Tasty Saves

Enhancing Sustainability

Designed an innovative interface that tackles food waste and encourages sustainable practices by improving food tracking and utilization, thereby minimizing wastage and promoting responsible consumption.

Overview

Proposal: The US Department of Agriculture estimates that 30-40% of the food is wasted, including high-quality food sent to landfills. Grocery stores play a major role in this, discarding large amounts of food before sale. It's essential to develop a better system to reduce waste and provide excess food to those in need.

Timeline: Fall 2022 | Responsibilities: User Research, High-Fidelity UI Design, Prototyping, and SWOT Analysis | Teammates: Anannya Bhagat, Bonnie Kennedy, Desiree White, & Sumi Shin

Goals:
- Reduce food wastage (estimated at 30–40% in the US) by creating a platform for grocery stores to sell surplus food nearing expiration.
- Provide consumers with high-quality, discounted food while promoting sustainable consumption practices.

Outcome (KPIs):
- Marketplace Feasibility: Designed a functional dual-interface platform that separates the specific workflows of "Shoppers" and "Partners" (grocery stores).
- Monetization Strategy: Developed a four-tier revenue model including partnership subscriptions, sales commissions, brand sampling fees, and data monetization.

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Tasty Saves Logo

Sample Interview Questions

In the ideation phase, my team mate and I brainstormed the type of questions we could use in the survey. We also brainstormed about who our target audience would be for the questions. We figured out that we wanted to ask shoppers as well as owners/employees of grocery stores.

We crafted about 15 survey questions, here's a couple:

Do you shop for groceries in-person or online?
What food items do you spend the most on in a typical shopping trip?
What type of groceries do you struggle to consume before they expires?
Do you often find yourself checking the clearance lane while grocery shopping?

Personas

To gain better insight of the participants answers from the survey, we divided the 20 responses we got into 3 distinct clusters based on common themes and similarities. We used these personas whenever we wanted step out of ourselves and remind us of what the users would actually need in an app.

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A simplified version of the User Persona

SWOT Analysis

The results of the SWOT analysis will be used for managing the product road map.

Monetization Approach

The Monetization
Approach

There are 4 ways that Tasty Saves will generate revenue:

Partners
- Partnering with businesses that will subscribe monthly to Tasty Saves & utilities its services to connect with customers.
- Tasty Saves will receive commission on sales that are generated through the app.
Shoppers
- The shoppers purchase items through the app & pre-order groceries. This helps both partners & Tasty Saves generate revenue.
Brands
- Brands may pay a fee to include samples of their products & coupons with orders.
Monetizing harvested data
- Monetizing user data including food preferences based on age, gender, location, season and income level.

Design Process

UI Design

Role-Based Design:
- Designed distinct experiences for shoppers and partners, with features tailored to each user type upon login

Visual Design & Sustainability:
- Chose green as the primary color to reflect sustainability and food-saving values, using varied hues and white space for visual clarity and accessibility.

Core Features:
- Shoppers: Discover nearby stores, purchase discounted food, and track orders.
- Partners: Manage inventory, view orders, and track listed items.

Wireframes

After our team discussed the feature requirements of the screens for Tasty Saves, my team used Figma to create the low-fidelity wireframes.

UI features of the Shoppers side - High Fidelity

Shoppers are able to explore local stores selling food at a discounted price.
Consumers can shop for products that are close to expiration & purchase them for a significantly reduced price.
Shoppers are able to discover & track their orders.

1. Discover Nearby Stores

2. Shop Food Items

3. Track Orders

UI features of the Partners Side

Partners can view, add, or delete products on the app. The product can also be scanned.
The Sales rep of the partnering services can view the pending customer's orders, the items they bought, & whether items are being picked up or delivered to them.

1. Inventory & Scanning

2. Check Pending Orders

Reflections & Next Steps

What I Learned:

The Complexity of Marketplaces: I learned that designing for two user groups (Shoppers and Partners) requires balancing two entirely different sets of "Mental Models" within a single cohesive brand.

Data as a Product: Through the monetization strategy phase, I realized the value of "harvested data" (food preferences by demographic) as a sustainable revenue stream for long-term product growth.

Next Steps:

Pilot Logistics Integration: Partner with a local community grocery store to test the "Inventory & Scanning" feature in a live, high-speed retail environment.

Gamification for Sustainability: Introduce a "Waste Saved" tracker for shoppers to visualize the environmental impact (e.g., pounds of CO2 prevented) of their purchases.

Real-Time Push Notifications: Develop a feature that alerts "Shoppers" immediately when their favorite stores or food categories post new surplus items.

Tasty Saves