The challenge: How can we simplify the current payment system?

In New York — and most of the country — food stamp recipients who shop at a farmers market cannot shop with cash or an EBT (“food stamp”) card. Instead, they’re forced to shop with wooden tokens and paper vouchers, which all carry different expiration dates, can only be used at specific markets, and cannot be replaced if lost or stolen.

On top of being burdensome for shoppers, this payment process also places unnecessary financial strain on farmers, who have to wait up to 6 months for government reimbursement for these purchases.

This chaotic system is the result of a patchwork of local and national policies, but it’s also caused by a lack of innovation in New York State — in Michigan and elsewhere, the public and private entities that manage this payment system have teamed up with tech platforms to make it easier for shoppers to access and use their food stamp benefits. Inspired by the work being done in other parts of the U.S., we set out to create a digital payment platform that could make it easier to shop with government benefits in New York, and easier for vendors to accept them.

Understanding what works now — and what doesn’t

During the initial research phase of this project, my teammates and I interviewed elected officials, nonprofit leaders, and shoppers to better understand the complex system of government currencies and vouchers that are used at farmers markets. From those conversations, I learned that our new payment platform would need to meet on the needs of three key users in order to be successful: shoppers, farmers, and farmers market managers (who handle the distribution of tokens and some government vouchers).

Along with my team, I conducted site visits to markets all over New York City, along with focus groups and one-on-one interviews with people from each user group. In my research, I heard about the following failures of the current system:

• Due to long reimbursement timelines, farmers and market managers often end up paying for the cost of accepting these government currencies out of their own pockets

• Because this system relies on non-standard physical currency, both farmers and the managers who run these markets have to count hundreds of paper vouchers and wooden tokens by hand multiple times per week

• Shoppers have to keep track of disparate of currencies that are specific to farmers markets, can only be used to purchase certain kinds of foods within those markets, and expire yearly

I also conducted observational research, shadowing farmers accepting payment with these currencies. I noted which payment platforms are currently most used, how and when farmers and shoppers use their smartphones, and how information about this complicated system is communicated to new shoppers.

Building a better way to shop

Based on what we learned during our conversations and observation of markets, I worked with a product designer and engineer to build the prototype for Snappable, a payment platform that digitizes the wooden tokens and paper vouchers used within farmers markets. Our work focused on meeting the needs of our three user groups in these ways:

• For shoppers: one centralized way to manage these coupons (via the Snappable app or a physical Snappable card), with easy-to-use UI

• For farmers and market managers: automated bookkeeping, to speed up reimbursement timelines and reduce wasted time

Based on interviews, co-design sessions, and usability testing, I worked alongside another designer and a software engineer to create an MVP web app with the following features and design:

• Simple, large buttons for outdoor use

• Bookkeeping features that allow market managers to easily capture and communicate data that’s currently track by hand

• UI that mirrors the experience of apps they already use, like Square