Project 3 FREEDGE

Project Overview

Contemporary young people are always so busy with their work or study that they do not have the time to take care of cleaning out their fridges as well as their dietary health. However, neglecting the cleaning of the fridge and the diet will lead to health hazards that should not be underestimated. Therefore, an app that works with fridge is designed to help busy young people save time on cleaning their fridges, ensure healthy diets, and further develop good living habits.

My Role

UX Researcher, UX Designer, UI Designer

Type

Individual

Date

August 2024 - October 2024

Tool

Discover

Background Research

#Pain Point 1

Contemporary young people do not have time to do time-consuming chores such as thoroughly cleaning the fridge due to their busy work and school.

#Pain Point 2

Most young people do not clean out their refrigerators in a timely manner and are unaware of the importance.

Primary Research Findings

Quantitative Result Summary

We posted questionnaires on different social media platforms, and the responses from young people who are busy with work or study showed their neglect of fridge cleaning issues and their own health risks.

#Pain Point 3

Not cleaning the fridge thoroughly in a timely manner can lead to serious health problems.

Market Analysis

Primary Research Roadmap

Delve Deeper into the Problematic Area

As students or office workers, our daily workload already puts a lot of pressure on us. We are passively in a sub-healthy state of life. Not only do we not have time to clean out our fridge, but we are also forced to suffer negative effects on our diet and health. We, as designers, should try to break this unhealthy lifestyle and help young people to realize a healthy life more conveniently with less time and to develop healthy living habits.

Research Process Summary

During the research phase, I developed a questionnaire and conducted interviews with young people for the three design purposes of how to save time, how to ensure healthy eating, and how to develop healthy living habits. The process followed the research roadmap and gathered both qualitative and quantitative data.

Quanlitative Result Summary

Salient Aspects: Key Problems

The identified pain point themes implied that how to save time cleaning, how to ensure healthy eating and how to develop healthy living habits are actually interconnected closely and can form a vicious cycle easily. Nevertheless, it also means that addressing one problematic aspect will subsequently mitigate the others. Thus, I tried to integrate these pain points and established 4 salient aspects to summarize the key problems that contemporary young people frequently encountered.

All interviewees are students or office workers aged 20-25. Therefore, the user group provides qualitative insights into contemporary young people who are busy with work or study. Young people aged 20-25 who are busy with work or study are usually in the transition of identity or starting their career, and the pressure of study or work leaves them no time to take care of their physical health and tasks at the same time. Cleaning the fridge is one of the things they tend to neglect. However, the health hazards of an uncleaned fridge cannot be ignored. Hence, they need a more strategic approach to focus more efficiently on cleaning the fridge, so as to protect their health and develop good living habits. Meanwhile, according to the questionnaire and interview, all participants are interested in smart products and emerging technologies that can help them save time, thus providing a good condition for creating a reasonable digital platform to help young people save time on cleaning the refrigerator, ensure healthy eatings, and cultivate healthy living habits.

Persona

Define

Target Users - Young People Busy with Study and Work

Reframing

Success Criteria

The application of design thinking tools such as the Framework Innovation Model(Paton & Dorst, 2010) breaks down preconceived fixed patterns and reinterprets the problem into an understandable, actionable framework. As a result, 4 success metrics were established to transform struggling pain points into desirable features of the final design vision.

Concept Ideation

Step 1: Brainstorming & picking possible features

Deliver

Step 2: Generating Initial Concept - FREEDGE

Low-fi Prototyping

Iterating UI Sketches

After brainstorming the exterior design and functionality of the fridge, I started prototyping the app, which is used in conjunction with the fridge, and iterating UI sketches.

FREEDGE App Low-fi Prototype

FREEDGE Smart Screen Low-fi Prototype

Internal Review

Since a minimal-viable-product hadn’t been developed yet to engage stakeholders for external testing, I conducted an internal review with classmates to discuss current drawbacks.

Low-fi Interface Testing

Role-play and Think Aloud

Five participants performed usability testing based on the hand-drawn prototypes of app, smart screen and refrigerator. Participants were asked to play a role among the three given personas.

After stepping into busy young people’s shoes, participants followed think-aloud protocols and completed 7 tasks.

The feedbacks given by the participants helped to understand more about the psychological expectations of the users and the potential problems with the present presumptions. Aside from minor deficiencies, I found that all participants were confused about the odor detector, transparent fridge door, and how expiration date is inputted (see Problem 2, 3, 4).

Mid-fi Prototyping

Key User Flow

A user flow diagram helps to see the app’s flow from a user’s perspective, make the experience seamless, and ensure to align our goals with our users' needs.

Wireframing and Wireflow

As an “extension of sketching””(Tomitsch et al., 2020), wireframing is a cost-effective prototyping tool which provides more matured interaction flow and clear visual hierarchy in more rigorous usability testings.

FREEDGE App

Select Ingredients

Generate Recipe

FREEDGE Smart Screen

New Feature

Quick Login by Scanning QR Code via App

Profile

New Feature

Home Page for Functional Partitioning

Set Intelligent Control

Mid-fi Testing

New Feature

Categorization based on expiration dates

Think aloud, SUS and Interview

Evaluation Results and Feedbacks

Overall, participants gave positive feedback. The average score of SUS questionnaire is, which is beyond the 68 average. However, they are still curious about the convenience of branded markets such as the FREEDGE online market bring to the app and fridge, and more personalized displays to suit their different living arrangements and needs.

UI/UX Final Iteration Summary

1.Return Button

Add a back button in the shopping list, so that users can return to make inquiries and changes at any time.

2.Switching Mode

Allow users to use both FREEDGE Market and Other Market modes to meet their different needs. FREEDGE Market mode can provide users with information such as weight, estimated price, purchase area, etc., which is more convenient.

5.Ingredients Status Chart

The fridge's smart screen has more room to generate chart that allow users to see the different states of various ingredients as well as their proportions.

6.Switching of Fridge Smart Screen

Profile page is more suited for the app, so replacing the profile option with a transparent mode toggle for the fridge will better fit fridge’s functionalities.

UI Design

FREEDGE APP

Onboarding

Tutorial for new users
Scan the code to log in on fridge and synchronize the use of the app with the refrigerator

3.More Categorization Options

Users can further select ingredients type for “Fresh”, “Expire Soon”, “Expired” and “Depleted” categories to know the status of ingredients more quickly and precisely.

4.Time to Expiration

Provide information on time until the expiration date to help users visualize the status of ingredients and avoid accidental consumption of expired food.

Intelligent Control

Set one’s own notification on/off according to different needs
Set the fridge auto-cleaning cycle and meal times in Preference of the Profile Page, and the app will remind according to the settings

Fresh Management

Enter and view ingredient/food expiration dates
Categorized according to the freshness of ingredients
Drag and drop certain ingredient into Depleted category
Further select the types of ingredients in the freshness level

Shopping List

Previous shopping lists for quick re-generation
Link to the FREEDGE online market page to place orders immediately
lexible switching between FREEDGE Market Mode and Other Markets Mode
The FREEDGE Market mode provides more information about weights, prices and the location of the ingredients in FREEDGE physical market