Rooted

Rooted helps individuals connect with restaurants who donate their excess food to provide minimal food waste in the community.

UX Research

User Interface Design

Wireframes

Prototyping

My Role

Duration

3 Weeks

Figma

Adobe

Tools Used

Nutritious and affordable food is being wasted while access is limited

PROBLEM

According to the USDA, more than 38 million people, including 12 million children, in the United States are lacking reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. While each year 108 million pounds of food is wasted In the US.

There should be no reason we cannot bridge the gap between those with excess and those in need.

“How might we leverage Rooted to offer users the opportunity to give back without disrupting their normal routine?”

We created Rooted with the belief that helping individuals connect with restaurants who donate their excess food is essential for minimizing food waste in the community.
Rooted provides that link from individual to community. Making it simple to participate in something that will benefit everyone.

SOLUTION

  • Provides a step-by-step on how to use the app for the user

  • The app shows information about what it provides for the community and offers visuals

  • Increases your chances of frequently donating to different causes

  • Provides details of how many meals are presented and who has been impacted by this.

  • The app displays what restaurants are participating in, limiting the waste that goes into the trash in the community.

  • User can add restaurants to their favorites list

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH SURVEYS

We Surveyed 50 People

Gen z and millenials were our main focus for the survey because these generations tend to use apps the most in their daily lives.

78%

of people said that social causes are important to them

98%

of people said they eat out atleast once a week

86%

of people said they have the funds to donate

USER INTERVIEWS

My interviewees were 3x more likely to donate to an organization when they knew exactly where their money was being contributed to.

We conducted 5 in person interviews, virtual interviews, and online surveys to really understand the market and ensure we are impacting our users by addressing and potentially solving a problem they face.

Key Findings

Users like knowing where their money is going

Users lack awareness to what's going on in their community

Money constraints was the most common reason users did not give back

All 50 randomly selected interviewees said they use apps to determine where they will eat

COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

None of the previous apps my interviewees used worked to a LACK of providing information about where their money made a valuable impact.

I analyzed the 3 most popular apps that focused on meals.

I found that almost none of them had this aspect of an accountability partner to help the user achieve their goals. This then became my opportunity for the solution.

The most common features all of those apps had were a users profile, easy onboarding process, and had a visually pleasing design. The design element that we saw in two out of three applications during our competitive analysis was the ability to continue as a guest after downloading the app so we brought that to Rooted as well. 


Input Search

USER PERSONA

Major

Compensation Analyst

City

Chicago

Age

27 Years Old

Jamie Cardigan

Jamie works hard as a compensation analyst. On her weekends she’s really busy running errands, but going to the farmers
market on sunday is the highlight of her week. She likes to browse tik tok to see what new restaurants are opening up in
her area. Her friends have a big impact on the type of volunteer work that they all do together at least once a month. Jamie
makes sure to give back to the community because growing up she was given more opportunity in life that some people aren’t
as fortunate to have.

Bio

Interests

Shopping local

Volunteering

Hanging out with friends

Social causes

Giving back to her community

Assisting underserved communities

Going out to eat

Goals

Volunteering as much as her schedule allows

Shopping local

Learning more about the opportunities to help her community

Donated when she can

Enjoys time out at restaurants with her friends

Frustrations

Lacking awareness of how to get involved in her community

“ I’m not available to contribute as much as I would like to my community”

It’s hard to know whether or not an organization is being transparent about where her effort goes

STORYBOARD

DESIGN

As a team we discussed how we wanted our app to look like. We decided to look back on our competitors and see what users liked the most about those apps. We decided that we wanted users to be able to view our app without having to create a user name. Since we are a new app we thought it would be a nice intro into Rooted.

SKETCHES

LO FIDELITY

FINAL PRODUCT

Things that I’ve learned and will continue

  1. Communication within a group setting is key. Initially, we committed to one another as a group and communicated as much as possible, even if we made the slightest changes. We wanted everyone to be a part of the loop. It was super important for us to communicate through Zoom, Slack, and Figma.

  2. Always ask questions. A question is never a dumb question. We wanted to be as open as possible because we all started this journey together toward UX design.

  3. Don’t make assumptions. Always listen to the user. In the beginning, we had plenty of assumptions about what the user was going to say, and many times the user's response was the opposite of what we thought. It was so interesting to see the details they noticed and what we noticed was different. That clarified why a UX experience is so important when you create a website. It's genuinely never about us; it's about our users.

  4. Iterate as many times as you can. There are never too many times you can iterate on improving something. The future will always allow more time to expand on an idea that will enhance an app.