New Kitchen Soup Locator App and Responsive Website



The problem:

Community members having difficulty locating spots for a soup kitchen and also for locating potential volunteers for the project


The goal:

To design an app to facilitate finding the best location for a soup kitchen within a community and also for finding volunteers for the project


The role:

A UX designer, carrying out all required UX research and designing procedures that include planning and conducting research and testing along with ideating, wireframing and prototyping.

Image of the homepage of the new soup kitchen locator mobile app

User research: summary

Research data on community soup kitchen projects and their needs was used to develop and conduct interview questions. Most interview participants found difficulty locating new spots for new kitchen projects and gathering volunteers. The feedback received through research made it clear that users would be open and willing to work on more community projects such as soup kitchens if they can easily have access to an app that will help them by providing info and details about potential spots and also potential project volunteers

Personas:

Image of the persona
Image of the persona

Problem Statements:

Image of the problem statement
Image of the problem statement

Competitive Audit:

An audit of a few competitor products provided directions on gaps and opportunities to address with the new kitchen locator app

Image of the competitive audit

Crazy Eights:

I performed a quick ideation exercise to come up with ideas for how to address the gaps identified in the competitive audit.


Image of the crazy eights

Digital Wireframes:

Image of the digital wireframes

Low Fidelity Prototypes:


https://www.figma.com/proto/KrQOwGD40jvuF2AfqPQRsC/Soup-Kitchen-Locator?node-id=7%3A667&scaling=scale-down&page-id=2%3A7&starting-point-node-id=7%3A667



Image of the low fidelity prototype

Usability study:

Parameters:

Study type: Unmoderated usability study

Participants: 6 participants

Location: USA, remote

Length: 10 minutes



Findings:

More location details needed

Volunteer search opportunity

Contact info of potential volunteers and contact info of future spots available


Mockups:

Image of the mockups


Site Map:

A clear site map showing the different pages and hierarchy of the website


Image of the site map
Image of the high fidelity prototype

Takeaways:

Impact:

Users found out that the app actually facilitated building new soup kitchens in a more efficient ways as it connects them to other volunteers and provides new spot details and statistics about their target location



What I learned:

Problem solving methods implemented in a step wise manner allowed me to build an app that is useful for others who want to give back to their communities. Also listening well to users needs allowed me to implement new features and details that were beneficial to the end user


Next steps:

  • Perform more usability studies on a more diverse group of people to make sure that the app serves more diverse

groups and communities

  • Provide more accessibility features to the app such as more language options to better serve more communities

  • Add a text to speech option for more user accessibility