Usability Evaluation of Food Wastage Mobile Application: A Case of Pakistan

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript evaluated the usability of a mobile application related to food waste management. There are a lot of issues that should be fixed and which make the manuscript difficult to understand.

L49: The name of the author/s should be mentioned (like in L109), not only the citation in brackets. Please revise this king of situation in the whole manuscript. 

L55: Please see the citation style according to the journal instructions (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/instructions)

I suggest you to move Table 1 to Materials and Methods section.

Table 2 and its explanations should be moved to the Results.

L95-99: Avoid repetition of evaluation.

L191: explain TAM

L242-245/L254-262 I suggest to be moved to the results section.

L264: Please mention the significance level.

L278: It is not clear where are this data presented. Also, no discussion of the results are made.

The results are poorly discussed and no comparisons with previous works were done. Some of the information presented in the Introduction (which is too long) could be moved to this section. 

Overall, the manuscript is not well structured and it is very difficult to understand. It do not present a logical order of the information and there are missing data.  

Author Response

Dear Reviewer!

I have tried my level best to address the comments of reviewers. The detailed comments are attached herewith.

Best Regards

Mariam Rehman (Corresponding Author)

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Although the usability evaluation of the Food Wastage Mobile Application is an interesting topic, it is not a complete academic paper.

The abstract is missing the research objectives and the main findings.

The Introduction repeats information that is not directly relevant to this study (L.46, L.55, L71, L76). On the other hand, the novelty and purpose of this study are unclear.

Table 1 and Table 2 are parts of research contents, but appeared in the "Introduction".

Table 3 and Table 4 are parts of results, but appeared in the "Materials and Methods"

Results and recommendations need to be fully revised.

English and references need to be checked.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer!

Please find the attached file addressing reviewers comments.

Best Regards

Mariam Rehman

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

thank you for the opportunity to revise the manuscript entitled “Usability Evaluation of Food Wastage Mobile Application: A Case of Pakistan”. The manuscript deals with the theme of food waste mobile applications in Pakistan, providing a comprehensive critical analysis of gaps identified in existing experiences. It presents an interesting and under-researched topic, but I have several major concerns. Indeed, although I believe in the goodness of the study and in its importance, and I do understand your efforts to deal with a novel and complex topic, I really have many doubts regarding the aims and scope of the research and the methodology applied. I hope that you will consider my suggestions and improve their manuscript accordingly.

Recommendation: Major review

Best regards

 

Reviewer’ comments

 Abstract: I suggest the authors improving the abstract by clarifying the context and condensing the methodology applied. Indeed, some sentences seem not to give sufficient importance to some aspects, as follows:

• “The continuous rise in hunger rate is bringing an alarming situation across the country”. Which country? Pakistan? Although the country under analysis is defined in the title, it does not mean that it should not be declared in the abstract.
• “Pakistan is ranked 94^th amongst 117^th countries in the index”. Which index? The Global Hunger Index? Please clarify.
• Please, clarify the link between “hunger” and “food waste”. Do you mean that, by reducing food waste, is it possible to reduce hunger? If you do not declare such a statement, the abstract seems inconsistent and not linear.

I suggest the authors clarify the methodology applied within the research: “critical analysis”, “mobile application selection criteria”, “survey methodology”, “software house based”, “t-test statistical analysis”. I suggest making more organic the methodology presentation, as well as including some key elements which currently are missing (e.g., how have you selected the mobile application under investigation?). Then, clarify aims and scope of the research.

Last, could you please briefly provide the key results/outcomes?

Lines 28-30: I do not understand this sentence. Is there a specific reason to declare this?

 

Introduction: Introduction is clear. However, I have some concerns. The authors should distinguish between “Introduction” and “Literature review”.

First, the authors should describe the economic, social and environmental context in the field of food waste and food waste mobile applications. Then, they should discuss the methodology applied, the aims and scope of the research and its originality. I suggest following the order: (a) context statement, figures and statistics related to the issue; (b) national and international framework (e.g., Sustainable Development Goals, Farm to Fork Strategy, etc); (c) brief literature on the topic; (d) aims and scope of the research, as well as methodology applied; (e) originality and utility of the results (e.g., for academics, researchers, managers, public authorities).

 Could you please explain references presented at line 38? It would be more useful to explain them, rather than cite eight references to support one single sentence.

