Mooli
Timeline
January – May, 2025 (5 months)
School
Parsons School of Design
Program
Master's in Communication Design
Course
Major Studio 2
Overview
I noticed my parents letting food from their CSA share go to waste. Unfamiliar vegetables would often end up in the compost. I wanted to create an app that helps people solve that issue. How can we cook with unfamiliar produce? And, how do we discover what is growing locally in our viciinity?
Solution
For this project, we followed a regimented process — from problem discovery to high-fidelity prototypes. We interviewed, sketched, tested, and designed apps around a topic of our choosing. I created an app that helps people discover local food vendors, learn about seasonal produce, and find ways to cook with regional fruits and vegetables.
Problem
People aren't aware of what produce is grown locally, and they aren't sure of how to cook with it once they find it.
Research Questions
- How can we help people find local produce in their area?
- How can we help people figure out what to cook with local and seasonal produce?
- How can we inform people about what is seasonal and what is local?
- How can we get people more involved with their local food system through consumerism, waste, and awareness?
Goals
- Find local produce at farmers’ markets and grocery stores (Community)
- Find recipes by taking pictures of produce (AI)
- Understand the food cycle from production to waste (Educational)
Key Features
Scan & Identify Produce
When users encounter produce that they don't recognize, they can take a picture to identify it. This takes them to an overview of that fruit or vegetable. This overview includes flavor notes, seasonality, region, storage tips, health benefits, and recipe suggestions.
Use Case: A mother and young son are at the farmer's market. She wants to educate him and create curiousity around food and where it comes from. He finds a watermelon radish, they snap a photo, and they learn where it was grown, and how they can cook with it together.
Discover Recipes by Ingredient
Users can manually input produce to find recipes based on that ingredient. The app contains recipes with reviews and cook times from different sources on the web.
Smart Grocery List
Users can add ingredients from recipes directly to their grocery list for easy shopping and meal planning.
See What's in Season
Users can add their location to find which produce is in season in their area.
Use Case: When someone is at the grocery store, they can make more informed decisions about which produce to buy. Seasonal items are likely to have traveled a shorter distance and often retain more nutritional value than produce that’s out of season.
Find Local Produce Vendors
Once users find the recipe or produce they’re interested in, they need a way to locate where to buy it. This map displays nearby food vendors and includes details such as local produce ratings, busy hours, pricing, hours of operation, and a list of local suppliers.
User Interviews
Matt Yee
Private Chef, Specializes in Local Food, Based in NYC
“I will go to the farmers market and pretend money is not an option. The produce is worth it, tastes better, and it's more nutritious. I'm getting all my vitamins I need versus cabbage from Chinatown.”
Paul Seo
Investment Banker, Hates Grocery Shopping, Based in NYC
“Farmers’ markets pop up randomly, and I don’t know the timing. It's usually when I'm not prepared to shop.”
Insight
People believe local food is higher quality but struggle to find it.
How Might We
Provide information about where to buy local food, and the background of the actual food?
Linda Farnham
Manager of Finance, CSA Shareholder, Based in Rural MA
“With the CSA, I don’t always use the produce that I get because it’s not what I typically eat.”
Insight
People want easier ways to meal prep, build grocery lists, and avoid food waste, especially when using unfamiliar seasonal produce.
How Might We
Provide a way for people to plan their meals, create a grocery list, and use what is in their fridge, all in one place?
Devansh Khajanchi
Design Student, Regimented Meal Planner, Based in NYC
“Farmers’ markets are super expensive. Also, if I don't find one ingredient, I will most likely not cook that recipe. ”
Insight
People choose where to shop based on proximity, food type, convenience, and price. Farmers’ markets are often seen as too expensive and limited.
How Might We
Provide local options to people that are convenient, within their price range, and ensure optionality?
Ideation
Find Recipes Based on What's at Home
Allow people to search for recipes based on what they have in their fridge. They can then find recipes, and add the remaining ingredients to their grocery list.
Identify With a Photo
Allow people to take a photo of their fridge or an unknown vegetable to provide recipes and shopping lists.
Map Showing Local Produce
This map will show food vendors in the area that sell local produce. Based on people’s grocery lists, it will show them what they can buy there.
Low-Fidelity
Flow 1
Identify Unfamiliar Produce
I began exploring how users could identify produce through images, and also considered what would happen if an uploaded photo didn’t return any results.
Flow 2
Discover Recipes from Seasonal Produce
The second step focused on helping users find recipes based on the produce available in their area. They also needed a way to locate grocery stores or farmers’ markets that sold that produce.
Flow 3
Generate Grocery Lists from Recipes
The third step was developing a feature that helped users figure out how to use the produce they had. They needed to be able to find a recipe and then locate the additional ingredients required.
Testing
Flow 1
Take Stock
During the testing phase, I conducted usability sessions with five participants to observe how they interacted with and navigated the app. One of the initial features allowed users to catalog the contents of their fridge, inspired by frequent mentions of food waste during early interviews. However, through testing and reflection, I realized this feature strayed from the app’s core purpose—helping users discover local produce and learn how to use it. In response, I replaced it with a feature that lets users take a photo of local produce to identify it and explore ways to cook with it.
Flow 2
Recipe Swipe
This was another feature that evolved significantly during testing. Originally, users could swipe through different recipes—an interaction that, while engaging, began to drift from the app’s main focus. To maintain clarity and purpose, I removed this feature and instead introduced a way for users to discover recipes by ingredient. The swiping concept could be revisited in a future phase of the project as an enhancement once the core experience is more established.
Flow 3
Build Your Grocery List
Based on the recipe a user selected, the necessary ingredients would automatically populate their grocery list. From there, I wanted to extend the experience by helping users find nearby grocery stores that carried those items. Each store would include a “local food rating,” indicating how much of their produce was locally sourced—encouraging users to make more informed and sustainable shopping choices.
High-Fidelity
Branding
