Garden to Kitchen

Community Center

The concept centers around a community center located in a low-income area with a community garden and kitchen where food-insecure young adults can obtain free or low-cost fresh foods. Here they can also participate in a learning program with the community garden and kitchen.

The Brooklyn Grange is similar to how we imagined our center

Mobile App

The mobile application provides an easily accessible and centralized location where young adults can learn about the community center and its programs and register to join.

On boarding through the app

Literature Review

To get an initial grasp of the space we were working in, we performed a literature review. We reviewed studies on what major groups were most affected by food insecurity, the psychology of food insecurity, how local governments and organizations have responded to the issue, and what solutions have been tried in the past to help mitigate the problem.

Sample article from the literature review

Stakeholder Mapping

Using our initial literature review, we developed a stakeholder map of potential groups and their relationship and involvement concerning food insecurity. This process allowed us to pinpoint young adults as a significant concern that we would want to focus on as our primary stakeholders.

Stakeholder map that was created

Contextual Inquiry and Diary Study

Knowing which stakeholders were most relevant, we identified and interviewed food-insecure young adults using connections one of our teammates had to a non-profit organization. Following the contextual inquiry, we solicited our participants to complete a short week-long diary study to understand their eating habits better. We asked what priorities they had when finding food, how they were obtaining food to survive, and what they ate.

Data collection from diary study via Google Forms

Insights

From the research we had done, we found several essential insights. Of those, these 3 are the ones that stood out to us the most:

Food was not a priority.

For some participants, other things like paying their electrical and phone bills were more important than feeding themselves.

Young adults are disconnected from their community.

Despite being in communities where others faced similar situations, they did not feel together and felt anxiety when asking for help.

Design Principles

Based on these insights we generated 3 design principles that would help guide us in developing our concept.

Empower young adults

We want to empower young adults by equiping them with practical skills and tools that will help them in life and work.

Create spaces that facilitate connections

We want to help and allow young adults to form collaborative and supportive networks so that they don’t feel isolated in their struggles.

Generating Ideas

Considering on the insights we gathered and our design principles, we developed nearly 90 concepts. These ranged from mobile applications to products to services.

Original set of ideas generated

Downselecting

The final selection was made by down selected by grouping similar or complementary ideas. We then did a dot voting process based, discussing which ideas aligned most closely to our design principles where we settled on the community center-type concept.

Dot voting the final concepts

Onboarding

Onboarding consists of recruitment as informational phases, learning about the programs via the mobile application, and then contacting a volunteer coordinator. During these critical journey points, the participants are provided with information about the program they are most interested in and asked for a level of commitment.

The onboarding journey

Garden Path

The garden path comprises three main stages: getting Involved, skills development, and potential steps into the kitchen program. Here we considered the possible interactions, including logistics and commitment discussions, the plant selection you will use to learn, volunteer educator pairing, and next steps.

The designed journey path for those in the garden program

Kitchen Path

The kitchen path also consists of three similar main phases and considered interaction. Here young adults would learn critical kitchen duties from sanitation, cooking method, and meal planning. Additionally, participants have the opportunity to specialize in certain areas of cooking through mentorships.

The designed journey path for those in the kitchen program

Syllabus/Lesson Plans

Since the core of our concept is an educational program, we consulted with educators and professionals to develop a mock-up syllabus for the available pathways. These included tentative program length and class schedules, needed literature, and activities.

Sample page of the syllabus schedule

Minecraft Prototype

Realistically, we could not prototype a full-scale concept of a community center. Additionally, because of Covid at the time, a service design mock-up was not reasonable to do in person. To this extent, we thought outside the box and created virtual mock-ups using Minecraft to guide users through the potential experience.

Virtual onboarding test using Minecraft

Mobile Prototype

We realized that many food-insecure young adults did not have an actual computer but often did have a smartphone device. We chose to develop a web app because we wanted to make this community center concept as accessible as possible by facilitating on-boarding and informing potential users about the space.

Mobile application mock up screens

Colors

Because our potential users belong to a vulnerable population, we wanted to use neutral colors that weren’t too intrusive or uninviting. Likewise, we decided to use an earthy palette because the concept emphasized providing fresh foods and a fresh start to neglected communities.

Colors used throughout the mobile application and syllabuses

Typeface

When choosing a typeface, we wanted something sleek and modern to keep young adults interested. However, we also wanted a versatile font that didn’t appear harsh and highly legible for digital systems. We chose Century Gothic Pro for these reasons.

Century Gothic Pro fonts used

User Interface

Following the theme of making the application welcoming, we designed our forms and buttons to be rounded, with various degrees of rounding to differentiate each one. We also made them prominent in size. Doing so helped them stand out and be easily identifiable to the user to their purpose.

Buttons and forms fields we created

Illustrations

To further make the mobile app feel inviting to young adults, utilizing youthful appearing characters and organic illustrations. We obtained the graphics from unDraw’s open source illustration library and modified them to fit our needs.

Illustrations we used in the mobile application

Next Steps

Since we worked on this project within a limited time frame, we would like to improve on several things in the future if we were to move forward with such an endeavor.

• We would like to define where this community hub would have ideally taken place to correctly identify all stakeholders and get better in-depth insights into their needs and involvement.
• We also would like to test or receive additional feedback for our service designs from young adults to evaluate their willingness to commit to the programs.
• Additionally, we would like to build out the entire mobile experience to allow users to connect via the application and keep track of their progress within the programs they are going through.

Reflection

This project was one of the first projects I ever worked on an end-to-end process and did so in one of the pandemic heights. The latter brought many doubts on how we could successfully execute the design process entirely virtually. While this posed a unique and difficult challenge, it helped us think outside the box to overcome this unanticipated barrier. As a result, we were much more creative and unconventional with our research, designs, and prototypes. While this project is not necessarily the most stellar example, it is one that I am proud of because of the challenges we overcame and the lessons we learned.