Company:Independent project
Role:UX & UI Designer
Duration:3 weeks
Design team size:Solo Designer
Skills:User Research, Interaction Design, Usability Testing
Output & impact:30% food waste reduction in pilot testing
Summary/Context
Household food waste costs UK families an estimated £730 per year, yet most meal planning tools fail to address the root cause: users cannot easily incorporate leftovers into their weekly cooking. This project aimed to design and validate a meal planning application that places leftover management at its core, balancing sustainability with usability and budget constraints.
Research questions
Research goals
Challenges
Approach
Deliverables & impact
Research questions
- How do users currently manage leftovers, and what prevents effective reuse?
- How does budget interact with sustainability goals in meal planning decisions?
- How do dietary requirements and allergen concerns influence recipe discovery?
- What do users find most and least valuable in existing meal planning tools?
- How motivated are users by environmental impact when making food choices?
Research goals
- Understand mental models around meal planning and grocery shopping
- Identify friction points in existing food management workflows
- Assess the relationship between sustainability motivation and practical behaviour
- Map dietary restriction management as a usability challenge
- Define design principles for a leftover-first recipe recommendation system
Challenges
ecruitment: Diverse participant profiles were difficult to source quickly. A screener survey was used to efficiently identify participants spanning varied motivations and household types before committing to interviews.
Scope: Balancing user research with algorithm feasibility risked scope creep. Research and design phases were kept deliberately separate so insights informed requirements rather than being retrofitted.
Budget–sustainability tension: Early findings showed users perceived these as conflicting. The discussion guide was adapted mid-study to probe this directly, yielding a key insight that shaped the app's budget-optimisation framing.
Approach
Screener Survey — 87 respondents Identified participant profiles and baseline behaviours. 68% reported regularly discarding perishables; only 22% planned meals around leftovers.
Semi-Structured Interviews — 12 participants Explored planning routines, food waste attitudes, and allergen management. Users wanted to reduce waste but lacked tools to make leftovers viable. Allergen filtering was the most-requested missing feature.
Diary Study — 6 participants, 2 weeks Revealed that waste peaked mid-week when weekend produce hadn't been used. Planning horizons rarely extended beyond two days.
Competitive Analysis — 8 apps reviewed No existing tool combined leftover management with recipe generation. Budget tools and dietary filters existed in isolation, never together.
Usability Testing — 3 rounds, 18 participants total Abstract sustainability metrics were ignored; visual feedback was essential. Manual ingredient entry was a major barrier — barcode scanning was strongly preferred.
Critical Insights
RQ1: Recipes need to be ingredient-led, not meal-led. Mid-week is the highest-risk period for waste.
RQ2: Once framed around saving money, sustainability and budget goals were seen as complementary, not competing.
RQ3: Allergen management was manual and anxiety-inducing. Filtering needed to be built into onboarding, not buried in settings.
RQ4: Speed and simplicity drove engagement. Complex features were ignored when core input felt burdensome.
RQ5: Environmental motivation existed but was secondary to convenience. Sustainability needed to be embedded, not foregrounded.
Deliverables
- User behaviour analysis report and sustainability impact framework
- Dietary requirement mapping and allergen logic documentation
- Full meal planning application with leftover-first recipe suggestions, dietary filters, weekly calendar, and budget optimisation
- Ingredient tracking system and sustainability metrics dashboard
Impact
- 30% reduction in self-reported food waste in pilot testing
- Reduced allergen-related anxiety for users with dietary restrictions
- Validated product concept with a clear, research-backed gap in the market