OVERVIEW:
A multi-million-dollar corporation and the world’s largest global provider of certain all-natural food additives was providing food ingredient manufacturers with a multi-page Excel spreadsheet outlining all details of their product offerings. The food ingredient manufacturers were experiencing cognitive dissonance and overwhelm at the number of food additives, flavorings, colorings, and ingredients within the spreadsheet. They were not noticing the important features of some of the key products and were uncertain how to find products to suit their needs.
TARGET AUDIENCE:
Busy, middle-aged decision-makers in the food ingredient manufacturing industry looking to replace synthetic food additives with all-natural alternatives. Our audience has in-depth knowledge of food chemistry and science but is not technologically savvy. Because they may be traveling, on the go, or in areas with unstable internet connections, they need quick, easy answers to their questions in an interface that works on mobile phones or tablets, not just computers.
SOLUTION:
I proposed an interactive online tool to help educate food ingredient manufacturers about the options available for switching from synthetic food dyes and additives to all-natural ingredients, such as natural food colors and flavorings.
Together with a team of project stakeholders including food scientists, food chemists, food industry marketers, and website developers, we created a proposal for an online educational tool that we could add to the public-facing website. The interactive tool would allow our target audience to easily compare all-natural food colorings from the web or mobile, on any device, at their convenience. This provided for flexible, 100% online, and self-directed education.
I collaborated with the project stakeholders to divide the multi-page Excel spreadsheet into six (6) key product categories:
–Family and Color Source
–Light Stability
–Heat Stability
–Solubility
–Hue
–pH Range
For convenience, we also included an additional “View All” button to instantly compare all-natural ingredients at once.
MY ROLE
I managed the project from concept to completion. I designed all graphics, wireframes, low-fidelity mockups, and high-fidelity prototypes. I also determined what type of coding technology would be necessary to implement the full interactive functionality on the website.
Next, I recruited, interviewed, and hired a third-party web development contractor to assist with the front-end development of the interactive comparison tool. The web developer and I worked to create an intuitive, user-friendly, and mobile-responsive interface.
GOALS
Our main goals were to delight our target audience with a mobile-responsive tool that displays the requested information quickly and provides the key pieces of information that the target audience cares about.
END RESULT
We rapidly iterated to quickly ideate, test, develop, and deploy an innovative tool that did not previously exist in the food ingredient or color additive manufacturing industry. This project was a success and the client was very happy.