FeedBoston
Rescuing catered meals in simple to use delivery app
Background
My entire life, I've been a big advocate for fighting against food insecurity. During high school, I volunteered with Feeding South Florida, the southern florida branch of the Feeding America network, for over 300 hours. I had also volunteered in soup kitchens, where meals were hand-made fresh every day by volunteers and permanent head chefs. Soup kitchens would order ingredients from food warehouses such as Feeding South Florida, where they would get delivered early in the morning. I even tried to run a 5K hosted by Feeding South Florida, but was so miserably out of shape at the time I had to walk the last thousand steps.
Sometimes, the number of volunteers for soup kitchens isn't enough for the amount of food that needs to be prepared in a given day. What if it was possible to have an app where people and businesses could donate unopened catered (already prepared, ready-to-eat) platters to food banks/warehouses?
FeedBoston is a conceptual UI/UX app prototype designed to reduce food waste across Boston by connecting event hosts, catering businesses, and verified food recovery centers. The app enables donors to post untouched surplus food from events or catering services and coordinate pickups by volunteer drivers, who deliver donations to nearby soup kitchens and shelters. My goal with this project was to design a donor-facing flow that feels trustworthy, efficient, and accessible while addressing the complex logistical and safety requirements around food redistribution.
The Challenge
Food waste is a massive problem in cities like Boston — in fact, Massachusetts businesses and residents generate over 1 million tons of food waste annually, with nearly 40% of edible food going uneaten (MassDEP, 2024). Yet, city initiatives and nonprofits continually face challenges collecting surplus food quickly and safely from events or caterers.
Through this concept, I wanted to answer a core question: How might we make it easier for Boston residents and catering businesses to safely donate untouched food, while ensuring trust, compliance, and smooth logistics?
Scope & Focus
For the MVP, I focused solely on the donor experience — the side of the app used by individuals and businesses who want to contribute food. The volunteer driver and admin verification sides were intentionally scoped out, but the logic of their interactions was considered to inform the donor flow.
Primary user groups
- Business Donors: Caterers, restaurants, or venues that regularly handle food.
- Event Donors: Individuals (e.g., wedding hosts, event organizers) who want to donate leftover catered food from a verified source.
Sketches
My first sketches were messy but revealing. I quickly realized how much the experience depended on trust, specifically a verification portion of the app. Figuring out the logistics of the verification was important too, I explored questions like:
Through drawing, I explored questions like:
- When should a donor be asked to verify?
- How can the app make food safety requirements feel simple, not intimidating?
- How do we avoid repetitive data entry for donors, or split up a long legal process to a few screens?
These explorations became the foundation for the final donor flow structure.
High-Fidelity Prototype
1. Onboarding — Choosing Your Donor Type
When users first open FeedBoston, they’re prompted to sign up or log in. The onboarding process is intentionally brief and friendly — focused on getting people to the donation stage quickly, while still ensuring traceability and safety.
From the start, users can choose whether they’re signing up as a business (like a caterer or restaurant) or as an event donor (such as a wedding host or event organizer with untouched food).Each path tailors the next few screens to their needs:
- Business accounts collect basic organization and contact info.
- Event donors provide minimal setup to get started faster.
The copy, tone, and iconography emphasize community and trust, setting the stage for responsible food sharing.
2. Business Verification
After onboarding, businesses are prompted to verify their organization to ensure food safety compliance. Verification happens in Settings, allowing the rest of the app to stay streamlined.
Businesses upload supporting documents such as:- Food establishment license or catering permit
- Proof of inspection or certification (e.g., ServSafe, city inspection certificate)
- Business license
Until verification is complete, a subtle alert banner on the home page reminds the user:
"Your account is pending verification. Upload documents in Settings to unlock instant donations.”
This approach keeps verification visible but non-blocking — businesses can still explore the app and prepare donations without friction.
3. Posting a Donation
Once verified (or pending verification for event donors), users can create a new donation through a simple, guided flow. Each step gathers essential information without overwhelming the user.
Screen 1: Basic Information- Users can start typing the name of their food, and a drop down will appear with fill-ins that describe their food. This helps categorize food and prevents users from being under-descriptive or over-descriptive.
- Users can pick from a drop-down list of types of food, using chips helps reduce the number of decisions the user has to make when describing their catering order.
- The slider introduces an element of play while gathering approximate quantity data. By replacing a traditional input field with an interactive control, it creates the illusion of simplicity — helping users feel like donating is quick, low-effort, and even enjoyable.
- Determining how to quantify donations required careful consideration. I explored using pounds, serving sizes, and platter count as possible units. Pounds were unrealistic since most users wouldn’t have access to a scale, and serving sizes varied too widely to be reliable. I ultimately chose platter quantity, since it’s a familiar mental model for event and catering contexts.
- To support users’ estimation, the interface pairs the platter slider with a serving size indicator, helping them visualize approximate portions. The slider also provides a range rather than a single value, reducing decision pressure and encouraging participation even when users aren’t certain about exact amounts. This approach balances logistical accuracy with a sense of ease — turning a potentially stressful data entry into a quick, confident action.
Screen 2: Upload Photos
- Interrupts cognitive load from data entry to do a simple photo upload, or by snapping directly from the camera.
- Uploading the catering invoice follows in order to keep uploads on the same screen, and after the simpler task of uploading photos is completed, a slightly more arduous task has lower emotional reluctance.
Screen 3: Dietary Restrictions and Allergies
- Chips for allergies (e.g., nuts, soy, dairy, gluten) and dietary tags (e.g., halal, kosher, vegetarian) that are the most common.
- If a specific allergy or dietary restriction falls outside of these pre-existing categories, a Notes box allows free typing entry from the user to add any specific notes about their catering order.
Screen 4: Date, Time & Address
- Structuring the pickup information as the final step prioritizes the donor’s mental flow: users first focus on describing the food, then conclude with the most time-sensitive details — date, time, and location for pickup.
Each submission shows an order status:
- Pending approval for event donors
- Posted instantly for verified businesses
4. Order Tracking and Driver Updates
Once a donation is submitted, users can view it in My Active Orders, where real-time statuses help set clear expectations.
Donations first appear as “Verifying Order”, indicating that the admin is reviewing the uploaded catering receipt and donation details for approval. Once verified, the status automatically updates to “Scheduled for [date, time]”, confirming pickup coordination.
From there, users can tap into the order to view the driver’s live location on a map, estimated time of arrival, and a summary of the donation.
Demo
