LastBite
Helping UBC students build sustainable habits to reduce food waste
Role
Product Designer
Brand Designer
Timeline
Phase 1: Jan-April 2023 (4 UX Designers)
Phase 2: Nov 2024 (Solo)
Skills
Product Strategy
User Research
Design System
Prototyping
No time? Jump to my solution.
OVERVIEW
Every week, perfectly good food goes to waste.
82% of UBC students living on campus throw away groceries they couldn't finish in time. Most of it? Food that spoiled before they had a chance to cook it. Students feel guilty about the waste, but between assignments, extracurriculars, and social life, meal planning falls to the bottom of their priority list.
PROBLEM
Students care about food waste, but don't have the bandwidth to act on it.
Too busy to cook
Assignments take priority over meal prep, even quick recipes feel like too much effort.
The "just-to-be-safe" mentality
Without food safety knowledge, anything that looks slightly off gets tossed.
Inconvenient campus programs
Community fridges exist, but they're too far from dorms to use regularly.
RESEARCH & DISCOVERY | PHASE 1
We designed a food-sharing marketplace.
Working with a team of 4 other designers, we researched food waste at UBC.
Our interviews showed students were willing to share groceries with neighbours, so we designed a marketplace app where students could list and pick up near-expiring items from each other.
RESEARCH & DISCOVERY | PHASE 2
The design would get students to share once, but not build lasting habits.
A year later, I returned solo with deeper research (18 surveys, 6 interviews). I discovered the design had a fatal flaw: Students would use it once and disappear. Making sharing convenient wasn't enough - it still felt like a chore. The app needed to make reducing food waste rewarding, not just easy.
How might we make reducing food waste rewarding, not just easy.
IDEATION
Improving user journey: Redesigning for retention!
The original user journey had users solving their immediate need (giving away groceries) and then disappearing. I needed to redesign the experience to keep students engaged long enough to actually learn more about food waste/safety and change their behavior.
SOLUTION
Making LastBite easy, fun, and worth coming back to.
I redesigned LastBite around three core features that work together to turn food sharing from a burden into a habit.
Easy local sharing
List items in under a minute and connect with students in your dorm or nearby buildings.
Gamified virtual fridge
Earn coins for every action. Spend them on fridge decorations or real food coupons that keep you coming back.
Quick 5-minute lessons
Swipeable lessons on expiry dates, storage, and waste behaviors that build lasting habits.
DESIGN SYSTEM
Designing the Balance: Playful + Functional
I built a design system with 14 components and custom illustrations to supports gamification and speed up the design process.
DESIGN DECISION HIGHLIGHT #1
Wow, seems like a LOT I need to learn!
That comment during usability testing changed everything. The list view made lessons feel like homework. I A/B tested two versions with 6 users: list view versus swipeable cards.
List View - Old
Card View - New
5/6 users preferred cards.
Cards let students explore topics in any order without pressure + more sense of rewarding.
DESIGN DECISION HIGHLIGHT #2
Where's the button?
Think-aloud testing revealed critical friction: 3 out of 6 participants couldn't find the "Request pick-up" button. Others called the details "a wall of text" and the lister profile "untrustworthy."
Old
New
Interview feedbacks highlighted that the updated design reduced confusion and made key actions more intuitive.
IMPACT & REFLECTION
Coming back to redesign this project taught me to question solutions instead of just refining them. The breakthrough came from asking "Will students actually use this?" rather than "Does this look good?" That simple shift changed everything, from designing a marketplace to designing for behavior change.
IMPACT
Fully functional prototype with all core flows (40+ screens)
15 reusable components with custom illustrations for consistency
83% of users preferred swipeable lesson cards after testing
40% faster task completion with improved visual hierarchy
There’s more to this project; from early research and phase-one wireframes to the design system setup and high-fidelity prototypes. Feel free to email me if you’d like a deeper walkthrough.