Brief

Develop a platform that allows students to share food-related resources and skills to help combat food insecurity and to encourage community building around food.

Client & Goals

Western Washington University

Provide students with a single platform that can help combat food insecurity by giving students a platform to share food-related resources.

Student / User Goals

Better access to healthy, affordable food and other food-related skills and resources, and more people to share them with.

Team

Zach, Taylor, Adele, Jasmine, Daniel McMorrow

Problem Identification

50% of US College students polled said they ate less than 3 meals every day.

Key Obstacles.

Lack of time, money, new social dynamics surrounding food, poor access to food resources, and skills on campus.

Effects.

Malnutrition, stress, drop in academic performance, lack of social interaction.

Opportunity.

A platform that bridges the gap between students and food resources, connects local food surplus with food shortages experienced by students, and provides a space where students can help each other meet their needs.

Emma | 23

“I wish I had resources to be able to get healthy, fresh foods; it's nearly impossible to afford.”

Goals

• Cook more at home to spend less going out, as well as meal prep

• Try to buy local ingredients whenever possible, especially produce

• Throw away less food; it goes bad because they don’t cook it in time

  Obstacles

• A busy schedule means it’s hard to find time to shop and cook at home

• Local options are often too expensive and outside their limited budget

• Only having a part time job means that their food budget is limited

  Main food sources

  01 Grocery Outlet 02 On-campus Vendors 03 Local Co-op

Brie | 21

“I’m trying to cook at home more, but I’m always throwing away produce, it goes bad faster than I can cook it.”

Goals

• Learn to cook their own food and feel less scared in the kitchen

• Eventually cancel their meal plan, because the food is unhealthy

• Start eating healthier in general, especially by eating more produce

Obstacles

• No experience cooking makes it daunting to start learning now

• They don’t know many people that cook, and classes are expensive

• As an honors student and athlete, they have very little time to learn

Main food sources

01 On-campus Vendors 02 Dining Hall 03 Haggen

Joshua | 19

“I wish I had a variety of healthy options available all day, I end up eating the same things all the time”

Goals

• Try new foods outside of their comfort zone, mix up their routine

• Looking to eat more fresh, local produce

• Rely less on meal plan by finding new meal options

Obstacles

• Without a car, it is harder to get off campus to find diverse food options

• Poor selection of food at the dining hall limits leads to repetitive meals

• Lack of cooking space in dorms makes it hard to make food for themselves

Main food sources

01 Dining Hall 02 On-campus Vendors 03 Fred Meyers

After mapping out potential user flows and defining what features we wanted the app to contain, we started sketching out app wireframes. This process involved collaborative sketching and research, in which we did market research and testing to see how other applications were managing user flows and defining how we might adapt those strategies to fit our use case.