Overview

Falling Fruit is a nonprofit platform that supports urban foragers by mapping harvestable trees worldwide through crowd-sourced data on an interactive map. For this project, our team partnered with the development group to design a feature that allows private tree owners to share access to their trees with the public.

Challenge:

Develop a system that allows private tree owners to indicate whether and when they welcome public harvesting in a clear, accessible, and easy-to-implement way.

HMW Statement:

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How might we create a system for organizing private property foraging that feels secure and reliable to both foragers and tree owners?

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Research and Insights

Online Research

We observed successful stories from similar projects to inform our own design process. We explored several platforms, including Airbnb, Rover, YardYum, and Mundraub, to understand how they addressed similar trust-building challenges.

These insights helped us identify core user needs for a trust-based system, which we then used to guide the development of our survey questions and gather more specific insights from the Falling Fruit user base.

“Related worlds” (aka comparative analysis) study results

“Related worlds” (aka comparative analysis) study results

User Research

We collaborated with some other teams to create a survey that the developers sent out to the email list of their users. The survey was highly successful, reaching over 200 responses within a week or two, and provided us with valuable insights on how to approach a system for foraging on private property.

From our survey responses, 157/235 (66.8%) foragers admitted that even if a tree was marked as okay to pick on private property, they’d still feel uncomfortable foraging. Meanwhile, tree owners expressed concern about having unfamiliar individuals picking from their trees. While conducting our online research, we came across Airbnb’s Pyramid of Trust, which helped guide us in identifying key features to include that would help build trust between private tree owners and foragers.

1. Permission to enter privately owned property: Trust and verification are crucial for Falling Fruits users to feel comfortable foraging on private property. Users require up-to-date confirmation from the current property owner that foraging is permitted to prevent anxiety and fear of confrontation from foragers.

One user stated:

> “I would need to know that the property owner marked it as okay to pick, and I would want a personal message from them giving details to ensure that it's not an old message and I'm not going to get in trouble.”
> 

2. User Accountability and Owner Security: We wanted private owners to feel comfortable using the app and let them know that their fruits are being properly foraged, that foragers are following rules, and that users are being held accountable for breaking rules or guidelines.

External links:

Cleaned Survey Results from our survey section
Full Survey results

Design Process

In the early phases, we explored systems to address trust, access, and transparency in urban foraging.

We created user flows to compare the frustrations of foragers vs. homeowners, mapping their differing needs and concerns around property boundaries, permission, and plant accessibility.

New systems:

• User Profiles/Verification - Confirm if a post is from the actual property owne
  • Reduce risk of fraud and deception using the platform
  • Ideally, we would be able to utilize an external identity verification tool, such as ID.me, so that the verification is credible.
• Private vs. Public Land Indicators - Clearly distinguish foraging boundaries
  • Mitigates unintentional misuse by foragers
• Update/Renew Information - Ensure the permission status is current and accurate
  • Helps foragers feel comfortable and assured when entering private grounds

Features

Our prototype focuses on improving trust and safety when foraging around private property by distinguishing between public and private trees.