Klemis Kitchen
Fighting food insecurity for Georgia Tech students by improving the user experience of the on-campus food pantry
My Role
Design: Concept sketching, wireframing, prototyping, usability testing
Research: Survey design, semi-structured interviews, affinity mapping, competitive analysis, task analysis
Duration
August 2021 - December 2021
Tools
Figma, Miro, Qualtrics
Team
Boya Ren, Jessie Chiu, Srijan Jhanwar
Overview
Klemis Kitchen serves as a food pantry for Georgia Tech students with dietary needs and financial concerns that limit their access to proper nourishment. The pantry operates by sourcing surplus food from dining halls, local grocers and other donors which can be accessed by students who’ve obtained proper permissions through their ID card.
Problem
Due to their lack of online presence and a convoluted onboarding process, Klemis Kitchen’s impact in addressing food insecurity on campus is stifled, with only 122 enrolled students while 10% of Georgia Tech students self-identified as needing food assistance identified in a 2016 study with roughly 27,000 students enrolled at the time.
The current experience utilizing Klemis Kitchen’s services is also lacking, as uncovered by semi-structured interviews with administrators and users. In brief, these issues were in regard to service enrollment, up to date information on food availability, and nutrition details.
Solution
A centralized companion application for Klemis Kitchen, offering enrollment services, real-time pantry inventory, recipe suggestions and community engagement brought together in a warm and inviting experience for users.
Process
After landing on Klemis Kitchen as our partner for this project, my team and I set out to work, following a user centered design process from understanding the context of use through prototyping and evaluation. We accomplished this by conducting generative research and building empathy with service providers and users, distilling our research findings down into design requirements, brainstorming ideas and fleshing out selected concepts that meet those requirements through prototyping, and testing our solution. I took the lead in survey design, semi-structured interviews, ideation and prototyping.
Research
We conducted primary research through surveying current users and interviewing both users and service providers of the kitchen. We also conducted an on-site observation of the pantry to get a better picture of the operations and services provided.
After analyzing survey responses and interview data synthesized via affinity mapping, we discovered common patterns and themes in the data which were then used to inform our design decisions and requirements.
Key findings from affinity diagramming
1. Users found the onboarding process unclear and fragmented
Low discoverability and lack of online presence of the kitchen make students in need unaware of the resources available to them.
2. There is a need for nutrition labels, expiration information and item availability
Users found it frustrating that expiration labels and dietary or allergen information is missing from much of the stock.
3. Users want to give back to Klemis Kitchen
Users indicated their desire to give back to the kitchen as a way to express their gratitude towards service providers and help improve the kitchen for other users.
4. Users need an improved notification system for incoming donations
Currently, emails containing images of the pantry are the only form of notification, which fails to provide users with key information regarding inventory.
Key findings from on-site observation
Recipe Printouts
Paper copies of recipes are on display in the pantry, providing preparation instructions for meals primarily utilizing items which are commonly found in the pantry.
Suggestion Slips
Users interact with administration and provide feedback and suggestions through handwritten notes in an on-site suggestion box.
Inventory Management
After speaking with volunteers on-site we discovered an attempted and ultimately abandoned “checkout” kiosk which had never been used. As such it is difficult to track the current quantity of items in the pantry at any given time.
Defining Design Requirements
To guide our concept ideation process and serve as principles to evaluate against in the usability testing of our design, we established functional and non-functional design requirements based on the data gathered through our semi-structured interviews.
Functional Requirements
Non functional requirements
1. Transparent onboarding
Users have to collect scattered information and engage in cumbersome email exchanges to complete the enrollment process. The solution should provide a straightforward onboarding experience and centralize information pertaining to the service.
4. Capacity
Service Providers indicated that food supply available to the pantry via donations outstrips the pantry’s limited space and manpower, and as such Klemis Kitchen is not able to accommodate more users than it currently serves.
2. Item availability
Currently emails are the only way for Klemis Kitchen to send inventory update notifications which is neither timely nor adequate. With our solution, users should be able to check the latest availability of food and get notified when new inventory is available.
5. Humanity
We discovered that users tend to feel bad about getting food without giving back to Klemis Kitchen. Thus from the humanity perspective, our solution should be capable of providing an environment where users feel comfortable utilizing Klemis Kitchen’s services.
3. Nutrition and expiration
Users need a way to know nutritional information including if items meet their dietary restrictions and food expiration information. Our solution should provide this information in order for users to make informed decisions about using the pantry.
