72 billion pounds of food goes to
waste every year
The Denver Food Rescue is a Colorado-based non-profit dedicated to saving as much fresh produce and other perishable items from ending up in the landfill. All rescued foods get redistributed directly into the neighborhoods and communities in need.
The Food Rescue Robot is currently a scheduling and tracking program created by the Denver Food Rescue in order to coordinate volunteer shifts.
How might we create a more effective scheduling and tracking tool so to increase productivity by volunteers? More time spent getting surplus food into the hands of those in need.
“The program right now is very difficult to view. I wish it was a calendar.”
The Problem
Currently, the entire software program is confusing to navigate for all parties who use it — staff and volunteers. There is no clear nor organized method for any kind of data tracking, therefore leaving the Denver Food Rescue frustrated when trying to calculate how many pounds of food they’ve rescued each year.
The long and the short is: the Denver Food Rescue needs a better way to manage shift schedules, track data, organize volunteer profiles, and have clear instructions for deliveries.
(All private company information is blurred for security purposes)
“Currently, all the data is exported into an excel spreadsheet which is extremely frustrating - often leading to unusable data.”
Research + Analysis
The research phase for this project took an extensive look into competitors such as Google Calendar, WorkTime, and Employee Link. These competitive analyses took place on an mobile phone to better gauge the layout and formatting for mobile.
I phone interviewed 8 people and compiled an affinity map to track major trends. I discovered that most volunteers and staff preferred to have a calendar view and clearly organized and visible shift information.
How might we simplify the scheduling and delivery experience for both staff and volunteers on a mobile app, whilst still having information be legible and buttons accessible?
Key Insights
Shifts Are Not Easy to Pick Up
At the moment, it is extremely confusing to distinguish between “One-Time” Shifts and “Recurring” Shifts. The shift details are in one long list format and the column hierarchy is redundant and disorganized. The call-to-action button colors are not intuitive in order to pick up a shift and can cause confusion.
Tracking/Exporting Data
Research showed data collection is extremely important to the admin team in order to annually track: how many pounds of food have been redistributed into the community, how much carbon has been saved, how much water has been saved, and how many miles/distances traveled. Currently, all the data is exported into an excel spreadsheet which is extremely frustrating - often leading to unusable data
Visible Shift/Contact Information
Unfortunately finding and viewing shift information is not intuitive for users. The currently format/layout is blocky which does not allow all information to fit into quadrants. Any description overflow goes outside the boundaries. A common method to combat this issue has been to include Copy & Paste links for donor/recipient information sheets that are located on a google drive folder.
Inconsistent Vehicle Sizes
The Denver Food Rescue has a lot of volunteers who prefer to bike and have designated trailer hitches for transport. There are times when a distributor could have up 500+ lbs of produce to donate and DFF needs to know whether or not to send a volunteer with a large vehicle. For recurring distributors, having a way to organize/filter by vehicle size would be extremely helpful.
“An app would be amazing because right now I have to log in from a computer and I mainly do everything from my phone”
The Solution
User testing revealed users actually preferred a collection of shifts, not an entire calendar view like initially thought. This led the design towards a toggle option between showing a detailed view of “Scheduled Shifts" and “Available Shifts”. In order to tackle the challenge of having visible contact information, a specific notes section has been added to the shift details page in order to have all contact information easily handy. Since each shift has a varying amount of product, there are icons in noting whether or not a particular shift would require a bicycle or a vehicle as a preferred mode of transportation.
Site Map
Results from research interviews helped dictate key features and the overall layout for the app architecture.
User Flow
The research findings and insights defined our key design question, which would guide us through the entire process: How might we reduce the confusion users need to take in order to signup for shifts?
“It’s about getting fresh food into the hands of people who need it.”
For Next Time
Pick-up vs Drop-off Distinction
During user testing, there was some confusion regarding pick-up and drop-off details/instructions. It would be great to reiterate and eliminate all difficulty making the distinction.
Filter Feature
Next time, it would be great to add a filter feature for users to easily pick up a specific shift that caterers to their schedules. This could be having filters for specific days/times of the week, mode of transport, and individual vs group shifts.
Available Shifts More Concise
It was mentioned in user testing the format/layout of overall available shifts is still confusing and somewhat difficult to read. With another iteration, this could be resolved by either adding contrasting backgrounds, smaller font size, less details, + more.