Monica Yang

Designing a food-sharing platform

Table of contents

Overview

Challenge

Tech Fleet is a nonprofit organization that matches tech graduates with social-impact clients. At Tech Fleet, I helped design a platform for communal sharing.

​

Food waste accounted for 35% of landfill space nationwide, and my team’s goal was to help reduce this share. We aimed to make surplus food accessible while addressing user safety concerns.

Solution

In eight week-long sprints, my team and I designed vital flows for an MVP product including sign-up, listings, search, reviews and safety reports. 

My role

I served as UX Co-Lead, partnering with another Co-Lead to hire and manage 4 apprentice designers. We co-created wireframes, prototypes and user tests after collaborating with research and product teams to ideate solutions from zero.

Discovery

While the research team focused on surveying attitudes toward food sharing, my Co-Lead and I directed our team toward competitive research. We audited competitor flows to quickly inform what our own MVP flows should look like.

​

We identified Too Good To Go, Olio, Nextdoor, and Buy Nothing as competitors and assessed their strengths and weaknesses.

Audit of the Too Good To Go app’s flow

Who our users were

The research team identified food safety and travel distances for pickup as key concerns for respondents. Yet those interviewed and surveyed wanted to share food with neighbors and businesses like restaurants and groceries.

​

We incorporated these insights into proto personas, which could represent users with varied motivations and backgrounds. Proto personas also gave us the flexibility to build flows quickly as our ideas evolved.

Defining the MVP

Drawing on our competitive audit and the research team’s findings, we defined the essential flows shown below. These flows focus on the two core user concerns: convenient pickups and confidence in the safety of shared food.

​

  • Signup
  • Listing a food item
  • Searching for food item 
  • Reserving food
  • Chat 
  • Review and rate users 
  • Report issues

During wireframing, we considered not just key tasks but how users might feel about their experience. Some respondents felt taking free food seemed shameful, so we framed the experience around community and sustainability. As screens evolved, we shifted language toward “community” and “sharing” rather than “donating” to reduce stigma.

Early iteration of sign-up

Style guide

Drawing on competitive inspiration, we created a green-based palette that would invoke feelings of sustainability and harmony.

Test and design

Sign up and adding a listing

  • Mid-fidelity tests showed having Terms and Conditions at signup created a sense of safety.
  • But a lot of input fields in listing-creation was overwhelming.
  • Users worried about sharing pickup locations too early and didn’t know how to estimate food quantities.

Create listing - mid-fidelity

  • So, we split donation-listing into two steps on high-fidelity screens. This reduced the visual overwhelm of form inputs; mandatory fields stayed in the first step.
  • To reduce confusion about pickup location and food quantities, we incorporated captions where needed.

Create listing - high-fidelity

Searching for donated foods

  • Mid-fidelity testing showed using the search bar or browsing on the map were both intuitive.
  • Filters like “Expiry Date” and “Allergies/Food Restrictions” created a sense of trust
  • But users wanted to be able to chat with food donors before making a reservations instead of only after

Food reservation - mid-fidelity

We adjusted high-fidelity screens to enable users to chat with a food donor before making a reservation

Food reservation - high-fidelity

Food giver and taker chatting

Confusion about labeling

  • Mid-fidelity testers were confused by “reservation” vs. “listing.” They couldn’t distinguish which would lead to donor and food reservation content. We addressed this by renaming labels for clarity and introducing tabs to separate giver and taker content, which tested better in the next round.

Requests - mid-fidelity

Requests - high-fidelity

Rating and reporting issues

  • We layered in rating and reporting flows into our high-fidelity screens. High-fidelity testers validated their importance for building a sense of safety

Issue reporting

Rate and review

Restrospective

I worked on the Food Distribution app early in my UX career and would approach it differently now. Today, I would focus on differentiating our platforms from competitors instead of creating something that looked similar. I would also have treated user concerns about safety and the stigma of food donations as branding guides. For example, we could have incorporated microcopy that promoted feelings of inclusion and assurance throughout the app.

