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In Canada, there's enough food produced to feed the population four times over, yet 1 in 8 Canadians still face food insecurity. This stark contrast highlights the significant amount of food wasted, which has far-reaching negative effects socially, environmentally, and economically. Our solution, CHOMP, seeks to address this issue by promoting sustainability and actively redistributing food to those in need.
As the Sole Product Designer on the team, I collaborated closely with three sustainability experts to develop CHOMP, a solution aimed at tackling food insecurity. My role involved leading the design process, ensuring user-centered solutions, and working alongside the team to align our goals with sustainability initiatives.
48 hours
Each year, 58% of all food produced in Canada—equivalent to 36.5 million tonnes or $49 billion worth—is wasted. This not only contributes significantly to Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, with 3.3 billion tonnes of CO2 released annually due to food waste, but it also has a profound impact on both the environment and people’s lives.
Shocking as it may be, 1 in 8 Canadians face food insecurity, despite the fact that Canada produces enough food to feed the population four times over. This highlights a critical gap between the abundance of food available and the millions who struggle to access it.
Redistributing food is essential to ensuring excess supplies reach those who need it most. This not only addresses food insecurity but also helps save billions of dollars and significantly reduces CO2 emissions. The CHOMP app provides users with information about community fridges—what items are available, what’s needed, and the carbon footprint of various foods. It also allows users to track their actions, such as donating or picking up food, fostering a more sustainable and connected community.
Key Features of the CHOMP App:
I created a survey to better understand people’s grocery shopping habits, what factors influence their purchasing decisions, and their thoughts on community fridges. The survey included the following questions:
Although the team and I initially expected only a few responses in the short time our team had, we received over 70 submissions. After analyzing the results and identifying patterns, I found three key groups who showed interest in community fridges, each with distinct grocery shopping habits and priorities: (1) Eco-Friendly City-Dwellers, (2) Busy Working Individuals, and (3) Low-Income Families.
Through analyzing the survey responses, I identified three distinct personas that represent different groups with varying grocery shopping habits and priorities.
The first persona is Jess, the eco-friendly city-dweller. Jess is a city planner with a strong passion for sustainability and a deep concern for both the environment and food insecurity. She frequently volunteers her time to help those in need but struggles with the challenge of shopping sustainably and not being able to assist everyone who faces food insecurity.
The second persona is Jack, the busy working individual. Jack works long hours and has limited time for grocery shopping or meal prep. He prioritizes having a balanced meal available at all times but faces challenges finding time to manage his grocery needs effectively.
The third persona is Jenna, the low-income worker. Jenna works a minimum-wage job while balancing school, making her grocery shopping decisions revolve around finding the best deals to ensure she has enough food throughout the week. She strives to use everything she buys to maximize value and minimize waste.
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I created user stories to define the goals and needs of each persona. These stories helped me gain a deeper understanding of how the CHOMP application could provide value to different users. The objective was to identify the purpose behind potential software features and how they would specifically address the personas' needs. I developed user stories for each persona, ranking them from highest to lowest priority to ensure we focused on the most impactful features first.
Eco-Friendly City-Dweller User Stories
Busy Working Individual User Stories
Low-Income Worker User Stories
I conducted a competitive analysis of four market competitors—Olio, Freedge.org, FridgeFinder.app, and Los Angeles Community Fridges. My focus was to understand each company's goals, mission, and impact. I then examined the UI of their applications or websites, evaluating key features, strengths, and weaknesses. This analysis provided valuable insights into the market landscape and helped inform the development of CHOMP’s unique features and user experience.
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After analyzing the target audience groups and researching current market competitors, I began structuring the CHOMP application. Creating the sitemap was a crucial step in defining the app’s information architecture. The app is designed with three primary pages: Home, Map, and Profile.
