Hailey Hsu
Product Designer
Duration
Apr 2023 - June 2023
Role
Product Designer
Collaborators
CEO & 1 Engineer
Background & Challenges
Restaurants lose billions of dollars annually due to unsold food, which is ultimately discarded, causing both financial and significant environmental harm. The founding purpose of “Shelf Life” was to directly address this urgent problem of food waste.
Through a specially designed backend management interface for restaurants, we enable vendors to easily list surplus or soon-to-expire food products for sale at discounted prices to nearby consumers. This not only helps vendors convert what would have been a loss into extra revenue but also contributes to environmental protection.
My Contribution
- Project Leadership: Defined the complete end-to-end design workflow for both B2C and B2B users.
- Design Output: Delivered 150+ high-fidelity screens covering the entire user journey.
- Design System: Created a visual design system, including typography, color, and components.
- User Research & Solution Design: Transformed insights from in-depth user interviews, specifically designed an intuitive dashboard and automated discounting tools to address the key efficiency pain points of restaurant owners.
GOAL
Empowering restaurants to turn waste into value.
Research: Uncovering Key Insights
To ensure “Shelf Life” was a viable solution, I conducted comprehensive user research, which started with a competitive analysis and then engaging directly with our target audience. This process helped us define the core challenges and opportunities.
Competitive Analysis
I studied the primary food waste app in the Taiwanese market, Tasteme, and discovered a key market gap.
- Pain Point: Tasteme still relies on restaurants to manually upload surplus food. This process is a significant burden for busy restaurant owners, leading to low platform adoption.
- Opportunity: This insight made me realize that the biggest opportunity was to develop an automated platform that integrates with existing restaurant POS systems, significantly reducing the operational burden on vendors.
User Insights
I conducted in-depth interviews with both consumers and restaurant owners. Through synthesis, I identified their core needs:
- For Restaurant Owners:
- Pain Point: Time-consuming inventory management.
- Need: Tools for automated management, discount setting, and sales data reporting.
- For Consumers:
- Pain Point: Difficulty in quickly finding affordable meals.
- Need: A convenient browsing and filtering function to quickly find discounted food from nearby restaurants.
Pain Point: Faced with daily food waste and financial loss.
Solution: Find an efficient, automated platform.
Pain Point: Tired of expensive meal options.
Solution: Find an affordable and delicious alternative.
Pain Point: Manual inventory listing is time-consuming.
Solution: Use an intuitive, integrated onboarding process.
Pain Point: Hard to find local deals.
Solution: Discover the app through a compelling ad or referral.
Pain Point: Labor-intensive operations.
Solution: Leverage POS integration for automatic listings and sales tracking.
Pain Point: Inconvenient browsing experience.
Solution: Use the map and filtering features to quickly find nearby options.
Pain Point: Lack of actionable insights.
Solution: View real-time sales data and analytics on a dashboard.
Pain Point: Clunky checkout and pickup process.
Solution: Enjoy a simple and smooth in-app payment and QR code pickup.
Result: Converts food waste into a source of profit.
Success Metric: Reduced waste, increased revenue.
Result: Gets great value on a meal and feels good about it.
Success Metric: Becomes a repeat user and shares the experience.
findings from user interviews
Interface Design
The Consumer Experience
From Discovery to Purchase
This section showcases how consumers can easily find, filter, and purchase surplus food through the app. My design goal was to make the process as simple, quick, and enjoyable as possible.
Discovery & Browsing
Product & Checkout
Pickup QR code & User Profile
The Restaurant Owner's Interface
Sales Report Dashboard
Restaurant owners can access detailed sales reports directly from the app's homepage, allowing them to monitor their business performance and make informed decisions.
Sales Report Dashboard
Menu Management
Owners have the flexibility to upload and manage their menu directly through the app, ensuring that the latest offerings are always available to customers.
Menu Management
Auto-Apply Discount Rules
Automatically apply timed discounts to selected items with our Discount Schedule feature, ensuring precise pricing management without manual intervention.
Auto-Apply Discount Rules
Order Status
Order Status helps users quickly identify each order with clear tags, showing whether it's new or ready, and indicating if payment is completed or pending.
Order Status
Order Notifications
Owners receive real-time notifications whenever customers place orders, enabling prompt preparation and efficient order fulfillment.
Order Notifications
QR Code Scanning
Upon customer arrival, owners can use the app's built-in QR code scanner to easily identify and verify orders, streamlining the pickup process and enhancing customer satisfaction.
QR Code Scanning
Customer Reviews
Owners have the ability to view and respond to customer reviews within the app, fostering communication and allowing them to address feedback effectively.
Customer Reviews
Future Plans
In the project's future planning, we recognize that technical integration will be a key challenge. Since not all POS systems support public APIs, we will prioritize partnerships with major cloud-based POS systems.
This approach will ensure we can successfully implement the core automated integration feature, allowing us to quickly bring the product to market and validate its feasibility. At the same time, this will lay a solid foundation for future expansion to a wider variety of POS systems.
Personal Growth
Working with a client who aimed to reduce food surplus but was uncertain about the product's impact on B2B users, I conducted extensive market research to define user needs. This process emphasized the importance of user-centric design, catering to diverse demographics, and incorporating user feedback to create efficient interfaces.