Zo Ee Chee

Final Project

Meals Together

The UK has seen a dramatic increase in the reliance on foodbanks as some of the poorest families struggle to afford food amidst the rising cost of living. These families tend to buy more affordable but processed food which makes it as much as three times more likely for them to develop diet-related illnesses such as type 2 diabetes.

With Meals Together, I created a service that encourages foodbank clients to consume more fruit and vegetables and make healthy food choices in the long run. A free cooking class using fresh produce from community gardens equips the foodbank clients with knowledge on how to make simple and nutritious meals and also introduces them to gardens as a resource for fruit and vegetables. The provision of a supportive community through shared meals and cooking classes also promotes positive interactions with non-foodbank clients and facilitates access to support services like mental health support and debt relief. These activities help promote an empathetic shared understanding of foodbank usage and helps clients move towards self-sufficiency. 

Developing big picture thinking

Prior to this masters, there was an awareness of larger contextual considerations when designing solutions, however, which factors to focus on for sustainable impact was unclear. 

My Meals Together major project gave me an opportunity to learn how to: 

• Learn and unpack the challenges and opportunities across complex systems 
• Consider surrounding political, psychological, social, environmental and economic factors that influence service success 
• Identify and map multi-stakeholder systems 
• Understand how cultural context informs interventions 
• Scale interventions so they are actionable at a grassroots level

Past experience and future aspirations

I bring over 5 years of knowledge and experience as a UX Designer who leads teams across the full spectrum of UX activities ranging from user research through to user interface design. From working on projects for startups to Fortune 500 enterprises across a myriad of industries for Southeast Asian and European clients, I have worked with and led multicultural and international teams in my home country of Malaysia to research and design digital products ranging from an app used by our national Oil & Gas company (PETRONAS) engineers to safely and effectively manage refineries, to a web app for hospital patients to manage their healthcare (HMI group). All told, I have consistently demonstrated my ability to adapt well to change and varying levels of complexity from that of specialist engineering apps to gamified B2C consumer products throughout the full product development lifecycle. 

I am now transitioning to Service Design to see how to best deliver value to users and stakeholders across services and complex systems. From first obtaining a nuanced understanding of touchpoints and factors, I aim to create impactful and sustainable solutions that works to improve the lives of people and the communities they live within.