Lines 48-53: Is there a specific reason to compare the U.S. and the Sweden? It seems to me incomparable. I suggest comparing, if you are willing to, Europe and the U.S. or other regions such as Asia, Africa or Australia.

Lines 54-59: I agree that several studies have investigated food waste behavior and social impact. However, why do you cite conference proceedings? I would rather cite some of the latest studies on the topic, published on scientific journals. Please, consider:

- Amicarelli, V., Lagioia, G., Sampietro, S. and Bux, C. (2021). Has the COVID-19 pandemic changed Italian food waste perception and behavior? Evidence from Italian consumers. Socio-economic planning sciences, 101095.  10.1016/j.seps.2021.101095

- Amicarelli, V., Tricase, C., Spada, A. and Bux, C. (2021). “Households’ food waste behavior at local scale: A cluster analysis after the Covid-19 Lockdown”, Sustainability, Vol. 13, 3238, https://doi.org/10.3390/su13063283

- Alaimo LS, Fiore M, Galati A. (2020).  How the covid-19 pandemic is changing online food shopping human behaviour in Italy. Sustainability, 12(22), 9594.

- Laguna L, Fiszman S, Puerta P, Chaya C, Ta ́rrega A. (2020). The impact of COVID-19 lockdown on food priorities. Results from a preliminary study using social media and an online survey with Spanish consumers. Food Qual Prefer, 86. 104028.

Lines 71-74: Instead of quoting the already cited references (i.e., proceedings), I suggest providing additional sources published on international scientific journals. As instance, according to the sentence: “it would be enough to overcome 870 million people”, the authors should read:

- Caldeira, C., De Laurentiis, V., Corrado, S., van Holsteijn, F. and Sala, S. (2019), “Quantification of food waste per product group along the food supply chain in the European Union: a mass flow analysis”, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, Vol. 149, pp. 479-488.

- Amicarelli, V. and Bux, C. (2020). “Food waste measurement toward a fair, healthy and environmental-friendly food system: A critical review”, British Food Journal, Vol. 123 No. 8, 2021 pp. 2907-2935.

Considering the high relevance of the literature review on the usability topic, I suggest the authors separate “Introduction” and “Literature review” (lines 83-148, approximatively), and conclude “Introduction” with lines 150-166.

Why Table 1 appears at page 3 and it is cited for the first time at page 9, line 270?

Why Table 2 is not cited in the text?

Lines 154-166: The authors present the aims and scope of the research. I suggest clarifying the research questions and adapt them to the results of the current research. I do not understand if respondents have been asked to “propose improvements” or to evaluate “improvements proposed by the authors”. Please, if you define “research questions” you should discuss them along the entire paper, as well as present the main results and outcomes with relation to them. However, they appear only in the Section “Introduction”.

 

Materials and Methods: Methodology should be clarified. I suggest the authors clearly distinguishing between Phase I and Phase II. What have you done in Phase I? What in Phase II? I do not understand if respondents have been asked to “propose improvements” or to evaluate “improvements proposed by the authors”.

It could be helpful to re-organize the structure of the section “Materials and methods” by adopting clear and comprehensive sub-paragraphs. I suggest, for instance, describing briefly (and concisely) the methodology applied (Phase I and Phase II), then presenting: (a) critical review criteria; (b) questionnaire design and items; (c) sampling strategy and data collection; (d) data analysis.

Although “Human Computer Interaction (HCI)” has been presented among keywords, I suggest defining the acronym also in line 172, since it appears for the first time in the manuscript.

Line 169-171, page 5: How have you conducted the “critical review”? I suggest the authors declaring: (a) research strategy; (b) research questions (to define the choice of search strings); (c) research strings; (d) review criteria (i.e., inclusion and exclusion criteria); (e) data collection; (f) data analysis. “Appendix” is not clear. In addition, how have you selected the “existing food wastage mobile application” among those available? It could be helpful to move to the beginning the Section “2.4. Criteria for selection of Food Wastage Mobile Application”. What about the “quantitative approach”?

“2.1. Ethical Information” could be included in sub-heading “Questionnaire design and items”

Purposive sampling represents a good opportunity. However, the authors should include some references of “successful” studies which can justify the choice of this methodology. Further, how have the authors selected the “expertise of respondents”?

I suggest the authors including references in Section “2.2. Sampling Method”. For instance, the authors state that “in developing countries context where few people make use of technology”. It is a strong statement: are there references one the topic?

