One of the largest food banks in the country, Second Harvest Food Bank of Silicon Valley feeds nearly 250,000 people each month. And doing so is no small feat — they partner with corporations and organizations across the Silicon Valley region to collect fresh and shelf-stable donations.
After years of relying on an outdated software platform to manage the details of their year-round food drives — scheduling, dropping off, picking up, weighing, logging, and reporting out on food collected in their big brown barrels — SHFB came to Software for Good for a brand-new solution.
While the team at SHFB had already identified a list of technical requirements for their shiny new food drive management system, we encouraged them to take a step back and focus on users instead of functionality. In doing so, we were able to identify challenges, pain points, and opportunities that may have otherwise been missed.
In addition to creating user personas and a collaborative story writing session, the Software for Good team took the lead on user experience and interface design — completely reimagining the way the SHFB application looked and functioned. The new application features a clean, easy-to-navigate dashboard that highlights essential functions and makes accessing detailed information a breeze. A robust back-end built in React and Rails gives the SHFB team a strong, sustainable technical platform that can evolve over time as needs dictate.
Recently launched, the SHFB food drive management platform has the potential to improve usability, boost productivity, and broaden impact.