6. Usability
We discovered that the visibility of information in the current system of photos attached to emails regarding inventory is unsatisfactory. Our solution should keep users informed of the availability of items with a minimum cognitive load.
Design
Brainstorming and Ideation
With our design requirements supported by research findings in hand, we conducted a brainstorming session and came to a consensus on our top eight design ideas - some more outlandish than others, to be built upon and sketched out for visualization purposes. We then took these eight concepts and voted as a team to decide on our top 3 ideas to move forward with, storyboard and create wireframes for.
Sketched Concepts
Group track
Crowdsourcing feature which allows users to update pantry inventory while picking up food.
Fresh-o-meter
Displays freshness and expiration info of all food items in the pantry with configurable display preferences.
Cooking 101
Suggests recipes which can be prepared with items found in the pantry.
Klemis samaritan
Gamifies volunteering to further expand operations and reward users who enjoy giving back.
Autonomous Inventory Management (A.I.M.)
Sensor and camera-based computer vision solution to inventory management providing real-time stock information.
Food Fighters
Visualizes and gamifies users' reduction of food waste to provide positive reinforcement of pantry use.
Take your pick
Allows users to select dietary preferences and favorite items.
Klemis near me
Help users locate items across Klemis Kitchen locations on campus.
Storyboards
We created storyboards for two design ideas which satisfied the greatest number of design requirements. This activity helped to contextualize our design ideas and think about potential user flows.
Storyboard 1 - Group Track
Group track allows users to view updated pantry item availability as well as update stock quantity for other users while in the pantry. This allows users to give back to the pantry and improves inventory management.
Storyboard 2 - Fresh-o-meter
Fresh-o-meter serves to display expiration and nutritional information of food items. This was one of the core issues for the users of Klemis Kitchen where they have difficulty understanding if something is good for the taking or not, or how long has it been on the shelves in the kitchen.
Visual Style Guide
When establishing a style guide for our design, we came to a consensus that our aim was to create a fresh, warm, inviting and playful user experience. We drew inspiration from colors in fresh fruits and vegetables paired with a clean typeface and icon set.
High Fidelity Prototype
We used all the information and feedback gathered from multiple design concepts and wireframe feedback sessions with service providers and users, integrated that with our design system and started developing our high-fidelity prototype and interactions.
Transparent Onboarding Process
First-time users can get acclimated to Klemis Kitchen and it’s services, complete requisite enrollment process and select their dietary preferences all in one place.
Crowdsourcing Inventory
Users can check food availability at a glance from the Pantry home, and take things a step further as users who are physically present in the pantry can update the availability of items to let others know if anything is running out. This also empowers users to ‘give back’ to the pantry and solves for inventory management issues.
Recipes and Ingredients
Users can browse recipes and view availability of ingredients for each recipe directly on the page. This helps uses better decide what they would like to pick up from the pantry and in what quantity. This promotes healthy eating habits and provides students with better alternatives to the packaged options available.
Community Building at Ease
The community tab provides users with a communal space to engage with other students using the pantry, share their experience and get questions answered. This also provides a central space for admin announcements and streamlines access to notifications and food availability, increasing efficiency.
Evaluate
User Testing
We evaluated our design by conducting task based tests with 4 participants and fellow product designers which revolved around using key features of the design. The goal of these sessions was to find areas for improvement which we could use to iterate on our design and obtain heuristic evaluation from designers to mitigate usability issues.
For each testing session, participants were given 5 task scenarios and asked to think aloud while performing the tasks to verbalize their thoughts, expressing any delights, misconceptions or confusions regarding any aspect of the prototype.
Results and Recommendations
A summary of takeaways from the these sessions for each task includes:
Onboarding:
Selecting dietary preferences:
Adding items to grocery list:
Updating availability of items in the pantry:
Enquiring about food freshness:
Reflection
As our partner for this project emphasized their limited resources in both physical space and manpower, this project helped me learn how to design within operating constraints. I also came to understand how to close the gap between partner requirements and that of users through engaging with multiple types of stakeholders throughout the design process.
As a result of an accelerated timeline for this project, only a minimum viable product was feasible. Given an extended timeframe, I would have liked to conduct on-site usability tests with enrolled users of Klemis Kitchen to get their feedback on the in-pantry experience of updating item availability, as well as iterate further on the design to minimize steps in the onboarding process and flesh out additional features involving volunteering opportunities.