LACF Scavenger Hunt
Fall 2021 | IXD Project
My Roles
User Research & Interview, Ux Design,
Concept Design, Field Research
User Testing & Script Writing
Year
Fall 2021
Design Team
Samantha Heinrich, Jazmine Tobias, Jonathan Gomez & Cosmo Scharf
Los Angeles Community Fridge (LAFC) Scavenger Hunt
A fun activity to raise awareness and gather donations for Los Angeles Community Fridges.
Vison Video: Jazmine Tobias | Videographer: Cosmo Scarf | Actors: Jonathan Gomez & Peter Kirkpatrick | Script writer: Samantha Heinrich
How It Works:
Follow Jonathan:
Jonathan, a current LACF volunteer, invites his roommate Henry to play with him and meet up at the park. They open the Scavenger Hunt web app and learn to play with a brief tutorial.
They see the first clue and can pick from a few possible answers. Based on early testing, the players are now able to choose from multiple-choice answers to ensure everyone has a fun time. Jonathan selects the correct answer, which then prompts the duo to walk to a location while learning about its history and the values of mutual aid along the way.
Once they arrive at the correct location, they scan a QR code on a pre-placed printed sign. This loads a webpage presenting the next clue, and they repeat the process over again.
The players visit seven locations in Echo Park, including the fridge where they may drop off food.
Jonathan and Henry complete the hunt and return to the park, where the LACF staff enroll new volunteers. After getting to know the neighborhood and learning about mutual aid, Henry is excited to join LACF and help out in the future.
Design Challenge
Echo Park
Problem
The Covid-19 pandemic has made food insecurity explode. More people than ever do not know where their next meal will come from, or have to choose between paying a household bill or feeding themselves. People want to help, but there is not much information around how people can support with donations and volunteers.
Insight
Popping up all over Los Angeles are community actions like food banks & community food sharing locations. A star of this action is the Los Angeles Community Fridges. The emergence of decentralized mutual aid networks like community fridges encourages people to take responsibility for each other in deteriorating political and economic conditions. Organizations like these are bridging the gaps that government aid is unable to close.
Solutions
We have proposed an initiative to help LACF maintain healthy volunteer levels, ensuring more donations and traffic around the fridge network.
Limititations
Food Banks
Time
Restricted hours limit the number of patrons who can utilize the food banks. Time is a reoccurring problem, our research shows people are unable to take time off work to get into food bank lines.
Money
Often food banks require you to drive to the location; this costs patrons in time, parking and gas.
Shame
Food insecurity can result in a loss of dignity:
Washington Post stated that being poor can be seen as tantamount to a criminal offense, one that costs you a number of rights and untold dignities, including the ability to determine what foods you can put on the dinner table.
Who Said What?
Interview Take-home
"I feel like sometimes the food support systems are fighting with each other."
— Juliet, Antilope Valley Fridge
"I don’t know what [LACF] is."
— Venel Sanchez, current patron and donor
"I noticed the community fridge because it was decorated and looked really cute, in front of a Catholic church. It caught my eye."
— Venel Sanchez, current patron and donor
"Some fridges have had to shut down, unfortunately...if no one is available to clean it every week and stuff gets dirty."
— Kira, LACF Onboarding
"Check out the Sunday farmer's markets to talk to Food Force LA."
— Javier Arieaga, Echo park farmers market
Desktop Spy work!
Our team was able to join social media and communication avenues like Instagram and Slack to monitor communications. This was a fantastic way to collect raw data about the organization's inner workings.
Recruitment/Awareness
"There aren’t a lot of people checking-in on Slack, or helping on the backend. How do we recruit people to get involved? Ideas: flyer on the fridge with a link to orientation, connecting with people offline, recruiting gift of time & service. South Hill had a lot of luck starting an IG "
— Arlington Heights Fridge (Yeaj Yalhalhj (the fridge host))
Not Enough Donations
"Biggest issue at SH is that there is a really high demand and not enough food. Reaching out to local restaurants/orgs to try to get more."
