Ratatouille
Role
UX Designer, team of 2 (teammate Michelle Kou)
Duration
Jan 2022 (48 hours)
Result
1st Place Winner of UC Irvine Design-a-thon
Challenge Brief
Design your own desktop or mobile application that advocates for either social justice or sustainability.
Context
Food sustainability is one of the biggest issues to our climate crisis, as the planet cannot keep up with the growth of human population and the increasing demand for food. One way to have a more sustainable diet is to cut out meat.
To understand why people are hesitant pursue a more sustainable diet, we drafted a survey to delve into the problem. We received 30 responses total.
User Research
55%
of participants are willing to try new things, but still feel attached to their current diet.
52%
of participants have considered changing their diet in the past.
Taste, price, and motivation
are the biggest obstacles to a change in diet.
Taste, time, and difficulty
“I’ve heard many health benefits of going vegetarian, but I don’t think it’s possible to completely give up meat.”
“Changing diet requires discipline and that’s something I don’t have.”
are most important when deciding what to cook.
“I’m too accustomed to the taste and accessibility of meat.”
Using our research, we were able to identify the key reasons why people are hesitant about pursuing a more sustainable diet, forming our problem statement.
Problem Statement
Although many would consider altering their diet, individuals are accustomed to their current diet preferences and fear that taste, price, and convenience will be sacrificed with a more sustainable diet.
Using our user research, we identified 5 key areas to solve, and gathered potential solutions by conducting further interviews with the survey respondents and competitive analysis to see key features other apps and websites offer.
Solutioning
Problem: Individuals are afraid they will have to sacrifice the taste, convenience, and price of meals.
Sacrifice
Solutions: Alternative recipes to familiar meals, small steps big difference, time/price estimate, reviews
Uninformed
Problem: Individuals are unaware that diet change could decrease carbon emissions.
Solutions: Information about significance in onboarding, carbon footprint numbers, resources
Apathy
Problem: Individuals are unmotivated to research and find new recipes for diet change.
Solutions: Progress tracking, recommended recipes that are familiar
Unfamiliarity
Problem: Individuals feel attached to their current diet and meals, fear change.
Solutions: Alternative recipes to familiar meals, survey in onboarding to put in favorite cuisine
Capability
Problem: Individuals do not feel like they are able to change their diet or make a difference with their diet.
Solutions: Language to ensure no pressure/guilt, similar recipes with different carbon footprints, progress tracking
From our solutions, Michelle and I decided we wanted to create a recipe app that introduces sustainable recipes, with key features that inform and track progress.
We sat together to identify key screens and features for our app from the potential solutions we came up with. With only 24 hours left, we divided the work to work on different features.
We traded sketches and talked through them to give each other feedback.
Process
Introducing…
Ratatouille is an app that aims to inspire individuals to pursue a more sustainable diet in order to decrease carbon emissions.
Encouraging onboarding process where users can set preferences to discover familiar tastes in sustainable recipes.
Aims to show users even small steps can make a big change
Allow users to customize how big a change they want to make
Bring familiarity to a new diet with food preferences
Clearly display most important information like time, price, diet type, and carbon emissions
Bring awareness to alternative recipes of different levels if users are not ready for a big change
Ease users’ fear about taste and flavor with community reviews
Informative recipes with community reviews and multiple options to ease users into a more sustainable diet.
Intuitive search with relevant results for varying environmental impacts
Display relevant results to the user’s search no matter the diet type
Offers a variety of alternatives with varying environmental impact to let users make their own decision
Allow users to compare carbon emissions between recipes
Motivating progress tracker that highlights one’s impact.
Motivate users and show them that their changes truly make a difference
Gamify the journey to a more sustainable lifestyle with progress tracking and achievements
After a whirlwind of a weekend, Michelle and I where chosen as a finalist among 200 other students. We presented our design process and prototype to a panel of judges, and received 1st place winner of the UCI Designathon!
It was extremely rewarding to work with Michelle on a topic that I was passionate about. Due to the 48 hour turnaround, making key decisions on tradeoff and limiting our scope of work was extremely important. Through working side by side, we were able to make informed decisions.
Super grateful to have had this opportunity!