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Given the limited time with my team, I selected five key user flows to prioritize for the CHOMP app. These flows were chosen based on the highest-priority user stories, ensuring that solutions were aligned with the needs of all three personas. These flows address the core actions users would need to take in order to engage with the app and its features, ensuring a seamless and impactful user experience. The selected user flows are:
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I created sketches based on the user flows to visualize the key screens of the CHOMP app. My focus was on ensuring each screen contained the necessary information while maintaining simplicity and ease of use. To make it easier for users to access their frequently visited fridges, I included a feature that allows them to save their preferred fridges. Additionally, I aimed to provide users with quick access to relevant fridge details, enabling them to donate or take food directly from the same page. This streamlined design minimizes steps and improves the overall user experience.
I translated the initial sketches into wireframes using Figma, starting with low-fidelity (lo-fi) designs. At this stage, I focused on the layout and spacing of the content without worrying about the shape of icons or the exact text. Once I optimized space use, I moved on to medium-fidelity (med-fi) wireframes. During this phase, I incorporated consistent icons and real text and refined the spacing and alignment. I also adjusted some layouts to further improve space utilization and enhance the overall structure of the design.
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I began by gathering a variety of inspirations from images and mobile apps to explore different design possibilities. After evaluating these sources, I narrowed them down to those that aligned best with the vision of our team and the goals of the app. I then organized and studied these references closely to identify which specific elements of the images and user interfaces resonated with me. This process helped me understand the details and design principles I wanted to incorporate into the CHOMP app to create a cohesive and effective user experience.
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I used the mood board as inspiration to create a comprehensive style guide for the CHOMP app. I began by selecting a color palette, starting with a few colors in mind and testing different variations on various screens. I refined the colors for both accessibility and aesthetics, ultimately choosing a yellow-orange gradient to convey a warm, welcoming tone for the community fridges, and a very dark green for the buttons to ensure they are easily noticeable and to represent sustainability.
Once I finalized the colors, I turned my attention to selecting the right fonts. After testing several options, I decided on Nunito and Roboto. Nunito’s rounded, friendly design emphasizes the community-focused nature of the app, while Roboto provides excellent readability.
Additionally, I incorporated reusable components into the style guide to maintain consistency across the app’s design.
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I applied the style guide—colors, fonts, and components—into the high-fidelity (hi-fi) screens. My primary focus was ensuring that the text had sufficient contrast for accessibility and using consistent components across all screens to maintain uniformity. I aimed to create a cohesive design that not only looked polished but also evoked a sense of community and a welcoming atmosphere, ensuring that the app felt inclusive and approachable for all users.
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I created a prototype using the high-fidelity screens to demonstrate the key user flows. My focus was on designing intuitive and simple interactions, ensuring that the app is easy to navigate and accessible for all users, regardless of their experience with mobile applications.
This hackathon was an incredible experience. I had the opportunity to collaborate with environmental scientists and help create a mobile application as a solution for a real-world problem—food waste. Not only did this project allow me to explore how design can have a positive environmental, social, and economic impact, but it also reinforced the importance of designing with purpose. CHOMP aims to mitigate food waste by redistributing excess food to those in need, potentially reducing environmental strain while helping communities with food insecurity.
The hackathon also played a key role in shaping my design process. Working in such a fast-paced environment pushed me to prioritize the most impactful features and think quickly about solutions that would best serve the user’s needs. With only 48 hours to learn about the issue, develop a solution, and present it to the panelists, I learned how to effectively collaborate with individuals outside the design field, especially environmental scientists and engineers. This helped me realize how important it is to work cross-functionally and ensure the solution is both feasible and impactful from multiple perspectives.
During the event, I honed my ability to make user-centered decisions under pressure and learned to refine my approach based on the constraints of time. I also focused on creating a seamless user experience by identifying the highest-priority user flows, ensuring that the app was functional and intuitive despite the time limitations.
Moving forward, my team and I would need to think about the logistics of the project, including fridge placement, power sources (such as solar energy), and collaborations with non-profits and other organizations. We would also need to conduct usability testing with real community fridge users to identify areas for improvement and enhance the app’s design.
I thoroughly enjoyed building CHOMP and hope to continue working on impactful and engaging projects in the future.