Line 234-235: “For further utilization of data in another study”. I do not think it is useful to declare it in Section “Materials and methods”.

As far as concerns “Data Analysis”, I suggest describing in theory the methodology applied. In terms of “measures” (Table 3 and Table 4), it could be helpful to move them to Section “Results”.

Table 1 is cited at line 270 (page 9), but it appears at page 3. Is it a mistake?

 

Results: Results and clear and well presented. However, I suggest the authors clarifying from the very beginning of Section “Materials and methods” the difference between Phase I and Phase II. Indeed, it is still unclear if respondents, in Phase II, have been asked to evaluate the “prototype” (i.e., proposed design of the mobile application) or not. I still do not understand if respondents have been asked to “propose improvements” or to evaluate “improvements proposed by the authors”.

Lines 303-306: Here the authors declare the development of a prototype. Is it the proposed design of the mobile application? Why do you cite it, for the first time, in the section “Results”? What about the “hypothesis for the proposed design”? Please clarify.

Line 329: “a prototype has been designed”. Have the respondents tested it? Or has the prototype been developed on the basis of respondents’ answers, therefore it has not been tested? 

Sub-heading 3.3. is missing.

Could you please consider distinguishing between “Results” and “Discussion”, and include social, economic, managerial and/or environmental implications between usability and food waste? Indeed, the connection between food waste, hunger reduction and usability disappears, and none is said about it. Since the authors say that “no benefit has been taken with the usage of these food wastage mobile applications” (abstract), I expect them to discuss possible benefits/opportunities deriving from the improvement of mobile apps usability.

 

Conclusions: I suggest moving Section “4.1. Future recommendations” after the sub-heading “3.5. Limitations of the study”. In addition, I suggest the authors discussing the sampling bias. 

General suggestions: English is not always clear. I suggest proofreading the manuscript.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer!

Please find the attached file containing reviewers comments.

Best Regards
Mariam Rehman

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors of this paper examine an important set of issues through an interesting case study. With that being said, I suggest a few revisions before publication.

First, the concepts of food insecurity and food waste need to be better conceptualized. How do the authors conceptualize food systems, and how is food waste produced in that system? There are many different ways to theorize food insecurity and food waste for example and these should be discussed in the text, ideally early in the paper in the introduction and lit review sections. Right now, the intro's discussions on these issues is to brief and surface level. The lit review's discussion is very technical and not as much about food or food systems.

Second, the methods section needs more context. What is the value of conducting these methods? Why were they chosen and what do they show (or not show)?

Third, the results are interesting but lack context. What can be said about the case study's location (culture, economy, society, structure of food system, perspectives on food waste, etc.) that may have influenced the results? This is a big gap that should be discussed in the results section or elsewhere in the paper. Also, a map could be helpful to place the case study.

Fourth, the discussion/conclusion could more clearly clarify the value of the study's findings, impacts for current and future research, and for policy more generally.

Lastly, the paper could be reread for clarity to maximize readability.

Good luck on the revisions.

Author Response

The comments of Reviewer 4 have addressed.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The novelty and the necessity of this research is still unclear.

There is still a mix between Results and Methods sections. For eg. The sentence refering to SPSS should be move to methods. A more comprehensive description of the methods should be moved to the corresponding sections, not in Results. Overall, the manuscript is poor structured and difficult to understand. 

Author Response

The comments of Reviewer 1 have been fully addressed.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Well-revised based on the reviewers’ comments.

Author Response

The reviewer did not highlight any concern / issue.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

I thank you for having revised the manuscript according to my suggestions. I consider their revision in the structure of the manuscript, as well as in the methodology, adequate and suitable for publication. However, before I can confidentially suggest the publication of the manuscript in the Sustainability Journal, the authors are still asked to revise some concerns, as follows:

 

• Research Questions presented at lines 72-76 are still not clear. Could you please formulate them in a clear and comprehensive way? I believe that the questions can be better formulated, at present they are ambiguous.

 

• Literature review. The authors have distinguished the section “Introduction” from the section “Literature review”. They have added novel articles (references from 57 to 62). However, these articles have not been cited within the text. Suggested references should be discussed to make literature review and discussions stronger. Be sure that all references included in the list are cited in the manuscript (from 57 to 62).

