Eden
The Process
Edens food for change is a local food bank in Mississauga looking for ways they can improve the experience for their members, volunteers and donors. So my first step was taking a site visit to get more familiar with the building as well as being able to talk to the owner and volunteers about some frustrations the members or workers might have about Eden. Next step was identifying a key problem that I personally wanted to focus on. The main problems I discovered were heavily based on donors and their food drive process.
Pain Points
•Food drive organizers do not have access to signs/posters for food drives and school events because they are to expensive and don't get returned.
•Food dropped off from donors often does not fit guidelines (open, expired)
•People aren't informed on the wide variety of products food banks take in (toiletry items,feminine hygiene etc)
•Donations Boxes are over packed and way to heavy (boxes often break)
Methods
Now that i've identified my target pain points I can move on to creating personas and journey maps so I can get more familiar with my target users and who these pain points effect. Personas will help get in the head space of users and further understand them and their frustrations, Journey maps will help look at their daily life and their feelings during it.
I also created a service blueprint and stakeholder map to reinforce my research. This will not only break up the users actions but also show how they interact with each other as well as how these actions affect people who aren't our focus.
Prototypes
With my pain points in mind I can now develop prototypes that can eliminate those points. My main prototype was for food drive poster templates. These templates can be posted online on Edens website and when food drive organizers need signage they can simply download a template (that can be opened on Word, Google Doc etc) and easily type in key information for the food drive such as date, time, and place. There are also blank spaces on template where extra information can be added such as reminders and donation recommendations. There's also many items such as toiletry items that food banks don't get too often and that's because people are not aware that they need it. Using this method they can spread awareness about these products needed or just any other specific food they currently have a low inventory on.
These templates will :
•Create free signage for Eden
•Raise awareness for food banks
•Create awareness for a lot of items that Eden is desperate for
•Overall create more donations as more people will be aware of every future food drive.
Opportunities - Local students
A future opportunity for Eden could be to partner with local high schools and get in touch with design students. Students in grade 11-12 that are looking to pursue a career in graphic design could be perfect for designing these templates as they are experienced and always looking for creative portfolio pieces for future schools. They are also always needing volunteer hours so giving them this opportunity would not only create free custom templates for Eden but also give local students an opportunity to receive volunteer hours for their highschool diploma. I provided a potential brief as well as where it can potentially go on Edens website.
Partnerships - Staples
One company known for helping out communities is Staples and a potential partnership with them can mean free template prints which could result in more advertising for not only the food drive but Eden itself and hopefully bring in more donations and raise awareness.
One company known for helping out communities is Staples and a potential partnership with them can mean free template prints which could result in more advertising for not only the food drive but Eden itself and hopefully bring in more donations and raise awareness.