Towards 1 million users (and beyond) for Open Food Facts Mobile App
Choosing a path together
What
Last year, we built a new mobile app for Open Food Facts. We are very proud of it, and it’s already used by thousands of people. Now we would like this app to reach an even larger audience that will use it regularly:
- we want food transparency to benefit many people to have a wide impact on health, environment and value distribution,
- we’re a crowdsourced project, based on the work of thousands of contributors all over the world: today’s users are tomorrow’s contributors,
- this app could be a tool in the hands of a large community of passionate people acting to change our food consumption for the better.
We would like to build together a vision for the app, and collectively decide how we should try to reach this goal. What should Open Food Facts app — or even apps — look like to reach a maximum of people? This gives the opportunity to work all together.
Who can participate ?
EVERYONE 
. The community needs you 
.
There is no specific set of skills you need to have to participate in this collaborative work.
Just an interest in making the food landscape more transparent & equipping consumers to be better informed.
How
Here we detail the whole process we want to implement. Some of us will participate in many activities, but feel free to only engage in the one you can.
I don’t have much time, how can I participate?
If you don’t have much time, you may just:
- propose your ideas during phase 3: come to the first meeting to share your ideas, or write a post on the forum.
- participate in the evaluation poll in phase 5: wait for the poll and give your opinion.
- By the way, if you don’t have time, you can also give money to the project
Updated Calendar
Save the date(s) at a glance
April 24: Brainstorming session 1st meeting - 18h CET
May 2: Consolidation / Creative meeting #1 - 18h CET
May 10: Consolidation / Creative meeting #2 - 18h CET
May 17: Consolidation / Creative meeting #3 - 18h CET
May 22: Investigating phase: Kick off meeting - 18h CET
User survey period: June 28-July 4
July 7: Results of the track investigation (each team will advocate their track with a 5 min pitch) - 18h CET
Community poll: through July & August
September: Final decision process 
Details of the process
We propose the following achievements and planning.
Phase 1 — defining the project
- This is the page you are reading
Phase 2 — announcing the project
In this phase, we invite everyone to read this page and save the dates for future events. At the end of this phase, we would like to gather hundreds of contributors motivated to participate, and who have already booked their agenda to do so.
What can I do?
- participate by spreading the word on forums / groups that could be interested
- you can share this blog post or this current forum post
- possibly present Open Food Facts to other potential participants — (see presentation kit)
- show my interest, by posting on this current forum thread: what would I like to do? What particular skills can I bring?
Phase 3 — Brainstorming
This is the creative phase. At the end of this step, we should have 3 to 5 potential directions for developing the application.
We meet, write, discuss ideas and build a collective map where we group and merge ideas.
- We will start with a first online meeting on April 24th, to launch the project: it will be the first creative workshop to sketch some ideas.
- Everyone can contribute to more ideas by running local or online meetings, or just writing her/his thoughts. Every idea is reported on a white board with a link to add more detail. During those brainstorms, we do not criticize ideas (either positively or negatively), the only questions that can be asked are to clarify the meaning.
- A specific team is constituted for curation of the white board, they read every proposal, possibly ask for more precision and try to group ideas that have something in common.
- Every week we will have a consolidation meeting where we review the current state of the whiteboard with a four steps process:
- the curation team explains the state of the whiteboard (merged ideas, big groups, eventual outsiders),
- followed by a round of positive critics,
- followed by a round of negative critics,
- and closed by a round of feeling and emotions
- The last meeting on May 17 proceeds as the previous but with a last step to decide the 3 to 5 directions that would be selected for the next phase.
Phase 4 — Investigating each idea - team based
In this phase, we want to build 3 to 5 concrete projects based on the selected ideas. 3 to 5 teams will explore the ideas: write users’ stories, maybe sketch mock-ups, but also reflect on the project’s impact, market fit, success factors, risks, macro-planning, etc.
This phase will also produce metrics thanks to a dedicated survey, built by each team with the help of the Open Food Facts permanent team.
The achievement of the phase is a presentation of each idea using a dedicated framework, including a 5 minutes pitch.
- Weeks 1 and 2: online meetings of the teams.
- End of week 2: questions for the survey.
- Week 4: launch of the USER SURVEY. (please give us your input here - app. 10 min)
Répondre au sondage en FR
- next phase: presentation of the ideas.
Phase 5 - Polling the different potential directions
Based on the previous phase, we want to survey everyone who is part of the community to help choose the right vision.
This survey will be consultative, advisory and qualitative.
- A meeting on July 7 presents the results of the track investigation & user survey (each team will advocate their track with short pitches).
PITCHES OF THE TRACKS
If you were unable to make the pitching presentation (on the 7th of July), you can find the slides here.
- Through July & August, an online community poll form enables everyone to give their opinion. We will concentrate on understanding enthusiasm for each direction, eventual blocks or additional ideas that may complement it.
Phase 6 - Final choice 
We hope that this process will lead to a shared vision in September, and maybe a consensus will arise naturally. This may be a direction from phase 4, or maybe a combination of some of them with some adaptations.
In case we have to decide between one or more competing ideas with no clear consensus, the Board’s members of the Open Food Facts association will be solicited to decide.
Anyway, whatever direction we choose, we’re an open source project and all ideas and projects can find their ways.
Many thanks !
