Role
UX Designer
Timeline
September - December 2024
Teammates
Abby Lee, Claire Callen, Kimi Lillios, Melissa Wang & Yuyu Yang
Tools
FIGMA, FIGJAM, Adobe Illustrator
Under Construction⚠️
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Under Construction⚠️ 〰️
Green Swap — a mobile app designed to connect growers
Many home gardeners and small-scale farmers in urban and suburban areas struggle with surplus produce, leading to waste. In the U.S., 60% of the 1.02 billion tons of food waste comes from households. Meanwhile, many communities lack access to affordable fresh produce, hindering local resource sharing and sustainable food practices.
Our Solution
Green Swap is an online marketplace and community platform that facilitates the exchange of extra crops. It helps individuals reduce crop waste, adopt sustainable practices, and empowers users to make environmentally conscious decisions within the community.
01
Users Facilitating Trades🌾
Encouraging resource sharing and sustainability by promoting a sharing economy and efficient use of resources
Simplifying trade discovery with detailed listings, clear descriptions, and categories
Ensuring user-friendly transactions with intuitive tools and a seamless process
02
Engaging with Neighborhood Community👥
Fostering local connections and community building
Encouraging collaboration through shared passions and collective action
03
Personalized Experience Through Profile Settings🧍
Tailoring trade preferences to match individual needs and interests
Showcasing user profiles with trade history and reviews for better connections
Enabling users to manage visibility and customize interactions within the platform
Gathering Research
Competitive Analysis
Our team initially set out to tackle the issue of food waste caused by the rejection of 'ugly' produce—fresh, perfectly edible fruits and vegetables discarded due to minor cosmetic imperfections. The original vision for GreenSwap was to create a platform that would connect consumers directly with local farmers and gardeners, helping reduce waste by giving imperfect produce a second chance.
Insights from Competitive Analysis:
Existing platforms addressed food waste but lacked community-oriented features.
Identified a gap for a platform that combines produce redistribution with fostering local connections and collaboration.
Key Design Lessons Learned:
Importance of supporting dual roles (buyers and sellers) with seamless transitions.
Trust-building mechanisms, such as rating systems, are critical for accountability.
Familiar concepts, such as marketplaces or community hubs, should be adapted digitally to feel intuitive and relatable.
Emphasizing sustainability and reducing waste appeals to eco-conscious users and strengthens the platform’s value proposition.
Personalization features, like favoriting and tailored recommendations, enhance user satisfaction and engagement.
Transition and Evolution:
Broadened the scope to include trading surplus goods beyond just 'ugly' produce
User Research
We conducted surveys, 14 in-depth in-person interviews, and 4 contextual inquiries with participants aged 21–56. Our diverse sample included individuals of various genders, regions, and professional backgrounds, ranging from home gardeners and small-scale urban growers to experienced farmers.
Core Questions / Interview Topics
Producers
1. Background and demographic information
2. What challenges do you face when trading or sharing produce locally?
3. What information do you need to see before deciding to trade with someone?
Consumers
1. Background and demographic information
2. What challenges do you face when trading or sharing produce locally?
3. What information do you need to see before deciding to trade with someone?
By using affinity mapping to synthesize the interview results & reviewing survey results, we were able unveil three themes
Ideation
User Persona
Storyboards
Our Design Process
User Flow
Our approaches to design iterations
White Boarding
Whiteboarding was a critical tool in shaping our design decisions for Greenswap, particularly in refining the trade process. During the initial stages, the whiteboarding sessions provided a collaborative space to visualize and explore different user interaction flows.
Design critiques provided actionable feedback that highlighted usability issues, identified areas for improvement, and helped refine key features to better align with user needs. These sessions offered a collaborative space for iterative problem-solving, allowing us to gain valuable insights, outline clear next steps, and explore potential enhancements. Engaging directly with participants not only strengthened our understanding of user pain points but also inspired new ideas for design features that enriched the overall user experience.
Usability Testing
The evolution of our community page was guided by a user interview approach, which effectively identified pain points that slowed or hindered task completion. For example, users struggled to find how to change groups and differentiate “groups” from “community,” as confirmed by their feedback during interviews.
Design Critique
Iterations & major improvements
02. Combining Events & Community Pages
Features:
"Bundle trades" for exchanging multiple items simultaneously.
Notifications for new listings that match user preferences.
Automated trade suggestions based on past behavior.
Challenges:
Designing intuitive workflows for multi-item trades.
Ensuring advanced features don’t overwhelm users.
03. Be more adaptable for ways to connect with others
Features:
Initial design focused on location-based communities, limiting user flexibility and diversity of interests.
User feedback highlighted the need for more adaptable ways to connect with others.
Redesigned the community page to include two group types:
Neighborhoods: Automatically assigned based on user location for local connections.
Interest Groups: Open for users to join based on shared topics, allowing broader connections.
Empowered users to connect with like-minded individuals while preserving a sense of local community.
Through 4 rounds of in-class design critiques and usability testing, we conducted multiple design iterations, leading to four major improvements. These iterations allowed us to refine our approach and enhance the overall user experience.
01. Better Streamlining of the Trade Process
Features:
"Bundle trades" for exchanging multiple items simultaneously.
Notifications for new listings that match user preferences.
Automated trade suggestions based on past behavior.
Challenges:
Designing intuitive workflows for multi-item trades.
Ensuring advanced features don’t overwhelm users.
04. Better Streamlining of the Trade Process
Features:
"Bundle trades" for exchanging multiple items simultaneously.
Notifications for new listings that match user preferences.
Automated trade suggestions based on past behavior.
Challenges:
Designing intuitive workflows for multi-item trades.
Ensuring advanced features don’t overwhelm users.
The Final Screens
The complete app featuring onboarding, trade listings, community and profile pages
Reflections
Restarting Could Be A Good Thing
Prioritization in Design is Key
Thank you for reading! Hope you’re having an amazing day😊