Reducing biases in usibility studies through UX Research and testing
Impacts
- Deux causes profondes du gaspillage identifiées par la recherche
- Prototype grandeur nature validé avec des employés d’épicerie
- Plan d’affaires go-to-market développé en parallèle du produit
- Prix d’entrepreneuriat reçu pour la stratégie de design et de commercialisation
Mon rôle
- Dirigé la recherche utilisateur avec employés d’épicerie et parties prenantes
- Réalisé toutes les esquisses de design industriel et présentations visuelles
- Validé le prototype grandeur nature en environnement de vente réel
- Co-rédigé le plan d’affaires pour une éventuelle commercialisation
Project Context
A year-long capstone on food waste in grocery stores
For my final year of product design, my teammate and I chose to tackle a problem that felt both urgent and underexplored: food waste in grocery stores. Despite rising food prices and growing scarcity concerns, enormous amounts of fresh produce get discarded before reaching customers.
The goal was to design a solution that would actually work within the constraints of how grocery stores operate — not just conceptually, but physically and operationally.
Research and Discovery
Finding the real drivers of produce waste
Our research pointed to two interconnected causes. The first was biological: climacteric fruits and vegetables — bananas, avocados, tomatoes — ripen quickly in open air, especially when stacked. Produce that ripens faster than it sells gets marked down or discarded.
The second cause was more human, and less obvious: worker retention in produce sections is low. When staffing is unstable, proper rotation suffers. Produce sits longer than it should, and the waste cycle accelerates.
We spoke with workers, store managers, and industry stakeholders throughout the semester. We sketched constantly, built maquettes, and iterated based on what we learned about real workflows and constraints in grocery environments.
The Solution
A produce display tray that slows ripening and simulates abundance
What emerged was a display tray designed to address both problems at once.
First, the tray incorporates an ethylene-absorbing material. Climacteric produce releases ethylene gas as it ripens. Absorbing that gas extends shelf life and slows the ripening process, giving stores more time to sell what they already have.
Second, internal mirrors create a visual effect of abundance. When produce levels drop, stores face a difficult choice: restock heavily and accelerate ripening, or leave the display looking sparse and unappealing. The mirrors solve that. A smaller quantity still looks full, keeping the display attractive without requiring overstocking.
Third, the tray was designed to adapt to different store configurations — vertical, horizontal, or flat — so it could work across different store layouts and shelving setups without requiring custom installations.
Key Decisions and Trade-offs
Applying proven science rather than developing new technology
One early decision was to use existing ethylene-absorption technology rather than develop our own. We could have spent months trying to validate a new material or process. But that wasn't the problem we were solving. The real design challenge was making something that fit into real stores, worked with real workers, and could be manufactured and adopted at scale.
Using proven science let us focus on those design problems, which only we could solve.
Designing for workers, not just stores
Early in research, it would have been easy to focus purely on the product and its placement. But once we understood that worker turnover was a major contributing factor, we made sure to involve floor workers in our testing process. The tray needed to fit their workflow, not just the shelf. That meant thinking about how it gets restocked, cleaned, and moved — not just how it looks to a customer.
Process and Validation
From sketches to full-scale prototype
The first semester was dedicated to research, exploration, and iteration. I focused on industrial design sketches and visual development while my teammate led the 3D modeling and physical construction. We tested concepts continuously with stakeholders from the grocery industry.
The second semester moved into full-scale prototyping. We built a production-scale version of the tray and validated it in real retail contexts. The tests focused on practical fit: Does it work within actual store layouts? Does it support how floor workers do their jobs? Would retailers actually want to adopt it?
The answers were consistently yes.
Commercialization
Designing a path to market
Alongside the product, we developed a full business plan for potential commercialization. We mapped out production feasibility, retail partnership models, pricing strategy, and market positioning.
That combination — rigorous design validation paired with a credible go-to-market plan — is what earned the entrepreneurship award. It showed that the project wasn't just an academic exercise. The product was designed to actually exist in the world.
Conclusion and Learnings
Good design lives in the system around it
This project reinforced something that has stayed with me: a product does not exist in isolation. The tray works because we understood the full system around it — the biology of ripening, the realities of grocery store operations, the pressures on floor workers, and the economics of retail.
Designing for a complex environment means doing the research to understand it first. The insights we found about worker retention were not something we set out to discover. They emerged because we spent time with the people actually doing the work. That kind of research changes what you build.
The capstone ended there, but the foundation is solid. The concept is validated, the prototype exists, and the business case is made. The next step would be finding a manufacturing partner willing to take it further.
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