Produce Posse
Ferry Plaza Farmers Market: Bringing students back
Timeline:
12 weeks
Role:
UX Researcher / UX Designer / Illustrator
Industry:
Community Engagement / Food & Agriculture
Background
Ferry Plaza Farmers Market (FPFM) has operated for over 35 years, drawing 40,000 visitors weekly and functioning as more than a place to shop — it's a cultural hub with cooking demos, live music, festivals, and community events. Despite an active digital presence across its website, newsletter, and social media, student engagement with the market remained largely unmeasured. We set out to understand why.
The Problem
Without first understanding why college-age students aren't engaging with FPFM, any design solution would be a guess. Before proposing anything, we needed to understand the gaps preventing engagement — whether barriers were awareness, access, cost, relevance, or something else unexpected.
The Team
Alexa Jacobson
Kyle Samonte
Eylul Yildirim
Research Approach
We began with secondary research to understand the market's existing reach, then developed a research plan centered on intercept recruiting and in-depth interviews to get closer to the student experience.
The Goal
Learn how students digitally engage with the farmers market, and identify opportunities to improve the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market’s student engagement.
Project Timeline
Stella is centered around a post-workout vibe check that allows users to record subjective data as a supplement to their objective cycle phase. This information can be transformed into insights for users to provide personal training suggestions and nutrition support, allowing users to align more with their body's unique patterns and visualize a more consistent training regime.
Building the Script
Guided by three core research questions, we developed and refined an interview script to explore student behaviors, barriers, and digital touchpoints.
We drafted, pressure-tested through mock interviews, and refined the script across multiple versions — organizing questions chronologically to follow a participant's natural market experience.
Synthesis
After conducting four interviews, we collaboratively organized findings into themes — mapping pain points, motivations, digital touchpoints, and behaviors to identify patterns across participants.
What We Heard
From our synthesis, three core themes emerged that shaped our design direction.
Archetypes
Four interviews, four distinct archetypes.
Mission vs. Leisure
Novelty Builds Retention
Atmosphere > Grocery Needs
Our Insights
From these themes, four insights shaped our design direction.
The Design Direction
Our research pointed to a clear opportunity: students engage most when discovery feels effortless and in-the-moment. Rather than pushing students to seek out the website, we explored a solution that meets them where they already are — on-site, curious, and open to something new. We imagined a QR-based interactive experience that surfaces vendor stories, maps, and seasonal highlights in real time.
Meet the Curious Connector
To bring the concept to life, we storyboarded a student's spontaneous encounter with FPFM — and what happens when the right digital touchpoint shows up at the right moment.
