UberDonate

Redesigning Uber to incorporate a service design that helps transport non-perishable food across charitable organizations in Indiana

Problem Space

Food Insecurity in Indiana

Duration

16 Weeks

Team

Aswati Panicker
Naomi Lacy
Yuhao Shi
Christine Lu

Skills

UX Research
UX Design

BACKGROUND

Our team collaborated with IxDA Indianapolis to conduct research discovery and inform ways to tackle the issue of Food Insecurity in Indiana. The project goals as set by IxDA were to “understand rural and urban food insecurity in Indiana and to propose design solutions supported by above research”.

DESIGN OUTCOME

The design outcome of this project is a service campaign that is supported by a system of apps: The Uber Driver App, the Uber Customer or Donor App and a web application for Charitable organizations like food banks and pantries.

With this design, Uber Customers will be able to use the regular Uber App and avail a pick up for food donations if the campaign is running in their area. Uber Drivers who are part of the campaign can pick up the food and deliver it to an organization that has requested the type of food that was donated. This matching of food donation with the organization is done with the help of the web application used by charitable organizations. They can use it to request food items and also verify and provide receipts for the donated food.

For this project, our group decided to focus on the Customer/Donor App which is the main component that is best capable of demonstrating how the system works.

UNDERSTANDING FOOD INSECURITY AND APPROACH

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines food insecurity as “a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life”. USDA also distinguishes hunger and food insecurity to be two distinct concepts: “Hunger refers to a personal, physical sensation of discomfort, while food insecurity refers to a lack of available financial resources for food at the household level”.

The Facts:

The average food insecurity rate for Indiana is about 14%.

This means that 1 out of 6 Hoosiers are food insecure.

What it means:

Over a million people in Indiana miss the opportunity to learn, grow, and succeed both on a physical and an emotional level. It also means that the burden of health risks associated with it can increase their personal and the nation’s health care costs.

Food Insecurity in Indiana is a huge, wicked problem with terrible consequences. However, it occurs in many forms and impacts people differently. When we started, the size of the problem prevented us from having a clear starting point.

Therefore, we approached this problem by conducting exploratory research that involved talking to diverse stakeholders and identifying an area where we can intervene with a design solution.

EXPLORATORY RESEARCH & METHODS USED

In this phase, our team split up to conduct research on stakeholders who were directly or indirectly impacted by Food Insecurity to understand existing systems and dynamics, politics and personal frustrations.

As Food Insecurity is a sensitive topic, one constraint we had was that we could only talk to experts and keep our interactions minimal with anyone who was vulnerable to the situation. Hence, we chose research methods that were unobtrusive for each chosen stakeholder.

Interview with a Registered Dietitian & Food Geographer

To learn more about the nutrition aspect of food insecurity and also the existing policies and politics regarding food stamps allocation, I interviewed Steven Lalevich, RD and Dr. Angela Babb from IU. They both offered valuable, well-studied information on the subject.

Diary Study as a Food Bank Volunteer

Naomi participated in a volunteer program at the Hoosier Hills Food Bank and journaled and collected other journals of the experience. The goal here was to learn more about challenges experienced by volunteers.

Observation Study at the Shalom Homeless Shelter

Christine conducted an Observation Study at Shalom to understand the system of providing food to people in need. She also got the chance to study interactions and relationships here.

Interview with Ministry Staff at the North Central Church

Yuhao interviewed 2 members of the Ministry Staff to learn more about how donations are distributed at the Church. The goal was to learn what, how often and why people donate. We also wanted to gain an understanding of frustrations and pain points experienced during the process.

PROBLEMS IDENTIFIED

Research unveiled an overwhelming amount of pain points and frustrations. We used affinity mapping to organize these pain points into themes that could be extended into possible design directions.

Pain Points

Themes

At this point, we were faced with a situation where we had a diverse set of themes and had to prioritize what set of insights to focus on. This decision-making involved brainstorming and thinking about what problems could be addressed by design and what problems emerged in the mapping as more urgent or prevalent? Some pain points, for example, those related to government and policy, although extremely critical were outside our capacity to support. Therefore, we narrowed down our mapping to a set of primary insights we felt we could realistically design for. These insights were all within the themes of food wastage and access.

PRIMARY INSIGHTS

Uneven distribution of donations across different organizations
Source: Ministry Staff at Church, Food Bank Employee

The ministry staff reported that while they don’t face any shortage in supplies, they know of other churches/pantries that do. An employee at the food bank also talked about how there were times when there was surplus donations and other times when there wasn’t enough for all. This seemed to indicate that the distribution of donations were not uniform and was affecting food availability.

People who are young seem to donate less often
Source: Ministry Staff at Church

The ministry staff observed that in comparison, people who were older donated more frequently than people who were younger. They stated that this might be due to their busy schedules and lack of time.