— South Hill Fridge (Missy)
Off-grid Fridge
“There is interest to build solar fridges in Echo Park, Lincoln heights & Koreatown"
— Bee
Takeaways
Personas
Journey Maps
-
A single mother named Christie cannot feed her family a nutritious diet because most of her income goes to paying bills and she doesn’t qualify for government assistance.
-
Christie is a nurse who is a single mother. Her needs and Challenges are from not being aware that LACF host the fridges to the type of food she wants is always gone before she can get it.
For possible solutions, we have Bigger LACF Branding to real-time food inventory.
-
Here is Adrian Jackson our College student His needs and Challenges are from not knowing what to make with the food in the fridges, to skipping meals to save money.
We have a few possible solutions, from QR codes to even creating a fridge at SMC
Team Journey Map Development
Moments that Matter
Decision Time
Deciding on how to support LACF
Improve clarity on options and directions
Getting more volunteers and donors, more awareness, & more locations
Squeaky Clean
Cleaning fridges
Restocking food
“LET’S”
Help LACF create more awareness
and get more volunteers
Hash it out
-
Scavenger Hunt Awareness Campaign
We discovered that awareness was a problem. When asked how she found out about LACF, Venel responded with, "I dont know what LACF is." To further support the fridges awareness campaign and remove some stigma, we wanted to make a fun activity to encourage people to donate and participate in the LACF community.
Sketch By: Cosmo scharf
-
"I donated" Stickers
During his interview with the leader of the LACF, Cosmo learned donations were limited at the fridges, and we needed to highlight that small and large contributions happen. This was further supported by the interview with Venel, where they talked about her donating to the fridge as a family activity they liked to do.
Illustration By: Jazmine Tobias
-
LA Community Fridge Recipes
During our persona building and interviews, we realized that the fridge might often have foods that people are not familiar with, leading to food preparation and recipe idea issues.
We decided that it would be cool to have a QR code attached to the fridge, flyers, or stickers to take people to the LACF website or Slack where they can see or discuss recipe ideas with other fridge patrons; adding to build a fridge community.
Illustration By: Jazmine Tobias
LACF invites people to join the scavenger hunt
We propose implementing a scavenger hunt within the surrounding area of two LA community fridges. From there, patrons will solve tasks around the neighborhood, learn about mutual aid along the way, and post photos of each task on Instagram Stories with #LACF to promote awareness.
Goals:
Enroll more volunteers
Increase education on mutual aid
Increase LACF social media following
Improve overall awareness
Screenshot of team notes marking out areas of interest.
Get into the field
-
Walking The Trail
We had a great time walking through two different trails to see exactly what each scavenger would interact with. We found that uneven sidewalks and unsafe crossings could be problematic. Finding the best route for assessability and safety is critical in the hunt's success.
-
Out Of Season
We considered including Fallen Fruit and the Endless Orchard. These organizations have developed maps of the urban harvest showing food that has fallen into public space. We wanted to highlight these resources for donations. Unfortunately, this is a seasonal resource, so utilizing it out of season can make for an unsuccessful forage around the city.
-
Trigger Location
We were overwhelmed by the inhospitable fence surrounding Echo Park. This feeling was later touched upon during our meeting with Kira from LACF, where she commented on Echo Park being a trigger for some residence. After more research, we discovered that Echo Park was once a large community of unhoused residents who had created a community garden where people shared the produce.
“Our walks were an integral part of our research.”
— Sam Heinrich
Expedition
Here is the map of locations the player will go to during the scavenger hunt. We wanted these locations to reflect LACF’s mutual aid and community values. So the scavengers start at the historic Lady of the Lake statue, to the iconic mural off Sunset Blvd and Echo Park which has been there since the year 2000, and to other historic landmarks.
The theme of mutual aid is brought into the game through partnerships from businesses like Stories Books and Café which agreed to participate in this experience by donating food to the fridges. So, one of the tasks in the game is to drop off food.
