Just Design Designathon.
Just Design was a 48-hours, virtual designathon created by a team of students from UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz.
As a part of the designathon, I was involved in working with a team to utilise design to create solutions for social impact issues we cared about.
Problem:
Solving food inequality in low income neighbourhoods using technology.
Food inequity refers to certain disadvantaged communities lacking equal access high quality foods, such as food desserts or a lack of supermarket or grocery stores that stock healthy produce (source).
User Research and Insights
Desk Research was conductive and based on secondary data, the following insights were found:
Shame/fear of being judged: members of these communities often fear those judging them if they don’t have access to stable food supply
Members of these communities have ingrained food consumption habits and may view food as a necessity rather than something that affects their health
Ideation and Solutions
Some our ideas included:
A community forum for finding fresh produce
An educational food program
A pantry map/bus stop
Prioritisation
We chose to prioritise idea 1 due to time constraints, but it also has the most impact as it:
Fosters a sense of community that allowed users to contribute anonymously to increase a sense of social connectiveness and decrease shame around food insecurities
Allow users to find out what fresh produce is still instock/available at their local food pantry and the best way to access there via public transport and has real valuable impact
User flow created on how users would interact with the community side of the platform.
Development of Style Guide
Impact:
A digital solution that aims to address shame and foster community
A tool for community members to more easily access fresh produce and improve their health
Our idea won honourable mention for user centric for the designathon.
Pantry Finder was completed with help of my amazing team members:
Daphne Lee: http://www.daphneclee.com/
Michelle Lam: https://lammichelle.myportfolio.com/
Mira Hingra: http://www.miradhingra.com/