Food wastage is a serious problem
Source: Dietitian, Food Geographer

There is a lot of food wastage that happens despite really good measures being in place to prevent wastage. There is excess leftover food from events, food that’s been “touched” in buffets and food close to expiry in groceries that end up being discarded. Improving on some of these measures and repurposing food by keeping in mind the various laws & policies on food as well as food safety can be challenging.

Preference for packaged food when it comes to donations
Source: Ministry Staff at Church, Staff at Homeless Shelter

Food Banks and Churches depend on the community for food donations, but they cannot always accept everything that is donated. Sometimes the food is of questionable quality or the storage of it is too difficult for a small organization. Perishable food is also more difficult to separate, sample and re-package. Therefore, as a donation, there seems to be a preference for packaged food.

DESIGN GOALS

From our primary insights, we arrived at a set of design goals:

Make the donation process more convenient by fitting it into people’s workflows or daily lives

Create a system or mechanism that matches donations to organizations that really need them

Encourage people to donate non-perishable food and reduce wastage

PROBLEM FRAMING

Food Insecurity in Indiana is a serious problem that affects growth, education and the economy. Currently, there are many community led organizations that provide food and support to people undergoing this situation. However, our research identified that there is a need for more non-perishable food distribution to these organizations based on what they require at the moment.

So, how might we ensure that there is a better flow of non-perishable donations to different charitable organizations based on need?

IDEATION

In this phase, we created various design concepts and scenarios and brainstormed off each other’s ideas on how to improve the donation process. Some of our ideas were a kiosk at the grocery store to collect donations, an outdoor fridge, a literal food bank etc.

The concept we were most excited about and carried forward was UberDonate, a service or campaign design to leverage Uber’s transportation system to collect and deliver donations to charitable organizations.

WHY UBER

Uber as an organization works very hard to give to the community and also promote their brand image. From primary research that our team did online, we feel that Uber is at a position to help with this situation as a campaign dedicated to delivering food for the food insecure does not deviate too much from Uber’s existing campaign drives. It will give the company a chance to work with the community and at the same time enhance their brand image.

The below examples are just a few of Uber’s initiatives to work with the community:

Additional benefits for Uber include:

Tax Deductibles for Drivers & Donors by providing documentation in the form of receipts from the charitable organization.
Minimal labour and fuel charges. Non-perishable food means drivers can pick up multiple donations and deliver them to a matching charity after 5 or 6 pickups. This is more fuel efficient when compared to immediate pickup and delivery.

THE VALUE PROPOSITION

With UberDonate, our team envisoned a system where all stakeholders can provide value to each other and help out the community by making food more accessible.

WIREFRAMING & PAPER PROTOTYPING

We made wireframes of the first iteration of our concept on paper to flesh out the features and conduct usability testing.
This was incredibly beneficial because we had to go through multiple iterations of the food donation registration step to make it simple enough for even the most impatient customer.

A key decision we made was to give donors a rewarding experience instead of a monetary incentive. That is, instead of money or free rides, the Uber customer will get a premium experience on completing 10 donations. A premium experience can be a ride to a destination of choice in a luxury car with chocolates or other goodies.

USABILITY TESTING

We conducted Usability Testing on new and experienced Uber users to study how seamless the experience is and what can be improved.

Maybe replace the camera with an add icon?
What does “Pre-Register” do?
I feel worried that I won’t have enough time to get the donation ready
I’d like to learn more about tax benefits
I wish there was an instant benefit from donating

Changes post Usability Testing included changes to the verbiage, a speedier Registration process and minor improvements to the flow and overall feel of the app.

FINAL DESIGN

A visualization of how the full service works with the Donor app functionality highlighted:

The final design screens for the donor app:

CLICK HERE FOR PROTOTYPE

UberDonate information is featured on the main screen

Sliding from the main screen brings up messages. UberDonate is on top

Full campaign information is available to users

The first step: Register your donation

Take a picture of the donation using phone's camera

Select a donation category from the available options

Once a category has been selected, then click 'Register'

The app searches for a driver and matches donation to a charity

Information about the matched charity and driver is available

User is notified on pickup and status is available minimized on screen

Donation status is updated as the process takes place

Receipt and Reward status available upon verification by charity

REFLECTION

This project made me realize how overwhelming data can be, especially when dealing with a wicked problem like Food Insecurity. Our team really struggled with wanting to fix every problem and falling short initially. That’s how we came to the realization that sometimes impact on a smaller scale is perhaps better than a product that tries to do too much and does not work out.

Another thing I learnt is that it’s very easy to get carried away in pursuit of the most innovative solution. So eventhough our design is simple, I believe it could motivate people who avoid donating because of inconvenience and bring food to a population that really needs it.

Credits:
All icons used for creating visuals are taken from flaticons.com. Portrait shot of Dr. Angela Babb and Steven Lalevich, RD (section:Exploratory Research & Methods Used) belong to Indiana University.

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