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BU Dining
Catered Leftovers
About Project
Client
BU Dining Sustainability Team
BU Dining is actively working to reduce food waste on campus, both pre-consumer food waste – food waste generated before food is served – and post-consumer food waste – food waste from people’s plates. In order to be successful, we need the entire BU community’s engagement and support. BU Dining’s zero waste strategy includes pre and post consumer waste, non-food waste
Project Statement
The project statement for the BU Dining Catered Leftovers project focuses on reducing food waste generated from catered events by redistributing leftover food to students. The BU Dining team seeks to develop a mobile or web app that notifies students when leftover food is available while adhering to food safety regulations. The app will include geolocation features, notification systems, and tracking capabilities for food pickups and waste reduction. The project aims to create an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) for testing and potential rollout by Fall 2024, addressing both pre-consumer and post-consumer food waste concerns on campus​
Role
UI / UX Designer , Market Researcher, Marketing Analyst
Timeline
4 month
Design Challenge
Adherence to Food Safety Regulations
The app must ensure that food is not distributed beyond a specific time frame (likely within 4 hours of serving). This will require a timer-based function to comply with health and safety guidelines while ensuring timely notifications to potential recipients.
Geolocation and Privacy Concerns
Incorporating geolocation features to notify students about nearby available food presents a challenge in balancing functionality with privacy. The design must ensure users can share location data safely or select specific campus zones without violating privacy agreements.
Usability Across Multiple User Groups
The app needs to cater to three primary user groups—administrators, students (food recipients), and event organizers—each with different functionalities and interfaces. Ensuring a seamless experience for all user types, particularly regarding notifications and food collection, is essential​
Context
This project is a capstone project of the Boston University Spark! UX Design X-Lab Practicum
Massachusetts generates over 1 million tons of food waste each year, which is 25% of overall waste in the Commonwealth. At the same time, Massachusetts also has experienced surges in household food insecurity rising from 8.2% before the pandemic to 19.5% of households food insecure at its peak in Massachusetts. BU Dining is eager to develop a plan to respond to a change in Massachusetts regulations governing commercial food waste that requires facilities who generate more than one-half ton of food and other organic wastes per week to develop a composting program to eliminate waste. Catered events can generate a significant amount of wasted food. BU Dining is seeking a solution to give this (perfectly good) food away to students before resorting to composting.
" How can BU Dining safely distribute leftover food while reducing waste? "
Key Features
Event Notifications
Students receive real-time notifications when leftover food from events is available. They can set preferences and get alerts via email or phone number to pick up food within a specific timeframe, helping to reduce food waste.
Food Safety Timer
Each food listing includes a timer that shows how long the food is available for pickup, ensuring compliance with food safety regulations by preventing the distribution of expired food.
Filtering System
The filtering feature in the BU Dining Sustainability app lets users sort food listings by most recent or oldest events. This helps students quickly find available food, ensuring they access relevant options efficiently and don’t miss opportunities due to time constraints​.
Feedback System
After picking up food, students can leave feedback through a star rating system, allowing organizers to track satisfaction and make improvements for future events​
Admin Control for Event Listings
Event organizers can upload and manage food listings directly from the app, either immediately after an event or in advance, with the ability to edit or update the details as needed.
4 Months from Vision to Launch
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Research / Interview
01
State and City Ordinances: Research into Massachusetts regulations highlights the importance of adhering to commercial food waste disposal laws, which mandate composting for facilities generating over half a ton of food waste per week. This sets a clear guideline for how BU Dining must manage its food waste reduction efforts.
02
CaterTrax Integration: A key research result is the importance of understanding the CaterTrax system, which BU Dining already uses for managing catering orders. Integrating this system will simplify the process for staff, making food redistribution more efficient while ensuring compliance with regulations​
03
Existing Food Redistribution Systems: Research into platforms like Free Food Alert, FeedShare, and Zot Bites provides insights into effective methods for reducing campus food waste. Free Food Alert allows users to sign up, receive real-time notifications about leftover food, and set preferences for the type of food alerts they wish to receive. FeedShare connects users with free food at Northeastern University, offering time-stamped notifications and easy pickup locations. Zot Bites, used at UCI, sends SMS alerts and ensures food availability 30 minutes after notification. These systems demonstrate successful strategies in real-time notifications, personalized food preferences, and the potential for tracking food waste reduction​
Organized data from literature review and interview
Key Insights
Real-Time Notifications Are Critical
Interviews with students highlighted that timely notifications about leftover food are essential for effective redistribution. Competitor apps like Free Food Alert and Zot Bites emphasize real-time or time-stamped notifications, which ensure that food is claimed quickly, minimizing waste.
Personalization Improves User Engagement
Both interviews and competitor analysis revealed that allowing users to set preferences for types of food or dietary restrictions enhances engagement. Apps like Free Food Alert successfully implement this feature, which encourages users to act on alerts that match their specific needs.
Tracking and Feedback Enhance Sustainability
Competitor platforms like Zot Bites and Free Food Alert offer administrators the ability to track food waste reduction and gather user feedback. Interviews with administrators indicated that tracking the impact of redistributed food is crucial for measuring success and improving future efforts​
Clear Food Safety Guidelines
Ensuring that all redistributed food meets health and safety standards is critical. Competitor apps provide clear guidelines and timers to ensure that food is distributed safely, which will be an important feature for BU Dining's solution.
User Flow
Design Process
I led the UX and UI design of the project to make sure our design is user-centered and would keep users engaged and motivated to better understand data and gain insights, which is our goal for this product.
Wireframe
I led the wireframes from low-fidelity to high-fidelity for usability testing. We identified the hierarchy of the information and made sure the content ties back to all the findings we derived from our research and testing.
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Usability Test
Great design
Easy to follow
The app’s interface is intuitive.
Easy to navigate,
user friendly.
Key Findings
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Intuitive design that is easy to follow
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Changing wordings to make it more clear
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Distinguishing which are recent versus past orders
Design System
Increasing Fidelity / Iteration
We moved from low-fidelity prototypes into high-fidelity interactive prototypes as we tested, getting closer and closer to our final design.
Final Design
Student Flow
Starting with the sign-up button
Students must first agree to the terms and conditions, including waivers for liability, assumption of risk, and compliance with food safety regulations. This step ensures that users are aware of the guidelines for safely receiving leftover food.
Admin Flow
Starting with the login button
As an admin, you start by logging in using your BU staff credentials, as the app is already integrated with the BU login system. Once logged in, you can immediately access the admin dashboard, where you can manage food postings.
