Interview about Fresh Mobile Application, winner of the A' Sustainable Products, Projects and Green Design Award 2022
Based on the waste of food caused by over buying and leaving food in the refrigerator, the app fresh was designed. People can use it to scan shopping lists to get records of food purchases and add food to app. App will record the shelf life of food and distinguish the different shelf life of food in the refrigerator through green, yellow and red prompt boxes to remind to avoid wasting food. In addition, the app also provides weekly waste food reports and cumulative waste food statistics to reduce waste.
View detailed images, specifications, and award details on A' Design Award & Competition website.
View Design DetailsThank you for your question. Colour coding can more quickly remind the user of the quality of different foods (black for expired, red for soon to be expired, yellow for reminder, green for still fresh), the use of such colours compounds the psychological model of the global user (refer to traffic lights), and serves as a reminder of food information at minimal cost.When users use it, they will inevitably react differently to different colours. Based on our research and simulations, we found that when faced with a yellow reminder, users would take prompt action, especially to consume the ‘yellow’ food as soon as possible because it is still within the edible period.
Thank you for your question. We find that close to a third of food is wasted globally, and this happens particularly in developed countries, and in developed cities. In my own case, I live in China (developing countries), but having spent the last year in London, UK (developed countries and cities), I've realised that food waste does seem to be a much more prevalent problem in London.We made a series of designs for food waste, including scanning the bill to get electronic data and electronic images of the food right at the time of purchase and recording the shelf-life time of these foods (and allowing and encouraging the user to manually edit them for a more accurate reminder of the food's shelf-life).In addition, we provided food to be managed and reminded during its shelf life, using four colours - red, yellow, green and black - to remind the food of each of its four states.We have built in an electronic fridge function that allows the user to place purchased food in the ‘electronic fridge’ with a simple operation.We also built a ‘food pairing’ function based on the yellow lighted food items within the food, which is designed to help the user consume the food as soon as possible within its shelf life (as in our example, broccoli, shrimp, etc. can be paired with a tasty fat-reducing salad). This feature can significantly reduce food waste.Finally, food waste data is recorded and converted into data that is more likely to resonate with consumers (e.g., the amount of food wasted by a family in one month could be consumed by a child in an underdeveloped area for one month), which serves as an awareness-raising campaign to reduce food waste.According to our research, these features can serve as an effective reminder of food waste.
Thanks for the question. Our Fresh actually includes a number of features, the last one being this weekly waste report. This feature is designed to bring reflection on food waste to consumers after it has already been wasted.Through this feature, food waste data is recorded and converted into data that is more likely to resonate with consumers (e.g. food wasted by a family in a month could be consumed by a child in an underdeveloped area for a month), acting as a campaign to reduce food waste.We hope that the food waste data (especially the food conversions) will give users a deeper understanding that food is meant to provide essential energy for humans, not to be thrown away. We hope to evoke a special kind of ‘food waste shame’ in our users, as well as a sense of environmental awareness through the food waste data, which in turn will help to build long-term sustainable consumption habits.
Thank you for your question. I have always believed that design is a ‘synthesis’ of three attributes: technology, art and business, which means that design tools are a special kind of ‘blending agent’.In my design work, I always practice the concept that technology serves design and design serves user experience. Therefore, when designing, we will fully consider whether a certain technology can be easily accepted, appreciated and used by users.Therefore, we will choose the technology that is more easily accepted and relied upon by users as the entry point to assist us in the process of enhancing user experience.
Thank you for recognising this function.The hardest part of integrating Fresh mobile apps with supermarket shopping lists is not so much the technical aspect, as the visual recognition modelling and image matching features are now fully commercially available on a large scale. Instead, we think the hardest part is how to make users accept and get used to scanning shopping lists after shopping in the simplest way possible.Of course, we didn't go into more details when we pitched this design in 2022 (due to space reasons), but we think it's important to propose more interesting interactions and incentivised points design to improve the user experience of this feature, so that users can become familiar with, satisfied with, and accustomed to scanning their shopping lists more quickly.
Thank you for your question. As I mentioned before, colour coding can more quickly remind the user of the quality of different foods (black for expired, red for soon to be expired, yellow for reminder, green for still fresh), and the use of such colours compounds the global user's mental model (refer to the traffic light) to minimally costly serve as a reminder of the food information.When users use it, they will inevitably react differently to different colours. Based on our research and simulations, we found that users will take prompt action when facing yellow reminders, especially consuming the ‘yellow’ food as soon as possible.In the design, we tried many strategies, such as text reminders, vibration reminders, etc. Finally, in the actual research, we found that the design similar to the traffic light is the most intuitive and effective, and best meets the user's mental model - finally we chose this design, and got all the pre-testers and the design and development team's approval.
Thanks for the question. Yes, there is a big difference. As I mentioned before, we have found that households in urban environments unknowingly create a lot of food waste, which seems to be a huge problem that is well known but not yet solved. What I think is most different about our design is that our design fits very well with the user's mental model, intervening and reminding throughout the whole process of buying, storing and using the design. Rather than being a stereotypical reminder or condemnation of waste, our design unknowingly makes the user realise that a certain period of time has resulted in a lot of food waste. In fact, we consider it a socially reflective design.During the development process, I have always emphasised to the design team the need to enter into the lives of the users, and to look for rationality and creativity in the design from the practical perspective of life.
Thank you for your question. Firstly, expand the incentivised design for saving food (e.g. offer green points, green medals, etc. to increase users' participation and satisfaction in saving food)Secondly, let's collaborate our design with more supermarket chains and companies so that our design can be found, accepted and used more quickly.Thirdly, we need to refine the visual presentation design (in fact, the currently submitted version is a few years old and we have iterated the visual design)Fourthly, and most importantly, we need to improve the food pairing feature, exploring more specialised food combinations and ways to teach how to prepare them, so that all the food that's about to expire can be ‘perfectly consumed’ and less wasted. (This ‘perfect serving’ means that there are many food combinations and cooking methods to teach)
Thank you for the questions. Collaboration is a very effective approach to design.In fact, design is required for almost all processes to be realised, including visual design, design research, and technical application evaluation.With a team of approximately 70 percent designers and 30 percent technicians, we approached the design and development process for this Fresh application from a combined technical, design, and business perspective.
Thank you for the interview questions. I think design is a fun and fulfilling job. I am very grateful to the jury for being able to award me with one of the most important design prizes in the world, which gives me a lot of encouragement. As you know, the A’ Design Award is one of the largest, most professional and attractive awards in the world.Unfortunately, because the design was not perfect when we submitted it, we didn't win the gold medal or a higher award (which shows the fairness and the high value of the A Design Italia Award).Anyway, I hope that in the future I will have more projects that will be recognised by the A Design Award!Thank you again for the encouragement and recognition from Italy A’Design Award.
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