How design thinking helps solve global problems and changes the world for the better?
Before Bootcamp, I didn’t understand what design thinking is, although I had heard a lot about it and listened to a bunch of topics. But now I will try to demonstrate the magic of this process and how you can make the world a better place with a simple solution.
Our wicked problem: Food Sustainability. How can we solve this complex problem? Seems too impossible and naive? For me too, but let’s dig a little deeper.
What Is Sustainability?
Food sustainability means producing food in a way that protects the environment, makes efficient use of natural resources, ensures that farmers can support themselves, and enhances the quality of life in communities that produce food, including the animals as well as the people
Food Packaging — Data
Let's narrow down on packaging. Some data from a secondary research.
- The world’s top ten supermarket chains produce 1.1 million tonnes of plastic packaging each year, according to the Greenpeace
- The packaging industry produces around 146 million tonnes of carbon emissions each year, according to the World Economic Forum
- A report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation found that plastic packaging accounts for around 20% of all plastic waste in the oceans
- In the US, the average American family takes home 1,500 plastic shopping bags each year, according to the Earth Policy Institute
What people say
We interviewed some people in the supermarkets.
- People feel bad when they bought food with plastic packaging
- Too much plastic in Supermarkets and packaging sizes are too big
- Bio and food with sustainable packaging are expensive
- Food markets are too far away or during work hours
- People feel guilty and frustrated about the amount of waste they produce
- People shop in their local supermarkets — practicality
People want to make more sustainable packaging choices, because they feel frustrated with the amount of waste they produce but they don’t have enough time and knowledge to manage with it.
Ideation part
We used for this task three techniques: Crazy 8’s, Worst Ideas, and Round Robin. Then we took each good idea as a start and elaborated on it in a round. It was fun and stressful:) We combined our ideas, voted for better, and prioritized funcstions with the Eisenhower-Matrix.
Prototype & Test
We made sketches and lo-fi prototypes for several idea variants and then tested them on ten people. After that, we found a lot of bugs and found out what kind of troubles people encountered.
User Flow — searching for products with a more sustainable package. Steps:
Add a new product list→ Searching for products→ Choosing a category →Choosing a shop→ Add products to a list→ Complete
Next Steps:
- Product page of products with all important information about sustainability
- Progress tracker of waste saved and share button
- More flexible list management
- Adding filters options to the products
Key Learnings
- More people on the team, more ideas and diversity points of views
- By trying to solve global problems and gradually narrowing your focus, you will come up with solutions that can have a positive impact on the whole world
- It is hard to predict which ideas will be successful, it is better to come up with a few solutions quicker and just try them out
- User interface design has a big impact on how people understand the functions and processes around them
If you have something to add, please feel free to write it in the comments. Thank you for your attention :)
