College Project
Bridging the Gap to Fresh Food With Dignity
Guiding fresh food access through systems that already exist
Duration: 3 months
Team: 4 Designers
Methods: Ethnographic Interviews, Stake holder value maping, Competitive Benchmarking, Wireframing, Concept sketching, Journey Mapping, User Testing
Problem
Low-income residents faced food insecurity not just due to cost, but because of time, transportation, and uncertainty.
Insight
Food access breaks down when systems demand extra effort, planning, or stigma from people already stretched thin.
What we Designed
A coordinated physical + digital system that moves surplus food through public transit and helps users reliably find it — without stigma or guesswork.
01 Challenge
When Access Exists,
but Still Isn’t Reachable
Nearly 10% of Americans live on under $15,000 a year, making access to fresh food a daily trade-off — not a lifestyle choice.
In Bloomington, Indiana, low-income residents faced layered barriers:
Economic pressure
Choosing between rent, utilities, and groceries
Time Limitations
Multiple jobs left little room for planning or detours
Transportation Barriers
Limited access to grocery stores without personal vehicles
Health Consequences:
Reliance on processed foods linked to diabetes, obesity, and other chronic conditions
Food wasn’t unavailable — it was inconvenient, unpredictable, and costly to reach .
Solution Overview
Smart Distribution System
Utilizing university dining surplus transported via public buses
Mobile Application
Connecting residents to real-time food availability information
Community Engagement
Creating a feedback loop that empowers users and reduces waste
How Might We…
Design a food access system that fits into people’s real routines, without adding effort, shame, or uncertainty?
Research Approach
Listening Before Designing
We focused on understanding how people actually navigate food access, not how programs assume they do.
Stakeholder value map
Ethnographic Interviews
We conducted 7 in-depth interviews with individuals living on limited means, observing how food decisions fit into daily routines shaped by work schedules, transit, and finances.
Competitive Analysis
Analyzed 12+ nutrition products, producing an opportunity map plotting concepts against health and infrastructure criteria. This helped us identify the optimal High Accessibility & High Health space for our solution.
User Profiles
Developed detailed user profiles based on our research to create representative personas of our target demographic, helping the team maintain focus on real user needs throughout the design process.
03 Research insights
Our user research revealed several critical insights about food access barriers
Financial Trade-offs
Participants often had to choose between essential expenses like rent and purchasing fresh produce.
Processed Food Reliance
Healthier foods are significantly more expensive, leading residents to depend on cheaper, processed alternatives.
Time Constraints and Distance
Residents lack the time to plan and shop for fresh produce due to working multiple jobs and the distance to affordable grocery stores.
Health Problems
The reliance on cheap, processed foods contributes to chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease.
Affordability Without Stigma
Users needed access to free or low-cost healthy food options without the stigma often associated with traditional food assistance programs.
Predictability & Planning
Users needed reliable information about food availability to plan their schedules around accessing these resources.
Convenience & Accessibility
Food access points needed to align with existing travel patterns and transportation options to minimize additional time burdens.
05 Iterative Design Process
Initial Concepts
Our initial concepts focused on peer-to-peer food sharing between households. When we presented these wireframes to our peers and users, we received critical feedback highlighting significant limitations including privacy concerns, logistical challenges, high infrastructure costs, and food safety risks.
Back to the Drawing Board: We Reimagined Our Solution Using Existing University Resources and Public Transit
User Testing of Final Solution
During our testing phases, participants indicated that the initial onboarding process was confusing and the method for reporting food levels—using percentages—was not intuitive. We incorporated this feedback by:
Streamlining the onboarding experience with clearer visual affordances
Introducing a photo option for more accurate reporting of remaining food
Simplifying the mental model required to understand the application
01
Locate Food Stop
Feature:
Main dashboard contains all the bus routes and how many food stop it contains
The app displays a map with marked food stops, allowing users to locate the nearest bus stop with FoodStop signs and get directions.
Why: Provides clear visual affordances to help users with limited transportation options easily find available food.
02
Track Food Availability
Feature:
Real-time inventory updates about food types and quantities
Why: Uses progressive disclosure of information to help users plan visits efficiently around their busy schedules.
03
Reporting Remaining Food
Feature:
Users input data or upload photos of remaining food, receiving acknowledgment of their contribution (e.g., "Congratulations! You have helped save 15kg of food waste").
Why: Creates a feedback loop that empowers users while maintaining system accuracy, providing positive reinforcement through impact metrics
04
Informative Splash Screens
Feature:
Intuitive splash screens with custom illustrations
Why: Helps users quickly understand app features and functionality, ensuring users of all technological expertise levels can navigate the system with minimal cognitive friction.
Key Learnings
This project transformed my understanding of UX design in several ways
Systems Thinking
I learned to view individual interactions within larger interconnected systems, recognizing how physical infrastructure and digital experiences must work in harmony.
Time Constraints and Distance
Residents lack the time to plan and shop for fresh produce due to working multiple jobs and the distance to affordable grocery stores.
Iterative Refinement
The feedback from user testing dramatically improved our solution, reinforcing that early ideas rarely survive contact with real users without significant adaptation.
Social Impact Design
I gained appreciation for how human-centered design can address fundamental societal challenges while respecting user dignity and autonomy.