“Don’t wear new shoes on a first time walking around Echo Park”
A lesson learned by designer Jonathan who had an unfortunate turn of events. He wore his new shoes on a 2-mile exploration and happened to step in some of Echo Park’s winged inhabitant’s poop!
Note: Warning to hunters about footing!
Prototyping our website and PDF version of print out
We worked on the prototype for our website and PDF printable version for those who want children off their phone or wish perhaps for children to be able to follow.
Storyboard Artist: Jazmine Tobias
Mural off Sunset Blvd: Photo Credit Jonathan Gomez
Tracking
To track player's involvement with the scavenger hunt, we implemented QR posters. These posters will be placed at each site, taking them to a link with the next clue. We felt that the analog nature of printed material would create an awareness of the site and community. This will provide a metric for us. The visual composition of the QR posters will also explore the LACF visual language.
Make it Simpler
"Some of the questions were kinda tricky. Maybe simplify them and make them clearer or go for more recognizable landmarks like the echoplex."
-Anonymous
PROTOTYPE FEEDBACK
We could not test the scavenger hunt with a body of volunteers due to time constraints and Covid protocols. So we decided to simulate solving the riddles and clues by sending out a Google Docs survey with clues hoping that Google Streetview could guide the testers. We found that riddles were too ambiguous from the first of six completed surveys. Not providing the answer could easily take the players off course, so we made a multiple choice experience that delivers the location on a map.
LACF Stakeholder Feedback
We had the good fortune of having some leaders from LACF do a walk-through of our prototype.
“Sounds great, when can we do this?” -Kira LACF
“Reach Out”
Network with local businesses for support to donate food for the hunt, to be delivered.
— LACF
“Share It”
Make sure to share the event across all Slack channels and ask for support.
— LACF
“What Languages”
Consider making a hunt with a Spanish translation.
— LACF
Recommendations
Success
Signing up more volunteers
100% completion of Scavenger Hunt
Educating on mutual aid
Spread The Word
Thorough promotion on social media
Set up an RSVP page
Reach out to volunteers via Slack
Event Opening Day
Provide free snacks and water for participants
Creating a small prize like stickers or pins
The Long Haul
After measuring success, we recommend that LACF implement this at every LACF fridge. This will help create awareness and fun surrounding the communities that welcomed the Fridge. We aim to create a lasting event to continue the fun for new and old volunteers across Los Angeles.
The theme of mutual aid is brought into the game through partnerships from businesses. Scavengers are able to connect with local restaurants, cafes, and businesses to bring people into the community and spread the word about resources.
Reflections
This has been a great project and it was an honor to be a part of this design team. I learned a lot in collaboration with these great creatives.
Getting out
Covid has had us locked down on our desktops working from home, waiting for meetings, and away from human interaction. Creating a project that can get people outside helping the community was the creative project I needed.
Learning From Eachother
I love field research and getting out and about in an area I have never ventured to before. It offered a real raw in-depth insight into the community and opened my eyes to the fascinating parts of a place I had never been before. I was able to learn so much from our walk around Echo Park with Jonathan, as he was a previous resident of the area.
This also added to our research as I had never been to Echo Park before, so I was not guided by a bias towards an area I knew well. I came in with a fresh set of eyes and was able to see things that Jonathan was not able to see.
Room For Growth
Final Thoughts & Next Steps
It would be fantastic to gather more interviews about the inner workings of the LACF and fridge patrons. We were blessed with first-hand insight from the LACF leadership. We needed more on-site conversations and observational learning, especially at the site of unwanted policing.
Developing a brand for this project would be crucial but due to time constraints, we could not move forward to complete identity branding.
It will be great to look back and see how many people took part in this hunt and interview people to seek further improvements and adapt as the communities grow.
Having the LACF team become excited about this project was an excellent result. To help the LACF recruit more volunteers is the aim. This will help take the burden off the current volunteers and reduce burnout.
Adapting our initiatives to every fridge site, old and new, would be a long investment of time but a fun discovery of what each fridge community has to offer.
Adapting this hunt to include tourism and children would be a great move forward.