Overview
Being part of a group or community tends to make one more motivated
and compassionate than acting alone. By using these traits, people can share refrigerator contents that they are less likely to use with others, ensuring that no food goes to waste because it is not being used. This procedure can also lessen the likelihood of buying and throwing away extra food products for the people who offer them. Receivers may experience a reduction in the likelihood of making unnecessary food ingredient purchases and discards as a result of this process. The main focus of this project was how people’s interactions on digital platforms could affect their own behaviors in the real world.
The challenge was to foster community connection on a digital platform that would carry over into the physical world and, in the end, have an influence on reducing home food waste.
Fringe, lessens the risk of food waste production by sharing with one another.
Registration
Build your refrigerator
Build your virtual refrigerator by entering any food you want to track for yourself or have a high probability of not using it. It is your choice to categorize that food into a list that you can simply leave for your own self-tracking or that you may offer to your friends. Additionally, image recognition technology can read receipts and simply create a list on its own.
Organize Food
Manage your fridge friendly
Your refrigerator will be created based on the foods you list. You can quickly determine which items to utilize first by looking at the impending expiration date. You can relocate them to an offerable container at any time if you want to share them with your friends, and vice versa. The app will also assist you in keeping your refrigerator organized, whether you have consumed something or it has expired.
Main Page
Browse friend’s fridge
On the homepage, you may see your friends’ personalized refrigerators and a list of the foods they offer. You can get what food you need through a friend’s offering rather than purchasing extra ingredients. This process will decrease people’s chances of wasting food. Friends who offer you food can lessen their odds of producing food waste by handling it appropriately when it’s not being used.
Browse to find what you need
Click on your friends' refrigerator to view the available food items and their expiration dates. You can use chat to ask your friends for ingredients.
Offerings
Customize your fridge by offering food
The ultimate goal of this app is to prevent food waste by consuming everything at the right moment. You will receive some stickers that you can use to customize your refrigerator if you complete this process successfully. The better your refrigerator management system and your drive to reduce food waste, the more you will receive stickers and gain achievements.
Motivation and Achievement
01. Define
The food we throw out still has value, nutrition, and energy. It can provide a benefit, whether through composting or even the production of biogas for renewable energy. However, when we incinerate food waste, we end the food cycle where it is. Wasted food turns into CO2 emissions, which have no positive benefits at all.
Particularly, domestic food waste makes up the majority. It makes up about 45% of the total and could have been consumed at some point prior to being discarded.
Problem Statement
User Interview
02. Discover
Challenge Prompt
First, to get a sense of how much people care about their foods in refrigerators and their expiration dates, I asked people to draw only by their assumptions without taking a look at them. First, to get a sense of how much people care about their foods in refrigerators and their expiration dates, I asked people to draw only by their assumptions without taking a look at them.
How can we encourage people to increase refrigerator turnover to generate less food waste?
Food Waste Behavior Hypothesis
03. Design
Design Principles
Our goal is to reduce the domestic food waste produced through mutual help in the community.
Iteration
Information Architecture
UI Style Guide
04. Reflection & Next Steps
Through research and interviews, I discovered that, contrary to what I had anticipated, individuals are less concerned about what they have in their refrigerators and the expiration date. There are many causes of food waste, but at least if we eat and consume our own food on time, it will be possible to minimize household waste. Iterating with friends to see if the process would continue was incredibly useful. This procedure assisted in organizing the design structure and identifying the most crucial functionalities.
Key Takeaway
Next Steps
The next stage is to design a group refrigerator where everyone may participate both individually and in groups. There would be more possibilities to consume or request food if it were made available to dorms or teams. The goal is to make it more likely that a significant impact can be made with little effort.