Discover your next favorite meal.
A mobile app designed to help people discover authentic local dining experiences and explore new restaurants more easily.
Overview
Second Plate is a mobile concept designed to help individuals share excess food with others in their local community. The app aims to reduce food waste while making it easier for people to give away extra meals or ingredients to neighbors who may need them.
This project explores how a marketplace-style experience can support quick food sharing while maintaining trust and simplicity for users.
Timeline: 2–3 week UX project
Role: UX / Product Designer
Tools: Figma
The Problem
Food waste is a widespread issue. Many households regularly discard perfectly good food simply because they have too much.
At the same time, many people struggle with food access.
Current solutions often:
• Focus on restaurants rather than individuals
• Require complicated coordination
• Lack simple ways for neighbors to share food locally
This creates an opportunity for a community-based solution that makes food sharing easy and accessible.
Research
User Interviews
To understand behaviors around food sharing and waste, I conducted informal interviews with potential users.
Key insights:
People hate wasting food
Many users feel guilty throwing food away but don't have an easy way to give it away.
Convenience matters
If sharing food takes too many steps, people simply won’t do it.
Trust is important
Users want reassurance about who they are sharing food with.
Key Features
Food Listing Feed
Users can browse available food shared by people nearby using a simple card-based layout.
Easy Food Posting
Users can quickly post extra food by adding:
• Photo
• Description
• Pickup details
The Goal
Design a mobile experience that allows users to:
• Quickly post extra food they have available
• Discover food shared by people nearby
• Coordinate safe and simple pickups
The product needed to feel approachable, trustworthy, and fast to use.
Key Opportunity
Based on the research, the biggest opportunity was creating a simple marketplace-style experience for sharing food locally.
The platform needed to make it easy to:
• Post food quickly
• Browse nearby items
• Message and coordinate pickup
Design Process
User Flow
I created a simple flow focusing on the core experience:
Post food
Browse available food
Message the sharer
Arrange pickup
The goal was reducing friction between posting and claiming food.
Wireframes
Early wireframes focused on structuring the marketplace experience.
Key screens included:
• Home feed of available food
• Food posting flow
• Messaging between users
• Pickup coordination
Visual Design
The visual design focuses on warmth and approachability to reinforce the community aspect of the product.
Design choices included:
• Soft greens and natural colors
• Friendly iconography
• Food-focused imagery
• Simple card-based layouts
These elements help communicate freshness, trust, and community sharing.
Outcome
Second Plate demonstrates how a community-focused digital platform can help reduce food waste by making it easier for neighbors to share food locally.
The project highlights the importance of designing for simplicity, trust, and accessibility when building community-based products.
What I Learned
• Community products require strong trust signals
• Reducing steps increases user participation
• Simple flows are critical for everyday-use apps