Introduction

The brief: "How might we help people access local seasonal produce, while also fostering fair and honest relationships between producers and customers?"

Design Thinking - Empathise

Stakeholder meeting

The client wanted us to develop a digital solution to improve food sustainability in urban areas.

The issue is that supermarket chains and big food corporations benefit more from the rise of the organic food market than the local producers.

They stakeholder wants to make it possible for people to access local seasonal produce, while also fostering fair and honest relationships between the producers and customers.

Secondary Research & Data

The organic food market has been growing massively and is expected to continue to do so.

A major pain point we found was the cost to certify the produce. Also the tax and carbon footprint involved in local vs non-locally imported foods.

Interviews

Prior to our interviews we had built some assumptions based on our research:

• Organic food is not affordable for everyone.
• It’s difficult to access.
• People are uninformed.
• That people care about fair trade.

After gathering our insights we discovered that people were concerned with the produce being fresh and having a good quality.

However a big issue that kept coming up was, Accessibility.

People felt that they couldn't get access to fresh and good quality food, without the need to drive far on days / times incompatible with their schedule.

Design Thinking - Define

User Persona

Our main demographic were women with young children.

They had told us that taking children food shopping was particularly difficult, not only to make the time but also to keep the children happy and entertained whilst at the supermarket.

Her main pain points are;

• Organic food doesnt contain enough reliable information
• Distance to attend farmers markets
• Supermarkets have limited variety

User Journey

Lauras journey shows us that her time at the supermarket is difficult. There is limited information on products, they don't have the food she wants and her children are adding to the stress of the situation.

Laura leaves the house optimistic but returns disappointed and deflated.

Reading and interpreting her journey we can ask ourselves;

“How Might We make it easy for her to get locally sourced produce all year round?”

Problem Statement

Following the Double Diamond method and converging on the pain point, we can define the issue with a statement:

One of Lauras biggest issues is that she cant find the right information on the product label. She needs to somehow have direct access to producer. She needs to be able to ask questions, be informed, be educated and build trust.

Design Thinking - Ideate

Crazy 8's and Dot Voting

As a team we voted on combination of three ideas; A trackable delivery app, a door to door food market and a place for people to buy food as a community.

The result was 'A traveling Farmers Market'

Low / Mid Fidelity wireframes

The design was to have an app that showed your current locations and the route of the nearest next traveling Farmers Market

You could then see the food available, the quantity, info on Local / Seasonal / Organic and a timetable of the weeks ahead.

Design Thinking - Prototype & Test

Usability Testing

Following our usability tests of the mid-fi wireframes we found that:

• Users wanted more context about the map
• Users wanted to know when the next farmers market would be in their neighbourhood that day
• Adding the term 'Farmers truck Open' and the time, helped users to understand the concept of the app

Prototype

For the prototype we added a menu that could be accessed from the bottom of the map screen. This informed the user with all the relevant information regarding that specific mobile farmers market.

Additional information included:

• Is the market on time? If not, when is it expected?
• Colour coded product listing highlighting if the quantity is running low
• Burger menu with details on timetables, settings, your account etc

More Usability Tests

We gathered from users that it would be useful to include more market icons on the map to help illustrate that these markets are happening simultaneously across the whole city.

Users wanted to have access to a network inside the app with the suppliers. Ask the farmers direct questions. Helping them to build trust and connection.