Use Case Observations from Grinnell Farmers' Market

Jelal Younes — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 16:39:17 -0400

From my visit to the Grinnell farmersâ€™ market on August 11, 2006, I designed both a template for interactions between vendors and customers, and a set of use cases depicting these interactions.

In all interactions between vendors and buyers, there are two constants: the customer walking over to the stand, and the customer leaving the stand. After these obvious aspects of the interaction, there are three variables in any vendor-customer interaction: amount of time spent speaking with the vendor, amount of time spent examining the goods on offer, and the amount of goods ultimately bought by the customer. A fourth variable would be the topics discussed by the vendor and customer (where the goods were grown/made, how much they cost, etc.); unfortunately, my position as an observer did not allow me to watch the interactions closely enough to observe interactions in such detail.

"Conceptualizing US Food Systems with Simplifying Models" and the LFEG Project

Jelal Younes — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 16:09:29 -0400

This paper, entitled "Conceptualizing US Food Systems with Simplifying Models," by Axel Aubrun Ph.D, Andrew Brown Ph.D, and Joseph Grady Ph.D, focuses on the creation of "simplifying models" to allow Americans understand the "big picture" of food systems. Three points, in particular, stick out to me in terms of their relevance to our LFEG project:

[The simplifying model] provides a concrete image of the system as a whole, and helps people move beyond their default focus on the individual experience of food. [p. 4]

A goal of our project is to help both consumers and producers understand that their buying and selling decisions have an extended impact on and entire food system network. When a customer makes a decision to buy food from Wal-mart, his decision effects more parties than simply himself and his family--who eat the food, and Wal-mart, who profits from his decision. Also affected are local producers of food, who do not receive his money, other customers who want to buy local food, but may find the supply of such foods going down when demand is low, etc. Our models will show the interconnectivity of all players in a food network, allowing these people to see how their decisions effect others, moving away from individual experience of foods to a broader view.

The Local Food Economy Game - Models

Use Case Observations from Grinnell Farmers' Market

"Conceptualizing US Food Systems with Simplifying Models" and the LFEG Project