From Falling to Flying
From Falling to Flying
Setting beginner foragers up for success with Falling Fruit
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Explore my volunteer 6-week sprint UX project for Falling Fruit in partnership with Design for America!
What is Falling Fruit?
Falling Fruit is a company that encourages communities to discover and utilize publicly available edible plants and foster a deep connection to local food resources.
They created an open-source, digital map of locations all over the world where people can forage food for free. Foragers can use the map to find edible vegetation in their area, add new locations, and review local spots.
The Challenge
The Challenge
Falling Fruit wants to boost the utilization of their digital map to increase urban foraging in the 21st century.
Challenge accepted. Let's go!
Problem Framing Phase
Problem Framing Phase
I started by analyzing how the practice of foraging fits into our current society in the US through creating a stakeholder map and a system map.
Our primary stakeholders for Falling Fruit are the people in the Foraging Community, and promising stakeholders reside in the Non-Foraging Community
💡We want more people to join the Foraging Community as entry-level foragers and then stay in the community to become veteran foragers
Detailed view of Stakeholder Map
Detailed view of Stakeholder Map
Detailed view of System Map
Detailed view of System Map
How might we
set entry-level foragers up for success when joining and staying in the foraging community?
Listening Phase
Listening Phase
I conducted three forms of qualitative research to learn about people's experiences with foraging, and to test the functionality of the Falling Fruit map.
1:1 interviews
The goal for the interviews was to explore:
What inspired people to join the foraging world
Reasons the experience was rewarding or intimidating
What would need to change to create their ideal experience for foraging in the future
Interview participants consisted of two people interested in foraging and one person who has participated in foraging for a few years
Usability Testing - Task Talk-Alouds
3 tasks for my virtual talk-aloud usability tests:
Use the map find the closest foraging source to where you live right now. (Please talk me through the process as you go)
Find a location that has food you would specifically want to forage for.
Go through the process of adding a new foraging location to the map.
2 tasks for my in-person usability tests:
Use the app to find a foraging location near us, and see if you can successfully locate the documented plant in question.
Add this mulberry tree as a foraging location on the map. (Go through all the steps but do not actually submit the location)
Social Media Listening
To supplement my research, I scoured Reddit forums learning about:
How people learned to forage
Why they continue or stopped foraging
What their concerns were about urban foraging.
I then compiled all relevant quotes into an Affinity Map to look for common themes
What did I learn about the foraging experience?
What did I learn about the foraging experience?
People commonly join the foraging community out of curiosity and a desire to casually connect with nature
There are others who started foraging out of necessity due to financial hardship and a need to be self-sufficient.
Many people who forage regularly were introduced to the practice through family traditions and enthusiastic friends.
It is difficult to know where to start when it comes to foraging for the first time, so first-time foragers often look to social media to learn from foraging influencers, or veteran foragers on sites like Redditt
Many people who are interested in foraging are scared to misidentify plants or break laws accidentally, so they do not want to do it alone
A big concern that people have about foraging in the city is urban toxins/ pollutants
“I think if I could go around and see what streets have fruit that I could pick, then I would make it part of walking [my dog]”
- Roberta
“My uncle used to drive down alleys and pick wild grape leaves for my aunt to make the best stuffed grape leaves. I haven’t had them since I was a kid, I want to go foraging for leaves so I can practice making them.”
-RelevantFo
“I need something to help me think through what I should identify before i even get to my destination, what it should look like/shouldn't look like at different times of year”
- Roxanne
“I still won't forage mushrooms unless I take the time to go out with an expert or a group of people who know what they’re doing”
- Tired-and-Wired
What is it like using the Falling Fruit map?
What is it like using the Falling Fruit map?
Overall, users liked the potential of the digital map and were interested to use it! They did, however, come across many usability barriers as they navigated the interfact for the first time...
