nomo
Mobile App
PREVIEW
Nomo is a year-long initiative with Design for America focused on tackling food waste at the individual level. Through research-backed design, we created an end-to-end solution that makes food waste reduction accessible and actionable. Our team developed tools that help people build smarter, more sustainable food habits—one meal at a time.
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Annie Chang Ashley Zhang Cristina Villavicencio Jada Nguyen James Moy Tony Ngo
HOW MIGHT WE
Project Lead
FINAL PRODUCT
TIMELINE
Oct 2024 - May 2025
TEAM
TOOLS
Figma
Food waste doesn’t feel real—until you start noticing your own.
You track your steps. You track your sleep. But what about your food habits?
NOMO OVERVIEW
Saving food becomes second nature when progress is personal and shared.
Track your goals, manage your food thoughtfully, and connect with others who share your commitment.
Food waste fuels climate change, strains household budgets, and deepens food insecurity.
Aligning Insights with Thematic Analysis & Affinity Diagram
Diving deeper into the issue, we conducted 12 interviews and found that the biggest factors for food waste are the following:
We used thematic analysis to ensure consistency in how our team interpreted interview responses. By creating shared codes and definitions, we aligned our understanding across all 12 interviews. Then, we applied an affinity diagram to organize key insights and uncover four recurring themes: planning, challenges, causes/motivations, and environmental factors. This process helped us identify user pain points and guide our design direction.
DESIGN GOALS
INITIAL IDEATION
FINAL IDEATION
Our design process began with identifying shared pain points, such as time constraints, multitasking demands, and productivity pressure. From there, we explored superpower ideation, imagining how the ability to duplicate oneself could address these challenges.
60%
of respondents forget what’s in their fridge
Forgetfulness
PROBLEM
food items go uneaten in the U.S.
Source: EPA – Preventing Wasted Food at Home
WHY IT MATTERS
Choosing to waste less turns everyday habits into powerful acts of care—for your community, your future, and the planet.
RESEARCH
design a solution that empowers individuals to reduce food waste by fostering social accountability and encouraging personal ownership of their food habits?
What patterns contribute to food waste?
53%
of respondents say a lack of a routine leads to more waste
Lack of routine
Introducing, nomo.
COMMUNITY
Share your journey — one meal at a time
Seeing clean plates from the community inspires everyone to waste less
Post your before-and-after meals to reflect, stay accountable, and inspire others on the same journey
PROFILE
We began ideating around four key problem areas from our survey: forgetfulness, habit formation, financial motivation, and food tracking. Our team brainstormed potential features addressing these challenges and later grouped them into three main themes
WIREFRAMING
LOW FIDELITY
We discovered room for improvements on each of our core pages: unclear labels and confusion in navigation, unintuitive interface, and general lack of clarity.
ROLE
ANALYSIS
92%
of respondents are financially motivated to reduce waste
Financial Motivation
Existing apps focus on one or two features, overlooking the bigger picture and failing to help users fully understand their food waste behaviors. We found that while competitors offer a variety of useful features, none of them provide a comprehensive solution that addresses all the user needs we identified.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
A refined prototype experimenting design systems and interaction patterns
2ND ROUND OF USABILITY TESTING
Assess how users responded to our updated designs and uncover remaining points of friction
We discovered that our design consisted of concerns regarding user flow, confusing icons, and lack of clarity, such as the expenses graph.
Nomo — no waste, more impact, is a food management app that helps individuals reduce food waste in a simple and motivating way. By combining mindful tracking with engaging features, Nomo makes it easy for users to stay aware of what they buy, use, and waste — turning small daily actions into sustainable habits that last.
Hypothesis-Driven Insights from Our Survey
Collected over 100 survey responses, uncovering that forgetfulness, habit-building, financial motivation, and personal accountability are key factors influencing food waste behaviors and opportunities for intervention
Using hypotheses guides your analysis instead of getting lost in a sea of survey responses. We combined responses from multiple questions to identify patterns, trends, and themes. This method helps transition from qualitative to quantitative insight-building.
For example:
After completing our qualitative interviews and designing a survey, we structured our data analysis around specific hypotheses. This helped us make sense of the large dataset and validate key assumptions.
This hypothesis-driven approach helped us identify actionable insights and determine which features aligned best with user needs.
Eisenhower Decision Matrix
Through this we narrowed down our feature to three core pages: Community, My Kitchen, Profile.
Build lasting habits through shared moments. Encourage each other with comments, and stay motivated as a community
1ST ROUND OF USABILITY TESTING
Evaluating the core user experience across key tasks
MID FIDELITY
MY KITCHEN
From Tracking Everything to Meaningful Reflection
Bottom Sheet Modal to streamline user actions Landing page → an expiration + waste summary to boost visibility and quick access
Input with Purpose, Output with Awareness
Manual input to semi-manual input simplified with autofill Output shifted focus from micromanaging inputs to encouraging reflection
Add Groceries Instantly —Just Take a Photo
Add food by snapping a photo—no typing needed
Input with Purpose, Output with Awareness
Manual input to semi-manual input simplified with autofill Output shifted focus from micromanaging inputs to encouraging reflection
Take control of your financial expenses and make every bite count
See the savings you’ve earned by wasting less food Track your budget, spending, and money lost to waste across months, quarters, and the year Visual breakdowns help you stay conscious of your budget—so you can spend smarter and save more
HOW DOES NOMO ADDRESS THE PROBLEM
Our solution combats food waste across three major areas:
IMPACT SURVEY
Stay motivated and visualize your progress
Set and track personal and shared goals with streaks to stay motivated Earn badges as you reach milestones Review all the food photos you’ve posted and pin your favorites
Community motivates, tracking empowers, users become more mindful.
NEXT STEPS
Key considerations looking ahead and refining for real-world use
