How it Works
NUFood offers three different ways for students to learn how to cook and responsibly enjoy their food.
Students on the app can connect with others, sending and saving recipes and cooking tips.
For more experienced chefs, we have included a sharing feature, which allows students to make posts about their favorite recipes and cooking hacks.
Finally, students who don't have a clue about what to do with their groceries can use the create feature, which allows them to input the ingredients they have and receive corresponding recipes.
Interactive Figma Prototype
Why Did We Create NUFood?
Our project is inspired by Goal 12 of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals: Responsible Consumption and Production.
We decided to focus on food waste, as it is an issue that pertains to individuals and can be reduced based on individual action. Larger problems, like fossil fuel usage, are hard for the average person to change.
As students at Northeastern University, we saw our peers and Northeastern's dining halls struggle to manage food responsibly, making Northeastern an ideal place for an intervention.
How might we reduce food waste on Northeastern University's campus?
To find out if food waste was truly an issue on campus as we suspected, we conducted an online student survey and an email interview with Northeastern's Director of Materials and Recycling, Susan Higgins.
Student Survey:
We sent out a Google Survey to peers and posted flyers with QR codes around campus. We received 14 responses. Though we would have ideally liked a much bigger survey response, we were happy with the amount of participants we had considering the short time span over which this project was completed. Our survey highlighted 4 key takeaways:
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Students believed that food waste on campus is an issue and that Northeastern does not do a good job of addressing it.
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Students were interested in reducing food waste but didn’t want to expend extra time and energy.
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Students overestimated the amount of food they needed or were unsatisfied with the taste.
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Many students surveyed bought groceries and made their own meals but faced challenges when it came to cooking skills, time, and budget.
Email Interview:
Our interview with Susan Higgins proved extremely helpful, as she shared that Northeastern collected 843 tons of food waste in 2022. Northeastern does drop off compost at a nearby farm, but Higgins outlined three different challenges in this process:
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Contamination of compost with non-food items
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Maintaining clean operations to limit odor and pests
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Gathering quality data for accountability
Summary and Synthesis
Based on our research, we created an affinity diagram, which revealed an unproductive cycle that Northeastern students encounter when trying to manage food consumption.
Oftentimes, these students will go to the grocery store without a plan, not be able to make anything with what they bought, and end up throwing away expired goods, just to start all over again.
We realized that Northeastern students need help creating grocery lists, learning to cook, and figuring out how to use excess food.
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Prototypes and Testing
We started by brainstorming 29 different ideas based on our findings. We then sorted these ideas into two main categories: individual level and community level interventions. On a community level, we could focus on food sharing programs, waste in Northeastern's dining halls, or local grocery stores. On an individual level, we might address the specific needs of students, whether that pertains to emotional satisfaction or culinary education.
Considering the feedback we got from our survey, we realized that students need help making changes at an individual level. Northeastern is already proactive on a community level, and dealing with corporations and institutions would be much more difficult in the scope of this project.
Wireframes and Sketches
Following our decision to focus on individual level solutions, we sketched an idea for a social media-style cooking app. At first, we thought about including tips and recipes from parents or experts, a recipe feed, and a digital shopping list. We quickly nixed the idea of parent tips, as students felt that they would be much more inclined to take pointers from their peers.
We then sketched out wireframes, but found that we had many menu items which could be condensed. Peers thought these initial screens looked overwhelming in general as well.
Figma Prototypes
To help bring the app to life, we created a lo-fi Figma prototype to test with Northeastern students. Students had a few main comments and suggestions:
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They were confused about the "Shop" section, feeling that it signaled e-commerce rather than list making.
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Functions of the app seemed unclear
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The prototype definitely needed color
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They would like a distinction between following feeds and explore feeds
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Reminders to use certain foods would elevate their experience
For our final hi-fi prototype, we settled on three different sections: Cook, Connect, and Create. Cook is similar to the lo-fi version, simply displaying a recipe feed for users to explore. The Connect page, formerly "Tips," is where advice and non-recipe posts are displayed. The Create page offers users a way to incorporate the ingredients they already have into a meal.
We also added branding in the form of a logo, color palette, and a catchy name.
Lo-fi Prototype
Hi-fi Prototype
Next Steps
Overall, It's clear that there is a food waste issue on campus, and that NUFood could inspire students to make real changes. Northeastern students responded very positively to our prototype, but, moving forward, we would definitely need to build out the connect feature and conduct additional testing to see if students would enjoy the new features.
As for integrating our app into the Northeastern community, we have a few engagement strategies in mind:
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Working with NU social media and dining
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Sharing the app and prominent recipes
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Pairing with dining halls
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Recipes with positive feedback can be implemented in the dining halls
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Partnering with the campus the grocery store, Wollaston’s
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The stores could feature ingredients for popular recipes
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Creating a NUFood social media page to help spread the word