Monica Yang

Resume

Case studies

Email me

Designing a food-sharing platform

Table of contents

Overview

The challenge

Tech Fleet is a nonprofit organization that matches tech graduates with social-impact clients. At Tech Fleet, I helped design a platform for communal sharing.

​

Food waste accounted for 35% of landfill space nationwide, and my team’s goal was to help reduce this share. We aimed to make surplus food accessible while addressing user safety concerns.

Solution

In eight week-long sprints, my team and I designed vital flows for an MVP product including sign-up, listings, search, reviews and safety reports. 

My role

I served as UX Co-Lead, partnering with another Co-Lead to hire and manage 4 apprentice designers. We co-created wireframes, prototypes and user tests after collaborating with research and product teams to ideate solutions from zero.

Discovery

Competitive research

While the research team focused on surveying attitudes toward food sharing, my Co-Lead and I directed our team toward competitive research. We audited competitor flows to quickly inform what our own MVP flows should look like.

​

We identified Too Good To Go, Olio, Nextdoor, and Buy Nothing as competitors and assessed their strengths and weaknesses.

Audit of the Too Good To Go app’s flow

Who our users were

The research team identified food safety and travel distances for pickup as key concerns for respondents. Yet those interviewed and surveyed wanted to share food with neighbors and businesses like restaurants and groceries.

​

We incorporated these insights into proto personas, which could represent users with varied motivations and backgrounds. Proto personas also gave us the flexibility to build flows quickly as our ideas evolved.

Defining the MVP

Drawing on our competitive audit and the research team’s findings, we defined the essential flows shown below. These flows focus on the two core user concerns: convenient pickups and confidence in the safety of shared food. Collaborating with our product team and through iteration, we came up with rudimentary flows that would basically satisfy the needs of our users.

​

​

  • Signup
  • Listing a food item
  • Searching for food item 
  • Food reservation
  • Users chat
  • Users rate and review
  • Issues report

During wireframing, we considered not just key tasks but how users might feel about their experience. Some respondents felt taking free food seemed shameful, so we framed the experience around community and sustainability. As screens evolved, we shifted language toward “community” and “sharing” rather than “donating” to reduce stigma.

Early iteration of sign-up

Style guide

Drawing on competitive inspiration, we created a green-based palette that would invoke feelings of sustainability and harmony.

Test and design

Sign up and adding a listing

  • Mid-fidelity tests showed having Terms and Conditions at signup created a sense of safety.
  • But a lot of input fields in listing-creation was overwhelming.
  • Users worried about sharing pickup locations too early and didn’t know how to estimate food quantities.

Create listing - mid-fidelity

  • So, we split donation-listing into two steps on high-fidelity screens. This reduced the visual overwhelm of form inputs; mandatory fields stayed in the first step.
  • To reduce confusion about pickup location and food quantities, we incorporated captions where needed.

Create listing - high-fidelity

Searching for donated foods

  • Mid-fidelity testing showed using the search bar or browsing on the map were both intuitive.
  • Filters like “Expiry Date” and “Allergies/Food Restrictions” created a sense of trust
  • But users wanted to be able to chat with food donors before making a reservations instead of only after

​

Food reservation - mid-fidelity

  • We adjusted high-fidelity screens to enable users to chat with a food donor before making a reservation

Food reservation - high-fidelity

Food giver and taker chatting

Confusion about labeling

  • Mid-fidelity testers were confused by “reservation” vs. “listing.” They couldn’t distinguish which would lead to donor and food reservation content. We addressed this by renaming labels for clarity and introducing tabs to separate giver and taker content, which tested better in the next round.

Requests - mid-fidelity

Requests - high-fidelity

Rating and reporting issues

  • We layered in rating and reporting flows into our high-fidelity screens. High-fidelity testers validated their importance for building a sense of safety

Issue reporting

Rate and review

Restrospective

I worked on the Food Distribution app early in my UX career and would approach it differently now. Today, I would focus on differentiating our platforms from competitors instead of creating something that looked similar. I would also have treated user concerns about safety and the stigma of food donations as branding guides. For example, we could have incorporated microcopy that promoted feelings of inclusion and assurance throughout the app.

