IxD Studio 1 | Fall 2021 | 8 Week
TEAM
Yena Kim, Masha Volodkina, Audra Walker, Julia Wetterdal
MY ROLE
UX/UI Research & Testing, Prototype, Concept Ideation, Video Editor
OUR DESIGN CHALLENGE
Encourage food insecure single parents in Los Angeles to cook healthy meals for their families
Vision Video by Yena Kim
PROBLEM
Researches have shown that food insecurity for families with children was at 14.8% compared to those without children at 8.8%. That’s nearly a double the amount. 332,000 families with children were either hungry or skipped meals; and 20.4% of those food insecurities come from being jobless due to Pandemic. There are many different underlying reasons on why food insecurity becomes a problem. Single parents are often working full time jobs resulting in lack of time; and lack of income per month could really hurt families with nutritions and quality family time. And while there are programs available out there that these families could use to get some assistance, it’s not always readily available or the process of obtaining the help could take months and be stressful.
INSIGHT
Design team scheduled interviews with two different single mothers, Lee Puckhaber and Scarlet Carter to gain more insights on this problem. Lee, 44 years old, single mother of 2 children: Rylee (23) and Hayes (6) told us about how insecure she felt feeding her first child and often had to pre-order groceries in order to save time. Scarlet, 23 years old, single mother of Elliot; feels that she just does not have enough time with her son. One of the quotes that stuck with us was, “I definitely feel like I never have enough time with my kid.. But I understand that it’s my responsibility to be able to financially support myself and my son”. Scarlet mentioned that while her son is extremely picky with food, she was able to have a breakthrough moment when they started cooking together, giving him courage to try new things.
SOLUTION
The solution was Fun With Food, a mobile application that allows parents to cook healthy and delicious meals with pantry-provided foods for the whole family. Fun With Food is a free application that directly partners with local food banks to provide fresh produce and groceries for food insecure families residing in Los Angeles. It allows a detailed personalization to accommodate the specific food niche and preferences while also providing easy to follow recipes with the products that are provided in the box. However, what makes this application unique is that it also provides a fun cooking game for children based on the weekly recipes that are provided. There are achievements for each finished step, motivating children to be involved in the food prepping process safely while also sparking interest to try a variety of food. Fun with Food can save time, allow families to bond, and most importantly, address stigma surrounding low income allowing people to feel comfortable while reaching out for help.
RESEARCH
First step was figuring out the users: Which family is struggling?
Throughout the research and user testing, we uncovered that many single parents struggle to feed their children healthy and nutritious food. Often, this isn’t only due to financial reasons but possibly due to lack of time or even their children’s picky choosing. Out of 28.7% of food insecure single parents families, only 11.77% used food pantries. Why? From an interview with a single parent named Scarlet that emphasized the insight was how she mentioned that cooking and grocery shopping together helped her exponentially with getting Elliot to eat healthy foods. Since most kids are picky eaters like Elliot, parents oftentimes need to get creative.
Photo of interviewee, Lee by Audra Walker
MEET LEE PUCKHABER
Lee is a 44 years old single mother of two:
• Hayes, 6 years old son and Riley, 24 years old daughter.
• Felt insecure about feeding her first child
• Likes to pre-order groceries in order to save time
• Lee finds that recipes make cooking much easier and less time consuming“Recipes are something that’s made cooking a lot easier. Hayes’s dad and I used to get Blue Apron meal kits, I learned a lot of skills.”
MEET SCARLET CARTER
Scarlet is a single mother of one:
•Elliot, 8
• Her son is extremely picky with food
• Breakthrough moment was when he started to cook for himself
• Cooking together gave him the courage to try new things“I definitely feel like I never have enough time with my kid… but I understand that it's my responsibility to be able to financially support myself and my son.”
Photo of interviewee, Scarlet by Audra Walker
INTERVIEW DISCOVERIES
After this interview, our research direction pointed our project towards designing a mobile app that not only provides nutritious weekly groceries for parents to save time but also allowing children to learn how to cook alongside parents to promote healthy eating habits.
MEET OUR PERSONA
User Persona by Team
MARIA DIAZ
Maria is a single mother of two:
• Alysia, 8 years old daughter and Connor, 14 years old son
Maria works a full time job and received food stamp but she still felt like she was unable to provide healthy meal for her family, and their dinner often consist take outs or frozen foods. Maria always felt guilty that she was unable to spend more time with Alysia and Connor.
“I know the amount of take out food I feed my children can’t be good, but I can’t find the time or money to grocery shop for healthier foods.”
IDEATION
With the input from both Scarlet and Lee, the direction led us to create a low-fidelity, hand drawn sketch of main features and ideas that were important to this application. These wireframe was tested on the interviewees and classmates.
Low Fidelity Wireframe by Audra Walker
PAPER PROTOTYPE
1. Flow of app was unclear
•During the testing, users kept asking how to reach certain area of the application such as where is the recipe for the taco or how to go back to where they were previously. This hinted that the flow of the application was confusing for our users.
2. Difficulty Testing
•Due to COVID-19, all of our testing was done through zoom which made it difficult to keep the attention of the children was extremely difficult. Additionally, with a paper prototype and not-fully developed gaming portion which specifically targeted children, it made it impossible to get accurate feedback.
3. Purpose wasn't distinct
•Upon entering the application, users are asked series of questions such as their dietary preference, family information, and delivery addresses, etc without any information in advance which made people confused on what they were signing up. Additionally, there were no ways to skip the sign up button.
Paper prototype by Yena Kim
DIGITAL WIREFRAME
With the feedback from user testing, team has started to consolidate the ideas and key design features to create a digitized form of wireframe to guide us towards our final product.
Low Fidelity digital wireframe by Julia Wetterdal
FINAL PRODUCT
For our final product, our research pointed to creating a mobile app called "fun with food", a mobile app called ‘fun with food’, shortened to FWF. Fun with Food is a grocery delivery app that partners with local food pantries and food drives to deliver fresh produce to single parents who need help getting groceries, otherwise, it might result in fast food and/or take-out foods. Fun with Food provides services such as being able to choose to receive produces that fits to your dietary needs; pick and choose the frequency of the delivery and amount to reduce food waste; recipes that you can cook with the groceries you received for the week; and most importantly, a game feature that children can cook along side with their parent while food is getting prepared to give them knowledge about the food and healthy eating habits.
REFLECTION
Fun with food was a project that really broadened the perspective of food insecurity around the community. Many are still suffering from food insecurity with no means of food or money; struggling to feed their families and themselves and this has become a big issue in Los Angeles. With food insecurity becoming an issue for many different communities, it made it even more difficult to narrow down our scope and figure out who exactly needs help.
After the final outcome of the design, there were some clear measurements of success. With Fun with Food, it should be able to save a lot of time for food insecure parents from grocery shopping and that time can be enchanted for quality time with family. With the provided ingredients that fits the individual dietary needs of the family but still covers the basic nutrition value for the week; the families are able to have healthier food on a daily basis; and with the recipes provided, the families will be able to have more knowledge on how to cook with the new healthy ingredients. Lastly, the stigma around the food pantry is a big hindrance in why many food insecure families do not use the free services available. Fun with Food can address the concerns of the stigma around food insecurity while lifting the financial burden for low income families in Los Angeles.
Looking forward to the future, the team has also seen some improvement that would further enhance the usability of the application such as investment in funding for the application allowing free deliveries; possible partnerships with food pantry and SNAP program; and lastly, providing additional ways to access the device and providing a recipes sheets and/or books could really enhance the usability of the application while cooking.