Student Food Security
Service Design
Overview: Food insecurity is defined as having a lack of reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable and nutritious food. In order to help alleviate the issue of food insecurity on our own campus at UCSD, we prototyped a grocery delivery service to be made into a proposal to our school’s basic needs resource center. This year-long project was a part of the national student organization, Design for America.
Role: In a team of 4, I was the co-team lead and Experience Designer. My responsibilities included–
Setting up meetings and enforcing deadlines with my co-lead
Creating and analyzing surveys
Qual. research such as 1-1 interviews and observing users
Experience mapping and prototype creation
Concept testing
Skills/Tools: Human-centered design principles (User research, ideation, prototyping, testing)
Date: September 2017 - June 2018
USER RESEARCH
“Sometimes I don’t know if I have the comfort of affording a cup of coffee.”
College students are high-functioning individuals who balance numerous activities like academics, extracurriculars, and work while trying to maintain their physical and mental health. Food is the basis of the student’s energy which determines how they function at their best. However, statistics from the UC global food initiative show that college food security is at 48% for undergraduate students and 25% for graduate students in the entire UC system.
So after conducting our online preliminary research, we did generative research by interviewing our stakeholders who were either coordinators in food-based resources or have taken part in previous initiatives to combat food insecurity at UCSD. In addition, other user research methods we used were observing focus group discussions about on-campus food insecurity, attending events for our campus food pantry, and surveying students around campus to discover the most pressing part of this complex issue. The qualitative data gathered from our interviews and observations, illustrated the barriers that food insecure students face in wanting to easily access things as simple as coffee to allow them to succeed in school.
Findings from our survey research showed that:
30% disagreed that UCSD enough food-based resources/services that allow them to eat enough food
65% disagreed at UCSD enough food-based resources/services that allow them to easily access nutritious food
61% disagreed at UCSD enough food-based resources/services that allow them to easily access affordable and a consistent supply of food
We also did an affinity diagram of all our insights from our collected data to cluster and observe any recurrent themes or patterns to narrow down our problem scope.
Insights that we overall gathered were that:
Students need a better way to obtain fresh, nutritious food more regularly on campus.
Students who are unsatisfied with the availability of affordable, nutritious food do not utilize the existing resources on campus.
After we immersed ourselves into the problem space, we reframed the problems by asking ourselves:
How Can We...
Create a positive association with food-based resources for students?
Increase awareness of food-based resources on campus?
Help students have more consistent access to affordable healthy food?
Provide more (quantity) affordable health food for students?
Help students physically access the food they need?
IDEATION
To begin generating possible solutions for these problems, we co-ideated with one of our stakeholders who worked at the Triton Food Pantry and had a unique perspective on the most promising ideas to meet the community's needs. We created an ideation matrix where we evaluated our ideas based on feasibility, cost, potential impact, and sustainability.
Based on our highest-ranking ideas, we were able to narrow down our ideas to these three solutions as possible prototypes now.
The testimonial media campaign was to raise awareness about the issue and de-stigmatize the notion of being food insecure. The pop-up pantry support was to strengthen an existing initiative to hold frequent events in bringing mobile versions of the food pantry throughout the campus. The grocery shuttle is better known as a grocery delivery service where students can get groceries delivered to them on campus through submitted forms of their orders.
PROTOTYPE
Since we didn't have any testimonies to prototype the media campaign and a lack of elaborated ideas for the pop-up pantry, we decided to prototype our grocery order form and delivery service. We not only had to think about the student's experience in ordering, paying, and picking up these groceries, but we also had to think about how the experience will be for the delivery driver.
We wanted to test with a small group of users for this prototype first, so we had them fill out a physical form we created rather than submitting an online form. In addition, instead of having them fill out an online form on the school's basic needs site, we made a box for them to drop off their forms in at a set location near The Hub (the basic needs resource center).
TESTING
Our team acted as the delivery drivers, so we had the chance to observe and reflect on our own experience about any issues that must be considered if this idea were to be implemented. One of the largest issues we really needed to think about for this prototype was thinking about how we should incentivize drivers. Would the students pay the drivers an extra delivery fee in addition to the receipt's amount? Should the drivers be from a food-based student organization that already has volunteers we could potentially partner up with? Would the drivers be incentivized through money or volunteer credit? We needed to think of ways to incentivize drivers while maintaining the convenience and affordability of this program.
Other issues we experienced on the delivery driver's end were:
Figuring out what to do when the student's requested item on their list isn't available
How to best maintain communication with users when there's a delay or a change in the estimated time of arrival
Ensuring that who ever is picking up the groceries has an assertive personality to be able to ask for any type of help while grocery shopping
We interviewed the participants after the delivery and realized that we needed to:
Redesign the order form with a suggested list of nutritious groceries to promote healthy eating and to help students recognize what items they can order rather than recalling what they should get
Provide visuals of the quantity of items such as canned foods and veggies so the students receive their desired amount
Include an alternative option on the order form list in case the requested item isn't available
Create trust between the student and the driver in providing credibility and comfort for the user to give money to someone they may not know
We overall learned how crucial it is to mimic the grocery store experience as much as possible.
Participants told us that their favorite part of this prototype was the convenience of having the grocery shopping done for them, as well as having a set location and time to grab everything, since it generally interferes with busy schedules. Since the grocery shopping is taken care of for them, they can focus on all their responsibilities as a student while maintaining their health in the best way they can with the food they have at hand.
PERSONAL TAKEAWAYS
We submitted a proposal to the Hub for their partnership in piloting this program at UCSD. We also wanted to keep raising as much awareness about the spectrum of food insecurity by having students journey map their daily access to food through a two-part event.
This was one of my favorite projects I’ve ever done. I learned so much about the issue of food insecurity itself through this experience and how it goes beyond just an extreme state of hunger. Being able to bring attention towards the gamut were the first steps in holistically tackling this issue. Helping to destigmatize the issue for food-insecure students was also important so they feel encouraged to seek the appropriate resources at school.