The Second Servings App
My experience as a product manager on a team with 8 others.
Read the article I wrote about the process of building the app:
Context
As part of the RiceApps club on campus, our team was matched to Second Servings, a food rescue organization in Houston.
Check out their website below:
Max, the logistics specialist, was making an overwhelming amount of calls to food donors and recipient charities.
Second Servings delivers food to 94 recipient organizations.
That’s a lot of calling, notifying, reminding, scheduling… A logistical nightmare for one person to handle.
Max asked us to build a solution to simplify and streamline their communication with all food recipients.
User Research
After conducting interviews with Second Servings and their clients, we learned that they needed a mobile app platform to simplify communication.
Interview, meetings, and follow-up meetings.
Meeting with Max from Second Servings and Terri from Heights Interfaith Ministries, a food recipient of Second Servings.
Wireframing & UX
With another designer and product manager,
I designed 50+ initial app screens that consolidated the food distribution process.
Rough user flows after talking with Max and clients.
Initial wireframes of the Second Servings app.
A more refined, app-oriented user flow.
More calls about optimal user experience and pitfalls led to more iterations and design choices…
Refined wireframes using more familiar UI components.
A UI design system.
In order to streamline the design process, I organized a design system with standardized icons, colors, fonts, and components.
Designs for the four main navigation screens.
One challenge we faced was working out a clean, intuitive solution for Max to upload food items to the marketplace.
How can Max easily add food items to the marketplace?
Should he choose one or multiple delivery dates?
How can we visually represent the delivery dates?
Which recipients should be notified?
How should he input the quantity of the food item?
After working out the nitty gritty UX details, our designer Yi launched the designs to the next level.
Managing the Project
Along with my Co-PM Emily, we assessed the product features and prioritized, planned, and communicated our next steps.
A snippet of the Product Requirement Document.
A glance at the Product Roadmap.
We recruited 4 developers experienced with React Native to build the backend and UI of the app.
Communicating virtually.
We held 3-hour Saturday sprints all online, with game breaks in the middle and a scrum check-in at the end.
Product Launch
After about 7 months, 25 virtual 3-hour sprints, and 3 picnics, the app MVP was complete.
On the app store
We launched the Second Servings app to the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store during May 2021.
“[The app] is very straight forward and definitely seems like it will be an easier process.”
A partial team photo.