Overview
The senior population in the United States is rapidly growing like never before introducing more people into food insecurity daily. Entering into a new phase of life seniors confront a diverse set of food challenges, which increases the complexity of a sustainable solution for social services organizations. These complex barriers reduce the capacity for food security and healthy living. In this project, we relied on the systematic use of design to work in networks of large scale collaborations to develop new strategies for the future of food security. In partnership with Feeding America, our focus was on seniors’ last mile, between accessing food and being able to produce meals.
My Role: During the 12 week engagement with Feeding America I led a team of researchers during the interview and prototyping process. I was responsible for authoring the contextual research paper, co-lead an insight workshop, and co-designed a new systems infrastructure.
Social Innovation
Team
Archana Belani
Aaron Cook
Xiaojun Du
Jinjia Huang
Sara Tashakorinia
Meng Yan
Kun Zhou
Advisor
Carlos Teixeira
Partnering Organization
Feeding America
Phase 1 Sense Making
Our team set out to discover the challenges seniors experience while getting the proper food needed to make nutritious meals for themselves and those they love. During the first phase we spent time better understanding the Feeding America system and seniors engaging with partner organizations by immersing ourselves into the process and speaking to seniors around Chicagoland.
In collaboration with Feeding America we wrote a contextual paper, Relieving Food Insecurity for Seniors in America, from the contextual secondary and primary research collected during the first 6 weeks of the partnership.
Phase 2 Reframing
The Last Mile
Through continuous observation, interviews, and intensive interaction, we were able to build an understanding of the logistics in food distribution and the experience seniors have when utilizing services. Through this exercise we saw the success of the
non-profit organizations working together in order to feed millions of people in America, but where we saw opportunity was what we called “the last mile”. Getting the food from the pantry, box, or grocery story into a nutritious home cooked meal.
Phase 3 Prototyping
We used a very iterative prototyping process where we started prototyping early on in our project cycle using a design to research approach. Designing prototypes early on allowed us to collect feedback and discover new findings through in depth interviewing methods. This allowed the team to expand the options of future scenarios while learning from fundamental challenges behind daily routines.
Prototyping with Seniors
With over 6 prototype concepts we tested out different modes of delivering information, resourcing, and food to seniors in need of assistance.
Custom recipe box - A box composed of two, two serving recipes with all ingredients provided to make nutritious well balanced meals. Providing a closed loop experience by including feedback documents to better understand community needs reducing the amount of waste.
Voice resourcing skill - Tested the usability of Voice skills on Alexa to communicate with seniors to locate state resources.
Emergency wearable - A watch or keychain allowing seniors to send alerts in times of emergency allowing for comfort and confidence living independently.
Food Bank as a bank board game - A storyline, which illustrated scenarios allowing seniors to use a credit system to purchase healthy food.
Phase 4 Envisioning
System Mapping
This system map provides a clear visualization of potential stakeholders to be involved in the proposed designed system. By applying knowledge and resource brokering in networks and key stakeholders, Feeding America can build new relations and leverage existing assets to better serve seniors.
The four proposed system of interactions allow Feeding America to rely on multiple touchpoint, and provide seniors with critical service options, such as health test, financial consultancy, skill learning, leisure, mobility support, among others.
To learn more about the four identified moments in the Feeding America system through senior scenarios please read our final concept book.
