Representative Tasks
M2 is planning to make a chocolate cake. She searches the pantry for cake mix. There is a lot of food in her pantry, so she is struggling to find what she needs.
Discussion: add in a keyword search option, so users don’t need to scroll through every item on their list. If an ingredient isn’t found add an option to add it to the shopping list.
M2 is at the grocery store. She is walking through every isle and picking items she thinks she needs. She does not use a shopping list. About an hour into her shopping she decides she is too tired to finish. She goes to produce to get bananas and avocados then checks out.
Discussion: have a way to prioritize items in a shopping list will allow users to finish shopping earlier. Many items in her pantry need to be purchased weekly. There are non -perishable items that can be bought in bulk too. Low priority items can be purchased on a later date
M2 is cooking a steak dinner. She is the primary cook in the household. M2 is planning dinner for the week with her husband. She is asking her husband what sounds good, and they agree to make spaghetti the following day. M2 looks through the pantry for pasta and sauce. She tells her husband they are out and asks him to get more on his way home from work.
Discussion: users may want to share their shopping lists with a partner. Create an option to send their grocery list to phone contacts.
M2 is making spaghetti. She gets the sauce her husband purchased and looks annoyed because it is a brand she does not like.
Discussion: there are many items in the store. Use pictures along with item name to help users quickly find specific food items
J1 is planning for tomorrow’s meal. Seeing an ingredient on his recipe, J1 verifies that he has enough white rice for the recipe. He knows it is usually in his miscellaneous dry goods pantry. He sees that he does not have enough white rice, so he adds it to his shopping list.
Discussion: This means a solution should include an option to add an item to a shopping list, that already exists in the pantry.
A1 learns that J1 will be bringing the kids along on a trip to visit family for the next week. The shopping list contains several foods like tuna and broccoli that only he eats. She also realizes that they no longer need 2 gallons of milk, but instead can make do with 1. Because they only keep enough perishable ingredients to last about the next week, she removes them from the shopping list.
Discussion: A solution also needs to be able to remove items from a shopping list. It should be able to remove a selected quantity of the item, rather than removing an item altogether.
T1 pours the last cup of milk for his son. They are now out of milk, so he records this on a note to remind himself to get more the next time he goes shopping. M1 later opens the refrigerator and sees there is no milk, so she adds it to their shared note. The milk is now recorded twice.
Discussion: Lists and inventories need to be visible to all stakeholders in the household. It may also be helpful to see who added an item, especially in households of 3 or more adults.
M1 purchases 8 boxes of Velveeta Shells and Cheese because her sons eat so much of it, and she found a good sale. She adds them to the Lazy Susan. Only 5 fit, so she puts the remaining 3 in the dry goods pantry downstairs. Later while shopping, she remembers cooking the last box of shells in the Lazy Susan, but does not know if T1 has already prepared the boxes from the dry goods pantry. Unclear on if they have 0 or 3 boxes left, she purchases 8. After placing 5 in the Lazy Susan, she now has 6 boxes in the dry goods pantry.
Discussion: Being able to account for many items quickly and in bulk quantities is important. It may also be helpful to see where items are in one’s pantry inventory, especially for dry goods or items that a family stocks up on.
A1 purchased a box of white rice, a gallon of milk, a bottle of wine, a tub of ice cream, and a box of frozen waffles. She now puts them away into their dry ingredients cupboard, refrigerator, countertop, freezer, and freezer respectively. Later she plans a grocery trip, and needs to determine if she needs to purchase more of any of those items. She does not want to walk all over the house to find that answer.
Discussion: Being able to identify which items are still available and which are now gone is a requirement. Being able to see which items were recently marked as out of stock can help build grocery lists.
J1 purchased apples and milk on the first of the month. On the 15th, he is at work and plans to go shopping on the way home to pick up ingredients for the next few days. He remembers seeing a few apples left, but can’t remember if he bought them on the 1st (in which case, he needs to get more) or the 8th (in which case, he can wait until he runs out or until next week). He remembers seeing a mostly full gallon of milk in the door, but does not remember the expiration date on it. Now he needs to decide whether to buy more apples and milk today.
Discussion: Keeping track of when an item was purchased can help to keep track of whether or not to re-buy perishable goods. Awareness of expiration dates can also influence this.
S2 looks through a few cabinets to see if he has any minced garlic.After a while he gives up and assumes he just didn’t have it.
Discussion: The system should tell you what you have in your pantry and maybe it could include where these items are located within your cupboards or pantry so you have a better idea of where to look for the item.
S1 notices food she didn’t remember she had in the freezer. She was looking for beef, but also found she still had pulled pork in the freezer.
Discussion: The system could include a reminder what what you own, especially if it is something you have had in there for a while. It would also be good to remind you that maybe it is something you already ate or used and it can be removed from your inventory if you forgot to remove it while making food.
Both S1 and S2 rarely go through their items that may have expired. One said every 3 months or so they do a clean out and the other has not yet done a clean out.
Discussion: The system should have a list of items with their expiration date so the subjects are able to know exactly when these items go bad and be notified when they do. Then they can get rid of things as they come up and won’t think they have any items and come to find out it is expired.
Both S1 and S2 stock up on certain bulk items.
Discussion: Maybe there's a bulk item section in the app that can track when you are running low on the items you bulk buy so you know to get more of them.
P1 Is making a sandwich and empties the mayo. She then puts it on the paper grocery list. After grocery shopping she discovers that she had already bought it and it was sitting on the shelf in the pantry.
Discussion: Having a grocery list function that is cross referenced with what is already in the pantry. This would result in less mistakes in purchasing.
P1 is making dinner and discovers that they are missing an item. There are four other items on their current paper list. P1 has to message her partner all five items on the list.
Discussion: Being able to easily share a list through SMS, Messenger or WhatsApp all at once.
P1 is shopping for groceries on their Meijer app at work and they can’t remember how many cans of tomato soup are in the cupboard, so she texts her son to check.
Discussion: Being able to easily check quantity of items when not at the house.