MATSVINNSPORTALEN
THE MATSVINNSPORTALEN PROJECT
A five week group assignment in the course ”Applied interaction design” during Interaction Designer programme at Linnéuniversitetet. In this project we got assignments from external principals. Our group worked with the municipality of Kalmar.
Our task was to see how we could improve the way the municipality of Kalmar handles the registration of food waste in their schools.
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MY ROLE
We didn't have defined roles in this project, however, my contribution to the project consisted mainly in the following tasks.
I came up with suggestions for the interview questions being used when interviewing users and stakeholders as well as conducted one of the interviews. I also came up with suggestions for the user interface and user flow as well as graphical elements illustrations where most of them were implemented in our project. I also created a prototype in Axure.
RESEARCH
We started out by visiting some of the schools in Kalmar and interviewing the staff working in the kitchens. They showed us the tools they use regarding registering and handling the food waste and how they communicate the level of food waste to the students and school staff using the canteens. Today the kitchen staff weigh the trash bins containing the food waste and register the results using Excel sheets that they send to the municipality of Kalmar when filled in. We also talked to the responsible people in the municipality of Kalmar that receive and handle the data compiled in the Excel sheets.
By our site visits and interviews we got a general idea of the context of use. Our interviews with the kitchen staff showed that they actually didn’t experience any problems with the actual registration of food waste, however, they felt the registrations didn’t lead to any actions for improvement. They also stressed that the whole school must be engaged in order to be able to decrease food waste and they also wished they had better ways of reaching out with information to the students.
We defined the kitchen staff as the main user regarding the service concerning the registration of food waste, but we also considered the staff at the municipality of Kalmar as important users as they would receive the information provided by the kitchen staff. Holding a holistic approach and considering the results from the interviews with the kitchen staff, we also considered it important to involve students and personnel in the schools in order to reach the targets level of food waste.
Examples of how the kitchen staff in the schools in the municipality of Kalmar currently are communicating the level of food waste in the canteens to the students and school staff.
Examples of the first sketches.
IDEATION
Based on the collected information we started the ideation phase and we discussed and elaborated on different ideas for the service. In the end we agreed on developing an idea of a website called Matsvinnsportalen. Our intention was to create a website where the kitchen staff can register the food waste and have the possibility to communicate and exchange ideas with kitchen staff in other schools within the municipality. The information, together with general information on food waste, would also be accessible to other stakeholders such as students, parents, school personnel and people working in the municipality. The site would also provide the kitchen staff with different templates to be used for communicating the results to different target groups such as students and responsibles in the municipality.
Persona created based on the collected data.
PERSONA
Based on the information provided by the kitchen staff we created a persona representing our main user in order to make sure that we all had the same idea of whom we were designing for.
The lo-fi prototype of the landing page of the website.
The lo-fi prototype of the landing page of the website.
The first registration page filled in by the kitchen staff.
The page that shows if you click at "Registrera meny" on the first registration page.
The page that shows if you click at "Registrera matsvinn" on the first registration page.
The page that shows when you have filled in the food waste data and clicked OK.
THE FIRST LO-FI PROTOTYPE
Based on our ideas and initial sketches we created a lo-fi prototype and conducted a user test on the kitchen staff.
The hi-fi prototype of the landing page of the website.
The first registration page filled in by the kitchen staff.
The page that shows if you click at "Registrera matsvinn" on the first registration page.
The page that shows when you have filled in the food waste data and clicked OK.
THE FIRST HI-FI PROTOTYPE
Based on the feedback from our first user test we created a
hi-fi prototype. Due to the time constraints, we weren't able to test it.
LESSONS LEARNED
I think that what became most evident in this project was how the views on the same problem can differ from one stakeholder to another. It made you realise how important it is to talk to all stakeholders affected by the product you are designing to be able to include all valuable aspects in the solution.
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It also showed how valuable a context inquiry is in order to get a basic understanding of the use context and how much important information you can get from talking to the actual users, information that you wouldn't have got from just talking the client ordering the service.