STORY
Summary:
Most families are throwing lot of food away after they have passed expiry date. This device
will help inform these families of upcoming expiry dates of food items.
Story Line:
Most food items will end up going into the landfill and having an alert system before the
food items expire will not only help reduce the carbon footprint but will also save money for
a lot of people.
This device will act as an alert system and before the food items in the freezer/fridge go past
their expiry dates so that the families will decide to cook or consume them them before
they expire.
It has been observed that an average of 30 percent of food items are thrown away as a
result of them having gone past their expiry dates as people find it very difficult to keep
track on foods nearing the expiry dates.
This device will make lives much easier as it will send messages to devices on foods
approaching the expiry dates.
PERSONA
1. Ellina, Business Analyst in a software company
I would like to have a notification service to my smart phone to manage food that I put in
my fridge before they have reached their expiry date.
About
40, married, Working, two kids
Being a working woman I do shopping for fresh and frozen food every fortnight. Most of the
times, food is getting wasted due to them gone past expiry date.
2. Steve, Art Painter.
It would be good if I am alerted that the fridge contains food items nearing the expiry date.
About:
70, single, his uses land phone to do all his communications.
Being a single old man, I forget the food items in the fridge. It would be good have
something which will inform me about the food that is nearing the expiry date.
User tasks and Responsibilities:
Ellina and Steve use their fridge lot of times in everyday life either to preserve the food. Both
Steve and Ellina feel bad that they are throwing the food, which they could have donated or
consumed if they knew the expiry dates in advance. They decided to take responsibility of
reducing food waste, keeping environment clean and also save some money.
Pain Points: Steve and Ellina are not able to remember expiry date of food and end up
throwing the food away.
POINT OF VIEW
As a working mother of two kids, I need to use the food stored in the fridge before they
expire so that I can save money and reduce the Carbon foot print.
As an artist most of my time spent doing painting, I need to use my food before expiry so
that I can maintain good health and save money.
USER EXPERIENCE JOURNEY
Actions Ellina and Attached Scanning Fridge starts Consumed
Steve both an alerted and sending food before
had the system to loading notifications on it get expire
same Fridge the fridge items nearing the
situation with food expiry date to
like - they phone or screen on
wanted to the fridge
prepare
the food
and
realised
that meat
packets
are passed
the expiry
date.
Mindset Why Will help Fridge is Fridge started Alerting
haven’t I me to intelligent communicating with system
used this manage enough to me helped me
food my food remember to save my
before usage. expiry food.
expiry? dates
Feeling
Touch Fridge, Alert Barcode Barcode scanner, Fridge,
points Food and system, reader, Wi-Fi, laptop, Food
trash bin. Fridge food, phone, software
Fridge, LED application,
display database, screen on
unit. fridge.
PROTOTYPE FLOW IMAGES
This is LED message display
unit – which shows nearest
expiry product name. Its wi-fi
based and battery operated.
Battery operated Wi-fi
Bar code scanner
It can communicate with any device like
phone, laptop, PC, TV. Here
Input device: barcode scanner
Database and application layers: phone,
laptop.
Presentation Layers: phone, TV and display
unit on fridge
After reading data from barcode scanner, our laptop and phone works as a database unit as well as
data processing unit (application). I will develop an app, which will translate the barcode into
product name and expiry date. Based on the logical rules applied on the current date and expiry
date, it will send a message to user either on phone, TV or a wi-fi based LED display unit on Fridge.
