Problem Statement
Food waste is a major, unresolved issue for many households.
People who cook on a daily basis are struggling in managing meals and food ingredients in their home. They have to juggle between grocery shopping, cooking, working, and sometimes taking care of family. Even coming up with menu ideas feels like a burden. At times they have to throw out spoiled perishable food ingredients, resulting in piled up, uncomposed food waste in the dumpster.
About The Product
Dapurbit is a meal planning app with a mission to assist people in reducing food waste in their household and lower their cognitive burden in organizing daily meals.
Dapurbit offers features to manage your shopping and cooking habits easily. The main feature of Dapurbit is weekly meal planner. Planning meals in advance has benefits of reducing decision fatigue in providing food for you and your family, and decreasing the amount food waste as well, especially fresh produce. Dapurbit also has hundreds of recipe inspirations that users can add to their meal plan, and also in-app fridge inventory tracker. The word “dapur” means “kitchen” in Indonesian. The name Dapurbit represents a digital tool to help users manage meals and ingredients in their kitchen.
Note: Dapurbit is a concept of fictional app that I developed to learn deeply about UI/UX design process.
My Role
UI/UX Designer
UX Researcher
Target Users
People who cook and buy food ingredients regularly.
Solution
A digital solution that helps users plan their daily meals, grocery shopping and manage their fridge inventory.
An app that offers many intriguing recipe suggestions suitable for Indonesian users, especially muslims, and can be easily added to weekly meal plans.
User Interview
My initial assumption is an app that focusing on fridge inventory tracker is what users need, but turned users are not familiar with that method.
I conducted in depth-interviews with some target users to validate the problem that previously only based on my experience. There is actually an existing problems with food waste, but based on my findings, users are not fascinated by the idea of inventory tracker. They’re not even familiar with the term ‘fridge inventory’. It is the meal planning phase that frustrates them. By planning meals in advance, they’ll eventually manage their ingredients more wisely.
Affinity Mapping
Using affinity map assisted me in analyzing user frustrations and needs in one, big comprehensive diagram.
It helped me in digesting users insights from the previously held interviews, and sort them under categories.
User's Pain Points
Unpredictable work schedule
Overbuying food ingredients
Miscalculating meal portions
Decision fatigue in planning menu
Unmanageable food waste
Forgetting ingredients in fridge — because they don’t do fridge inventory
Key Insights
- More than half of users is facing food waste problem from uncooked perishable ingredients
- Majority of respondents would love to give a meal planning app a try
- All users is not familiar with fridge inventory tracking system
- Majority of users use general note taking app to create a shopping list, but never with a particular shopping list app or feature
- Vegetables are the most frustrating food ingredients to manage, they spoil easily and relatively not freezable
- Majority of the users plan their meals in advance
Empathy Map
Says
- “When I unexpectedly have busy schedule, I don’t have time to cook the ingredients I already bought,”
- “My relatives surprisingly send us ready-to-eat meals,”
- “I buy food ingredients that I already have in fridge,”
- “Some days I have spontaneous meal preference,”
Thinks
- I should shop and use my fresh produce more efficiently
- I should schedule my cooking better
- I should find inspirations for daily meals
- I should check my fridge more often
- I have to plan my meals in advance
- I have to coordinate meal plan with family members
Does
- Start a comprehensive meal planning habits
- Looking for menu inspirations from the internet
- Do routine fridge inventory tracking
- Plan meals in advance
- Coordinating effectively with family members
Feels
- Guilty of throwing perishable food while underprivileged people struggles with famine
- Frustrated about uncooked ingredients in fridge
- Exasperated about coming up with menu ideas
Competitive Analysis
I conducted competitive analysis method on two existing similar apps that provide recipes suggestions with meal planning feature. The intentions of this method is to get an inspiration and understanding of the flow of a meal planning app and also to learn about their strengths and weaknesses.
User Journey Map
The objective of this method is forecasting users excitement when they try to solve their problem using Dapurbit app, and find opportunities from it.
Goal: Create a week of meal plan from available recipes suggestions and generate a shopping list from the plan.
User Flow
User flow helps designer to view movement from users perspective and to forecast the practicality of the app for users to achieve tasks using Dapurbit.
Task: Adding a recipe to meal plan.
User Interface
The first designed I developed early on my UX journey back in 2022, and as my design skills evolved I decided to redesign the UI to see how far my skills has changed.
Old Design, 2022. Early on my UX journey, before I learned about auto-layout
New and improved design, 2023.
