Cup of Sugar
Cup of Sugar is a local marketplace for food - from extra packaged and prepared food (baked and cooked) to excess garden produce and groceries - founded in 2022 by locavores, and omnivores; bakers and makers; all an eccentric crew of hungry, passionate, and adventurous eaters.
The company was started because of a strong desire to reduce food waste; because we were tired of ordering food from the same restaurants (and paying high fees) for food delivery apps; and because we wanted to discover what kinds of interesting and delicious dishes our neighbors are cooking up.
My Role
I was brought on to the Cup of Sugar team to help the founder visualize their idea of building a marketplace style app. This app revolves around eliminating food waste in local communities by selling and sharing food with those in your area. When I joined the team, I built on existing first draft designs taking on the feedback of the founder and stakeholders. This would continue to be my primary role within the Cup of Sugar team. Throughout my time designing the Cup of Sugar app, there was a lot of ideating, communicating with the founder and stakeholders, designing, receiving feedback and lots of iterating!
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Sketching, Prototyping & Iterating, Usability Testing
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March 2022 - September 2022
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Figma
About the project
Our goal is to design an app that is exciting, inviting and trustworthy while also highlighting the value that Cup of Sugar brings: reducing food waste while building community. I knew that there were a few major points within the app that needed to deliver the essence of what Cup of Sugar is all about.
The end result is a platform that is approachable and easy to use while still conveying the feeling that the app can be trusted with purchasing food.
What were focusing on
Onboarding
The onboarding is the most vital step to get users excited about the product and find personal relevance as quickly as possible. It has to deliver the essence of the core belief and the value that Cup of Sugar brings: reducing waste and building community. In the onboarding, I wanted to make sure that food was used as an example, otherwise it sounds like just another bartering app.
The Homepage
For the homepage, we wanted the focus to remain on food. Focusing on the images of the food being sold or shared was an opportunity to bring the app to life quickly with images of the actual products, and the handmade, home-shot nature of them. A more visual presentation can also lead to a browse-friendly experience where seekers could be casually scrolling for, say, a sweet treat in the middle of the day without feeling like too much work.
Trust & Identity
Profiles & Bios
Trust inevitably plays a huge part in enabling these types of transactions with strangers. Food just adds another huge layer to that with issues of food safety, ingredients and more.
We wanted to establish an online identity that is as transparent as possible. Our original idea was to let users use an avatar as a profile photo. Rather than using an avatar, now, a mandatory photo is required within a profile.
Public profiles and bios are yet another way of helping to build a more transparent online identity. When we can see who is behind the wares, we are typically more willing to consider purchasing from them. Having a profile and a bio is another community aspect that helps to pique interest while also building trust between users.
Messaging
When I initially joined the Cup of Sugar team, there was no messaging capabilities at all. I knew that, naturally, users would need to communicate with one other to ask questions about items being sold, negotiate pricing, plan meet up locations and more. After lots of feedback and communicating between myself, the founder and stakeholders they were not convinced that a messaging function was necessary within the app.
With the knowledge that I had and how vital I knew messaging would be in the app, I went above and beyond and created mockups to show stakeholders what a potential messaging functionality would look and operate like. And I am so happy that I did! Creating these mockup screens showed stakeholders how vital having a messaging feature is and how without it, user engagement would only suffer.