❌ Help and Documentation
No map tutorial
The landing page does a good job of communicating Falling Fruit's mission, but it does not give any tutorial on how to navigate or read the map
❌ Error Prevention
Lacks clarity for identifying which fruit to search for or document
The drop-down menu with search results for common fruits are extensive and provide little to no indication of the difference between the labels, making it difficult for the user to choose what to search for, or more importantly, how to label their specimen
❌ Matches the Real World
Specimen list does not match location label
Users were confused when a location on the map had three different labels for the fruit that existed there, and would have never known the map listed "peaches" if they hadn't zoomed in and hovered over the dot on the map
Specimen location info page
"Add a Location" form
❌ Efficiency and Flexibility
User needs to leave the app to read important specimen info
Instead of having reference photos of the plant/fruit and information about toxicity readily available on the page, the user needs to navigate to multiple external pages to learn this info
❌ Help and Documentation
Lacks indication of edible fruit
Some listings just describe trees and doesn't specify what fruit it produces
Lacks info about what season the fruit is ripe
Many listings do not include when the fruit on the specimen is in season (most likely due to the person who created the listing not knowing it)
❌ Error Prevention
Google Street View is imprecise
If the view has more than one tree/plant in it, it is difficult to discern which one is the specimen in question
User is responsible for inputting accurate ripe seasons for specimens they recording
Users were frustrated that they were the ones that had to state this information, fearing that they would share misinformation
Inputting "Quality" and "Yield" of a specimen is subjective to the non-expert
Users do not know how to accurately rate specimens they are logging because they may have never seen the plant bloom to full capacity, or are unfamiliar with the standards for this plant
🎯 The ideal foraging experience involves:
Localized, beginner friendly guidance (visual aids, mobile-friendly map)
Sense of welcome and trustworthiness
City-specific lists and social elements to build confidence
People don’t just want a map, they want a companion
The values that should be prioritized are::
🔎
Clarity
🧡
Trust
📍
Locality
👩🏽🤝👨🏼
Community
Ideation Phase
Ideation Phase
I sketched some ideas based off what I learned from people's stories and feelings, making sure to prioritize the values reflected.
Specimen Guide - This idea aims to help new foragers know exactly what to look for when going to a map location.
It answers the questions like:
"How do I know if I found the plant?"
"What does the plant/ fruit look like in different seasons?"
"What do I do with the fruits once I pick them?"
Trip Advisor - This idea focuses on locality, informing novice foragers of where to go and what to look for in whatever city they are in
It answers questions like:
"What local fruits are in season in this city?"
"Where can I find the good stuff?"
Gamification - These ideas involved using individual and group games to encourage new forgers to go out and explore!
Get gems for new specimens you find and fill up your treasure chest.
Fill out a city-specific bingo card for local specimens while on vacation.
Join a geo-cache-esque community where you find easter eggs at foraging locations left by other foragers.
Plan a Route - This idea was inspired by an interviewee who said she would like to casually incorporate foraging while taking her dog on walks. It works similarly to Google Maps where it gives you directions to a particular location, but directs you to foraging locations along the way!
Explore mode allows you navigate to whatever locations are within a certain distance of your route.
Mission mode creates a route that intentionally includes locations that have a specific specimen you are looking to forage
Prototyping Phase
Prototyping Phase
I drafted a user flow to connect the separate ideas into one big picture, and I designed interactive Figma prototypes for the "Plan a Route" and "Specimen Guide" ideas
Large view of User Flow
Large view of User Flow
User Flow Snapshot
Figma Prototype Frames
Plan a Route: Input your destinations
Plan a Route: Explore Mode
Plan a Route: Mission Mode
Plan a Route: Route Navigation
Conclusion
Conclusion
Final Thoughts
After presenting to the Founders of Falling Fruit, they really enjoyed the idea of the Plan a Route feature! They already use the Google Maps API, so incorporating directions is not a far reach, and they liked the customization aspect of the experience.
Future Steps
If I were to continue this project, I would like to:
Flesh out other ideas I had for the app, such as the "Trip Advisor" page and fleshing out how gamification and co-foraging with friends would work
Put the app through a round of user-testing to make sure the navigation between pages of the app are intuitive to users
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