 

• Social, economic and environmental implications. The present paragraph (lines 432-440) is insufficient and too generic. Please, consider discussing such issues a little bit more, and include them within a specific section entitled “Discussion” (not a simple sub-paragraph). In my opinion, the authors should introduce a new section entitled “Discussion” and include within it: (a) Recommendations; (b) Social, economic and environmental implications; (c) Limitations of the study; (d) Future recommendations.

I wish you good luck with your research.

Best regards

Author Response

The comments of Reviewer 3 have been addressed.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

This paper is improved in line with the reviewers' comments. It needs to be read through to maximize readability and to clarify the key arguments. The front end of the paper is better; however, I suggest that the authors work to ensure that their research objectives are framed as clearly and logically as possible. The reader needs to have a clear sense of the literature as it exists and how this study will fill important theoretical and empirical gaps.

Author Response

Dear Editor!

Please find the response against your review.

A thorough proofreading is carried out on manuscript to increase readability and fix typos (if any). The manuscript is rigorously reviewed to bring improvements in all sections within the context of the study and previous reviews. The updated version is attached for your kind consideration.

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript was improved comparing to previous versions.

Author Response

Dear Editor!

The author did not propose any changes.

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1) The abstract should be short and precise. Currently, it includes lots of unnecessary information. 

2) There is nothing called food waste, but food waste. Please correct everywhere it's needed. 

3) Introduction needs to be short and to the point. 

 

4) The paper needs to be revised for clarity. The paper has lots of grammatical errors and issues with sentence construction. 

5) The paper does not have research questions. 

6) The idea of the use of applications is not novel and I am still not sure how using reduces food waste. Again, I am not sure what you want to achieve by writing this paper. 

7) The research methodology presented as a flowchart is not how it is represented in academic papers. 

8) Why was purposive sampling done? Why so few participants? 

9) I am not sure how does a t-test measures the effectiveness of a program a policy when there are better methods such as propensity score matching and instrumental variable approach. 

10) The results do not make any sense and do not contribute to the existing literature. 

Author Response

I have tried my level best to address all the comments. If you still have any query then feel free to contact me.

Best Regards
Dr. Mariam Rehman

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is devoted the question how to decrease food waste through the use of mobile application. It has two, not coherently linked parts, the first - problem of hunger and the waste of food, described in the introduction and the second - the research project based on the survey the selected group of students in PAKISTAN used the EMMA mobile application. While second part may be evaluated positively from the side of methodology  and effects of research project, the first part needs a deep improvement. Also, there are  a weak links between introducion and research results and convclusions sections.

The introduction contains two parts. The first is a kind of collections a  data used to proof the importance of hunger and food waste. The second should explain the research concept and aims of the study. Both needs new editing and improvement. The existance of hunger and food waste doesn't need such broad and deetailed documentation,  assembled from different  sources, not olways comparable and  credible. Let me show the reference to the figure of total 70% of waste in China, as a country. Reference for this figure in line 66 is [3] and in line  78 [2].  Are these references credible? or may be the figure means somthing another than total food waste in China.  Such  large percentage of food wasted in this country is incredible. It is difficult to beliefe that 70% of food in China is wasted. Author giving such information should explain what this figure is and how it is estimated. Another example, it is the figure of 98 billion euros of food waste for household in the EU-28. Also statement  that 1.4 billion hectares of land   is occupied by the wasted food (line 109-110) is doubtful ? Please, compare also figure 1.4 bil. in line 109 to 1.5 bil.  in line 114. There are , I think,  errors related to merit and precision of language in the introduction.  Africa, inevitably   is not a country (line 44 and 83). Beginning of some  sentences from the reference number [6] line 48 and 122 seems to be also not acceptable.

The second part of introduction, lines 117 -147,  refered to the aims of study  and  methods which are used (mobile applicztion) as a tool for diminishing the food waste , needs to be better explained and described.  The essence and mechanisms  how food waste may be diminished by the use of mobile applications must be enlighted. Who are the actors of this waste diminishing activity; consumers, clients or other food chain members? Describing of wastes mechanisms in the different stages of food chain from the field at farm to the table of consumer  is also necessary.

There is necessary to write explanations for abbreviations used in the article such as FWMA, EMMA, HCI, BYODs and others.

There is necessary to proof, that conclusions and recomendations  are based and raised on this study.

 

Author Response

I have tried my level best to address all the comments and also include in manuscript file.

Best Regards
Dr. Mariam Rehman

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf