Ross Nelson

I am a 23-year-old UX designer with a strong focus on creating the best user experience for my users. Having completed an internship with Rapid7, where I gained a lot of experience designing for their cybersecurity platform, I am now employed there as a UX designer.

The idea for my final year major project was generated by the shocking statistics of food wastage which we hear about each day in the news. 50% of this food waste takes place in our homes. Much of it is still edible and could be put to use.

Harnessing the power of technology to fight food waste is the approach that I want to take. I wanted to create a platform that will help to reduce the amount of food wastage from our homes by designing a mobile application that allows communities to interact and share their unwanted food around their local areas. I also wanted to give my users the opportunity to locate food banks in order to donate to those struggling through hard times.

Edible

Edible is a mobile application to help reduce food waste and make sustainable eating easier by connecting neighbours. It is a platform for sharing surplus food which would otherwise be destined for the bin. The idea is to find out what's near you, for example, vegetables and household groceries which are no longer of use to someone, yet they are still perfectly edible. It will work by making the item available on the app, adding a photo, a description and a time that it can be picked up. To access items, you simply browse the listings available near you, request the listing and arrange a pickup via private messaging. There is also the option of donating your surplus food to a food bank of your choice, the list being available through the food bank locator.

The Process

Once the idea was generated, I started doing my UX research by way of qualitative and quantitive methods which included an online survey, interviews, food bank visits, user personas, journey maps, card sorting and competitor research. This was necessary before the design of the app could be contemplated. From here, I designed low fidelity wireframes and finally my high fidelity outcome. As a result, I feel that I have designed a good user experience and my app has benefited from what I have learned during my time working in the industry.

The Outcome

Although Edible is only a concept, I feel that it has the potential to be a fully developed application. I feel that it would do something tangible to tackle the world issue of excessive food waste.

The idea is to start a food sharing revolution in society’s core - the local community. Overall, I am happy with what I have achieved in designing Edible. There is a growing awareness that we have to tackle this food wastage and Edible is there to start providing change.

End food waste, fight global warming and meet your neighbours as they come to pick up your surplus food. Everything is free. It will not solve the problem of food waste entirely but it is certainly a step in the right direction.

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