Monica Yang

Table of contents

Designing a food-sharing platform

Overview

Challenge

Tech Fleet is a nonprofit organization that matches tech graduates with social-impact clients. At Tech Fleet, I helped design a platform for communal sharing.

​

Food waste accounted for 35% of landfill space nationwide, and my team’s goal was to help reduce this share. We aimed to make surplus food accessible while addressing user safety concerns.

Solution

In eight week-long sprints, my team and I designed vital flows for an MVP product including sign-up, listings, search, reviews and safety reports. 

My role

I served as UX Co-Lead, partnering with another Co-Lead to hire and manage 4 apprentice designers. We co-created wireframes, prototypes and user tests after collaborating with research and product teams to ideate solutions from zero.

Discovery

While the research team focused on surveying attitudes toward food sharing, my Co-Lead and I directed our team toward competitive research. We audited competitor flows to quickly inform what our own MVP flows should look like.

​

We identified Too Good To Go, Olio, Nextdoor, and Buy Nothing as competitors and assessed their strengths and weaknesses.

Audit of the Too Good To Go app’s flow

Who our users were

The research team identified food safety and travel distances for pickup as key concerns for respondents. Yet those interviewed and surveyed wanted to share food with neighbors and businesses like restaurants and groceries.

​

We incorporated these insights into proto personas, which could represent users with varied motivations and backgrounds. Proto personas also gave us the flexibility to build flows quickly as our ideas evolved.

Defining the MVP

Drawing on our competitive audit and the research team’s findings, we defined the essential flows shown below. These flows focus on the two core user concerns: convenient pickups and confidence in the safety of shared food.

​

  • Signup
  • Listing a food item
  • Searching for food item 
  • Reserving food
  • Chat 
  • Review and rate users 
  • Report issues

During wireframing, we considered not just key tasks but how users might feel about their experience. Some respondents felt taking free food seemed shameful, so we framed the experience around community and sustainability. As screens evolved, we shifted language toward “community” and “sharing” rather than “donating” to reduce stigma.

Early iteration of sign-up

Style guide

Drawing on competitive inspiration, we created a green-based palette that would invoke feelings of sustainability and harmony.

Test and design

Sign up and adding a listing

  • Mid-fidelity tests showed having Terms and Conditions at signup created a sense of safety.
  • But a lot of input fields in listing-creation was overwhelming.
  • Users worried about sharing pickup locations too early and didn’t know how to estimate food quantities.

Create listing - mid-fidelity

  • So, we split donation-listing into two steps on high-fidelity screens. This reduced the visual overwhelm of form inputs; mandatory fields stayed in the first step.
  • To reduce confusion about pickup location and food quantities, we incorporated captions where needed.

Create listing - high-fidelity

Searching for donated foods

  • Mid-fidelity testing showed using the search bar or browsing on the map were both intuitive.
  • Filters like “Expiry Date” and “Allergies/Food Restrictions” created a sense of trust
  • But users wanted to be able to chat with food donors before making a reservations instead of only after

Food reservation - mid-fidelity

We adjusted high-fidelity screens to enable users to chat with a food donor before making a reservation

Food reservation - high-fidelity

Food giver and taker chatting

Confusion about labeling

  • Mid-fidelity testers were confused by “reservation” vs. “listing.” They couldn’t distinguish which would lead to donor and food reservation content. We addressed this by renaming labels for clarity and introducing tabs to separate giver and taker content, which tested better in the next round.

Requests - mid-fidelity

Requests - high-fidelity

Rating and reporting issues

  • We layered in rating and reporting flows into our high-fidelity screens. High-fidelity testers validated their importance for building a sense of safety

Issue reporting

Rate and review

Restrospective

I worked on the Food Distribution app early in my UX career and would approach it differently now. Today, I would focus on differentiating our platforms from competitors instead of creating something that looked similar. I would also have treated user concerns about safety and the stigma of food donations as branding guides. For example, we could have incorporated microcopy that promoted feelings of inclusion and assurance throughout the app.