Designing an online portal, information management system, and brand identity for Seattle Community Fridges, a grassroots organization dedicated to ending hunger in King County.
UX Design
UX Research
Branding and Visual Identity
01 Introduction
The Client
Seattle Community Fridges is a grassroots organization that maintains and stocks a series of free food fridges across the greater Seattle area. SCF fridges are maintained and stocked by the community, and anyone is free to take from them.
02 The Problem
How might we redesign SCF’s online presence and information management system to prioritize ease of use for both donors/volunteers and those in need?
03 Research
Evaluating current solutions
01
SCF Instagram
SCF currently disseminates information through their Instagram page, irregularly updating fridges that need to be stocked or maintained.
No way to readily access each fridge’s stock
Depends entirely on Instagram
Irregular updates
No agency for clients
02
Los Angeles Community Fridges
SCF is inspired by LA Community Fridges, a similar organization. We analyzed their existing website and information architecture.
Requests are hard to find
No easy routing to fridges
At-a-glance info is lacking
Cool branding!
Understanding our Stakeholders
In order to understand who we’re building our app for, we conducted qualitative interviews on SCF clients and volunteers.
01
Volunteers + Donors
SCF Volunteers and Donors are mostly members of the communities that their local fridges serve. They may wish to stock fridges or volunteer their time maintaining and cleaning them.
Interview Quotes
It would be nice to be able to quickly see what is in each fridge. Right now, you have to go in person to check, and that can be a waste of time.
I wish there was a way to tell people what the community needs most. I mean, I get that some people donate their surplus or whatever, but it sometimes it's like I really wish there was milk in one of the fridges and then I go and there are like 500 peaches.
I just wish that the fridges were a little better maintained and cleaned more often.
I wish the fridges were down less often, and that they were a little more reliable.
We want...
Agency in the food we have access to
Easy way of seeing what fridges have in stock
For fridges not to be down often
For fridges to be reliably stocked
We want...
An easy way to see which fridges need to be stocked
An easy way to find out what fridges need maintenance
To ensure our donations reach who they need to reach
02
Clients
SCF clients are also mostly local members of their fridges’ communities. Anyone is welcome to take from SCF fridges, with no cost or registration involved.
Interview Quotes
It would be nice to quickly and easily see what we should donate. I know I would love to contribute more, but I get caught up in deciding what to donate and what people would appreciate.
I wish there was an easier way to see which fridges need to be maintained and cleaned.
I wish there was a way to give what people will actually take and appreciate. I want to donate to SCF fridges, but I'm worried whatever I choose won't actually end up getting utilized and it will go to waste.
Brainstorming
Once we established our users' needs, we brainstormed possible features that could address each of our stakeholders' needs.
04 Design
Our Design Goals
We synthesized our user research findings into three clear goals to inform our design process.
Ease of access to critical information
01
Agency for those in need
02
Simple, approachable, positive design
03
Visual Design and Brand Identity
Simple, approachable, and positive design were the guiding tenets of our website's appearance. We decided early on to restrict ourselves to a calming but energetic color scheme of orange, forest green, and off-white. To add joy and break up information dense volunteering guideline documents, we designed a set of symbols in a unified visual identity. All our illustrations pointed back to our logo, meant to evoke vintage fridge magnets.
05 Final deliverables
The final design
Combining our visual design guidelines with our outline of user needs and proposed features, we created a high fidelity mockup of our proposed website.
Homepage
SCF's home page has the essentials at a glance, as rated by our user interviews. Potential clients noted that the most important pieces of information were the list and locations of the fridges, an interactive map, and an overview of the organization. Additionally, we incorporated SCF's founding mission (free food) into the header.
Fridges at a Glance
Clicking on a specific fridge allows potential clients to gain even more quick information, including the fridge's stock, recent updates, and exact address. The map also automatically zooms to the fridge's neighborhood, allowing users to quickly deduce which fridge is closest to them. For volunteers, the requests card is easily accessible on the bottom of the page.
Our Fridges
Users can navigate to the 'Our Fridges' overview page by clicking for more information on the homepage overview card or by navigating using the website's header. This page has an overview of every fridge in the organization, as well as a quick way to search for fridges based on address and on stock, affording agency to potential clients.
Make an update
This is a core flow of the information architecture, and the way that SCF can maintain their fridges and disseminate up-to-date information. As such, we made sure to create high fidelity prototypes for both desktop and mobile to ensure that it is fully responsive. Clients can use this page to update a fridge's stock after they have used it and to make requests. Volunteers can use this page to update when they have resolved requests or added stock. Clients and Volunteers can both use it to make maintenance requests.
SCF's guiding tenet is trust in community - as such, we decided to require no sign ups or accounts to make updates, protecting vulnerable members of the community who may not feel comfortable giving out their information.
Requests
The requests card lives on the home page and the volunteer page, aiming to provide instant access and direction for volunteers. Requests are refreshed periodically, with the most bumped ones pushed to the top and highlighted in the accent color.
Maintenance
SCF maintains its fridges using maintenance claims, which are submitted during fridge updates. Once a claim is made, the fridge's card is updated accordingly on the main Our Fridges page, providing volunteers with clear access and directing them to where their efforts are needed most.
Volunteering
The volunteering page contains another instance of the requests card, as well as a card designed to push maintenance requests in order of magnitude and time submitted. SCF operates entirely without user accounts, but regular volunteers can sign up to be emailed whenever an urgent request is submitted or a request goes unresolved for a long period of time.
06 The end
Final thoughts
Unfortunately, due to time and personnel constraints, the full version of this concept was never able to be developed. However, we maintain that this structure and organization would greatly benefit SCF, and are nevertheless proud of the care and work we invested into this project. We hope that we are able to eventually fully develop and implement this website, and envision a modular architecture that would allow it to be adapted and used by other free fridge organizations around the country, such as New York Free Fridges and Los Angeles Free Fridges.
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