FishWish

an app that disrupts the food scene to empower eco-eaters to make more sustainable choices

Aug 2015- march 2016

Background

Fishwish™ was my thesis and the first solo project that adopted the entire human-centered design process to research and design the innovative solutions to address overfishing issue and empower sustainable awareness.

Define

The big problem

Within a few decades, overfishing became a severe problem. Global demand for fish is at about 158 million metric tons annually (and growing), which is about twice the already worrisome 80 million metric tons we take from the oceans. Right now more than 90% of global fish stocks are over-exploited, depleted, or fully exploited. Science report indicated that fish species will collapse by 2048 if the long-trend consumption won’t change.

/ Why it matters?

There are 1.7 million jobs supported by commercial and recreational fishing, and it generated 199 billion dollars. If the fish population disappeared it would affect tens of thousands of people’s lives.

Research Targeted group

• Customer who loves seafood, especially sushi lovers

• Sushi Chefs

pain points and opportunities

• People are eating endangered seafood and they don’t even know it.

• While awareness of the issue made some consumers feel guilty, they did not change their behavior.

• Even customer who care about the sustainability, they did not know how to make the right choices.

• From the sushi chefs’s perspective, they are concerned about the fish population too, but they would prioritize what the customers want first.

• Existing tools required the consumer to know where the fish is from, how it was caught, and what type of fish it is. Waiters who interact directly with customers are less likely to answer those information. It’s overwhelmed and impractical for both restaurants and customers.

• Sushi lovers love good sushi, however they also want a more accessible tool to learn about sustainable seafood.

Build <> Measure <> Learn

Design iteration

Evaluative design experiment process

Pilot prototype

Key takeaways from previous three prototypes

1. Make a tool that complements not just supplement the restaurants menu.

2. Must influence the customers at the point of ordering.

3. Make the information simple and organized.

How it works? 

There are two main ways the app curates the menu. In other words, two different ways people can use to learn about sustainable seafood.

1. The App shows only the sustainable seafood in the menu and hides the most unsustainable and endangered ones. This Ideal for customers who trust entirely FishWish curation or passive learners ordering online

2. The last method is showing the entire menu and curated using icons or color coding beside each menu item that indicate the endangered seafood. If users click on the icon, the app will show more information about the endangered seafood options. Ideal for Active learners ordering online.

outcome/Result

The intuitive and accessible interface design, curated information designed for active and passive customers, and ordering function that satisfied customers’ needs.

During the testing process, 100 % of the people who tried my prototype ended up ordering sustainable sushi options because that’s all they can choose! American consumed 7 millions tons of seafood every year, we can have greatly impact to our environment by a small change.