Which items should go to the different areas of your base?

Question

In Zombies, Run! as you run you collect various items. At the end of your run you can use those items to upgrade a number of different areas of your base: the Hospital, Comms, Housing, Armory, Food, or Recreation.

I've noticed that any non-story-specific item you collect can be applied to any area of the base. But certain items seem to be more effective than others. E.g., a medkit will level up the hospital more than a mobile phone does, but the mobile phone will level up your Comms much more than a medkit. Makes sense.

But other items are not so obvious - does a shirt go to Housing? Recreation? What about a box of light bulbs?

How can I tell what items are most effective in which areas of the base?

Answer 1

The answer to this is here: http://checkthis.com/2und

Ultimately, it boils down to color coding, which was my initial thought when I started playing the game.

Orange -> food

Yellow -> housing

Blue -> comms

Green -> hospital

Red -> armory

Grey -> recreational

The article in the link also does a really good job of laying out the individual items and what zone they go to, but without having to look up each individual item every time, the color coding works perfectly.