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Frij

Your solution to minimizing food waste. With intuitive features and personalized reminders, Frij helps you plan meals, track expiration dates, and manage pantry inventory effortlessly. Say goodbye to wasted groceries and hello to a sustainable kitchen with Frij.
Project Overview

Frij is a smart fridge that conveniently manages expiration dates, eliminating the need for user tracking and reduces food waste. A fridge that supports users in minimizing food waste using RFID technology, helping users keep track of food so they don’t have to. Frij makes it easier to know which foods will spoil, provides inspiration on how to use them, and notifies users when food has gone bad, so they can properly dispose of the waste.

timeline

September 2022 - December 2022

skills
User Research
Prototyping
Defining
Visual Design
TOOLS

Figma/FigJam
Notion

team

Lydia Cheng
Tim Wang
Dongyu Zhu

The problem

Young adults need a way to reduce food waste within their homes.

We recognized this issue in our own lives and among peers. The problem of food waste requires national and individual solutions. Our focus is on young adults, a key demographic shaping lifelong habits and values, in the effort to reduce food waste at home.
The United States wastes 108 billion pounds of food annually.
How We Got Here

01 Research

Putting ourselves in the users shoes

Contextual Inquiry

To observe how users interact within the problem space, we had participants share their thoughts while actively engaging in their own kitchen and grocery shopping.

insights

Young adults do not share similar habits in food storage, cooking, and groceries shopping.

Wanting fresh vegetables for cooking means buying groceries frequently, but leads to spoilage
With time constraints, cooking regularly becomes a challenge, often leading to the choice of dining out
Limited fridge space makes food organization difficult for people who cook daily

Capturing feedback in real time

diary study

We conducted a diary study to gain quantitative data on how users approach food consumption. Participants submitted images and media, such as week-long fridge photos, as well as ingredients they might use or eat which we gathered into an affinity map to generate top group patterns.

insights
We gained an understanding of user behaviors over time, including habits, usage, attitudes, motivations, and experiences. Qualitative data from contextual inquiry and quantitative data from the diary study was was extremely helpful in understanding user frustrations with refrigerator use, and the causes of these frustrations.

Identifying pain points

USer SURVey
We conducted a survey to supplement the qualitative data from the diary study with more quantitative data about the participants' thoughts and motivations. We gathered results into an affinity map to help answer overarching questions we sought to investigate: 
  • How do participants make decisions when grocery shopping?
  • What ingredients do they choose to cook with at home?
  • How do participants store their food?
  • How do participant organize their food?
insights
How much do these factors influence your decision when buying groceries?
How much do these factors influence how you determine what to cook?

Research Findings

We learned about our user's daily habits and quantified some of their preferences. Our research findings revealed:

  1. People cook frequently—63.7% of participants cook at least once a week.
  2. Individuals can either develop basic routines to prevent food waste or do not have a routine.
  3. The most common factor influencing user experience is the availability of ingredients at home.

02 Synthesis

Defining and prioritizing key takeaways

User Persona
Our research led to the creation of user personas. For this problem statement we decided to focus on one persona - Meet Lori!
To summarize the areas our user is struggling most with, we developed an empathy map and a journey map. From which, we uncovered Lori's pain points.

Understanding users' thoughts, feelings, and behaiviors

Empathy Map

Identifying potential risks

Journey Map

Pain Points

  • Users want to cook but find it difficult to manage their time.
  • Users struggle to decide what to cook because they are easily overwhelmed by too many options and have difficulty deciding which ingredients to use first.
  • Users struggle with limited food storage space, which makes organizing groceries extremely difficult, especially if the user has roommates.

03 Design Ideation

Criteria Metric for Ranking Ideas

We generated new ideas based on our original concept and analyzed our favorites based on value to the user and feasibility.

Visualizing the product

Storyboarding
To provide a more concrete definition of the concept and what we intended to design, we created a set of storyboards. The final concept entailed a smart fridge with a large touchscreen so users can scan in items using RFID, and it closely monitors its contents, reports the perishability, and provides meal inspiration..

Testing concepts with a physical product

Rapid Prototyping
Based on the previously determined pain points, we came up with the following user enactments that tested out a variety of concepts for grocery shopping, fridge organization, and tracking expiration.
Grocery Shopping
Shopping Done for You
Fridge Organization
Perishable Items First
Tracking Expirations
Recs Using What You Have
Insights
  1. Users prefer concepts that combine fridge organization and tracking expiration dates.
  2. ‍Users prefer a moderate level of technological assistance: for example, while they appreciate how much technology can make certain processes easier, they still prefer to go grocery shopping and choose exactly what they want to cook on their own.
  3. Users favored the feature that helped them keep track of all fridge items, especially those that had expired.

04 Prototyping

From insights to reality

Mid-Fi Wireframes
Our team created various mid-fidelity wireframe versions of the user interface for the smart fridge screen. Creating mid-fidelity wireframes was an efficient way to experiment with the structure, layout, and organization before adding actual content. We tested these designs on prototypes to receive and incorporate feedback.
Expiration Notification
Recipe Exploration

Prototypes and Testing with Props

'Fridge' with doors open and eggs
'Fridge' with a screen
Second 'fridge' prototype with screen

Iteration

We collected feedback through usability testing, which guided key adjustments to the wireframe screens. We generated top recommendations from test users pinpointing areas for enhancement to enhance the overall user experience. These recommendations were then synthesized to identify common patterns, gather insights, and determine the necessary improvements.

  1. Condensed notification view to manage multiple alerts for expiring items
  2. Food cards should have an enlarged display
  3. Dates should be relative to the present
  4. Breadcrumbs to improve navigation to different pages
  5. Intuitive filtering for the Explore page
  6. Include visuals for the Explore page to encourage inspiration

05 Final System

Based on our research and prototyping, we came up with Frij. This smart fridge reduces food waste in people's homes by reminding users of when food will expire and gives recommendations on how to use everything before it goes bad. With the help of RFID, the Frij knows what's inside and their corresponding expiration dates, to keep track of it all, so you don't have to.

From concepts to final design

High-Fi Prototype
Reminds You What Foods to Throw Out
‍Expiration Notifications
‍Once an ingredient reaches its expiry date, you will be notified that it has gone bad.
These alerts can be expanded and dismissed.
Keeps Track of All Your Food For You
RFID Food Recognition
‍With easy scrolling and simple categorization, view all of the items of your fridge. Simply place any item in your fridge and it will add it to the system.
Become Inspired When You’re Feeling a Little Lost
Explore Inspiration
When you’re worried about how to use up food that is about to expire, explore inspiration on ways to use certain ingredients.

Takeaways

Final Product Website

Prototyping and Video Development
Prototyping taught us to create physical objects with a human-centric approach. It was a new learning curve for our team to build and refine physical prototypes.
‍
Limitation for Our Design
Frij is intended for groceries, not leftovers or meal prep. To include these items in the fridge system, users must attach an RFID tag with the expiration date. The same applies to reusable containers, as their contents and expiration dates can change.
‍
Next Step to Realize the System
To achieve Frij, we'll need RFID scanners inside fridges and groceries to come with RFID tags. Furthermore, a key component is a chemical sensor to detect food spoilage and identify which items are spoiling.

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