In Season

InSeason in a mobile app crafted to empower people to make smarter, more sustainable food choices by providing them with information on when to find fresh, locally grown, InSeason produce.

This is particularly exciting for me as I conceptualized this app when I was 18. With first hand experience of this gap in the market, I envisioned having enough experience in this field to do something about it. After coming across an old iPhone note describing the idea, I knew I had to bring it to life! 

My Role

In this project, I was lead UX Designer. I took on a multifaceted role, guiding the project from initial concept to final design.  My responsibilities included conducting user research, creating user personas, designing wireframes and prototypes, and iterating based on feedback from usability testing.

Project Goal

At its core, InSeason was driven by a desire to promote social good, with a focus on reducing food waste and supporting local farmers. I aimed to create an intuitive, seamless user experience that not only simplified seasonal shopping and recipe discovery but also encouraged mindful, sustainable consumption habits. Ultimately, the project seeks to bridge the gap between consumers and local farmers, fostering a community-driven approach to food consumption while helping users track their savings and enjoy the benefits of seasonal eating.

To build a strong foundation for InSeason, I began by diving into the experiences, needs, and behaviors of potential users. I had friendly, conversational discussions with friends, family friends, and coworkers that spanned different social classes and age demographics. I followed this with an informal survey where I gauged the users feelings about food spoilage, rising grocery costs, local farmers, and carbon footprints. These conversations helped me identify the key functions and shape the ethos of InSeason. It also helped me ground my user personas and empathy maps with experiences from real people.

Initial User Surveys

I conducted a small study of user testing to help understand the priorities of my key user demographics (n = 4). I found that
01. 100% of users have experienced produce spoilage before use in the last month
02. 75% of users found it harder to eat healthy with rising grocery costs
03. 75% of users found it important to support local farmers
04. 100% of users were actively looking for ways to reduce carbon footprint

Empathy Maps

User Personas

Equipped with the user research insights from the empathize phase, I started to narrow in on the problems I wanted InSeason to solve. This was the moment to bring clarity and focus, translating user feedback into clear problem statements and goal definitions. By defining the most important challenges—like simplifying seasonal shopping and encouraging sustainable habits—I set the stage for designing meaningful solutions that directly addressed users' needs.

Problem Statements

01. Zara is a writer focused on sustainability who needs a tool to track produce freshness and optimize grocery shopping because she wants to reduce food waste
02. Kyle is a budget-conscious teacher who needs helps finding affordable produce because he struggles balancing nutition and cost

Goal Statement

Our produce-tracking app will let users identify and save in-season fruits and vegetables, which will affect health-conscious consumers, budget-friendly consumers and environmentally aware individuals by reducing their grocery costs, food waste and minimizing their carbon footprint. We will measure effectiveness by savings per user, and feedback on the app's impact on user's shopping habits and sustainability practices.

The ideate phase was where things got exciting! In this stage, I let creativity take the lead. This is where I sketched out tons of ideas using the crazy eights method—some simple, some a little wild—just to explore all the possibilities for howcould work.

Competitive Audit

While there are several apps focused on seasonal produce and sustainability, many suffer from outdated, poorly developed interfaces that detract from the overall user experience. Direct competitors like Seasonal Food Guide and Locavore offer useful information about in-season produce, but their designs are clunky and frustrating to navigate, lacking a polished, aesthetically pleasing interface.  InSeason can address the frustrations users face with competitors’ outdated designs, providing a more engaging and streamlined experience. This focus on both form and function will be key to creating a truly superior app.

Initial Sketches

Hand Drawn Wireframe Iterations

Site Map

For the case studies sake, I combined the prototyping and testing phases. In practice, I prototyped then tested then refined the prototype and tested again and so on!

I began with curating my favourite bits from the crazy eights ideating session to form basic wireframes. I conducted a small usability study to find major pain points before connecting the frames for my lo-fi prototype.

Wireframe Usability Study Findings

01. Users will want to add to cart quickly
02. Should have a way to filter recipes by produce
03. Should see at a glance if a produce is out of season when searching

01. Add a quick add to cart function from search and browse
02. Added filtering options
03. Grey out out of season produce

Mobile Wireframes

Next, I began to focus on creating a brand identity. Starting with a mood board, I wanted to create something that felt fresh, fun, organic, healthy, and down-to-earth. This kept me focused as I decided on colour palletes, fonts, and language.

Mood Board

Finally, I went forth and created the mock ups! I conducted small batches of usability testing with friends to continuously iterate on and refine my mock ups.

After a few weeks, InSeason was finalized!

Mobile Mock Ups

Hi-fi Prototype