing expiration and that they should use them sooner, rather than later.
Our app also serves to preserve our planet. Did you know that the EPA has estimated that about 40% of all food produced in the US ultimately ends up in a landfill. The singular reason for such waste has been attributed to expiration. With this, we save users money and save our planet.

Affinity Diagram

WHAT THE DATA SAYS...

Some of the key takeaways from our Affinity Diagram are that users:

Users struggle with thinking of recipes
Want an easier, less involved cooking experience
Waste more than $100 a year on unused, spoiled food
Buy food with the intention of preparing multiple meals
Generally accustomed to using technology to supplement their daily lives
Due to other responsibilities, users are often too tired to cook, leading their food eventually spoiling

Data Collecting

Interviews and Surveys

How often do you go to the grocery store?

Interview Questions

1. What is your marital status?
2. How old are you?
3. What is your sex?
4. Do you enjoy cooking?
5. Do you find yourself too busy to think of meals to cook?
6. Do you cook for the household or for yourself?
7. Do you do the grocery shopping?
8. How do you keep track of items in your pantry/refrigerator?
9. What do you do with an item when it is close to its expiration date?

Survey Questions

How often do you go to the grocery store?
- Multiple times a week/Bi-weekly/Monthly
Do you actively keep track of the expiration dates of your food products?
- Often/Sometimes/Rarely/Never
If an app existed that streamlined meal-making, would you use it?
- Yes/No

View Responses

Personas and Findings

PERSONA 1

Part of a household who does not purchase groceries

Characteristics:

Lives in a household with multiple people
Does not usually purchase the groceries
Does not usually know what is in household inventory due to others removing items
Cooks usually for self
Eats meals prepped by others
Simple meals
Low income

Frustrations:

Would like more interesting dishes but has limited knowledge of recipes and is intimidated by where to start
Hates finding expired product when they were planning on using it\
Sometimes would like to request something of the main shopper but often forgets.

PERSONA 2

Part of a household who purchases the groceries

Characteristics:

Lives in a household with multiple people
Often the head of the household
Usually purchases all groceries
Does not usually know what is in household inventory due to others removing items
Usually cooks meals for multiple people
Multiple meals
Accommodates for allergies and preferences
Mid-High income relative to other users

Frustrations:

Finding meals that everyone will like is difficult
Hates when food goes bad, waste of money
Sometimes only part of a product is used due to schedule changes, would like to use the rest before it goes bad
Hates when they come back from shopping only to realize they are out of something else

PERSONA 3

Solo Household

Characteristics

Live alone

Often buys for only one person
Cooks for one person sometimes entertains guests
Usually has a better idea of household inventory as they are often the only user
Low-Mid income

Frustrations:

Sometimes buys in bulk for deals but gets tired of cooking the same meal
Sometimes has trouble going through all of the inventory before the expiration
Has unexpected guests and may have to cook for others without preparation but tries to keep stocked for one person.

Idealization and Prototype

Throughout our design process, our prototype largely remained the same but gradually gained more functionality that would improve our user experience and would assist them in convenient ways. In addition to being able to manually input items and their expiration in Pocket Pantry, we've implemented both a QR|Barcode Scanner for scanning receipts, but we've also added picture-taking functionality to the app so in a situation where a user's receipt doesn't have the QR or Barcode at the bottom, they can take a picture of the receipt and it will add the items on the receipt to the user's fridge inventory.
As our prototype approached the High-Fidelity phase, we more so focused on making it visually striking since in the stages we made usability the focal point.