Background

I worked as the only designer on a food delivery app, Nourish. I designed and prototyped the first version of the app. Through identifying the users' needs, defining the gaps in apps currently in the market, iterating product design and ultimately refining the product based on in-depth evaluation of user flow, I successfully refined my understanding of the genuine user desires, which diverged from my initial app goals and assumptions.

Nourish was designed with both food delivery and community connection in mind. Additionally, convenience, enhanced user well-being and user rewards were important components of the app design process. Globally, the food service market “reached 2.52 trillion U.S. dollars in 2021. This figure was forecast to grow to 4.43 trillion U.S. dollars in 2028, showing a CAGR of 9.9 percent from 2021 to 2028” (Statista). While there are many popular food delivery apps on the market, Nourish is unique in that it enhances user engagement through social network features, creates deeper connections to users community through the reviews of friends, expands users culinary horizons and pulls users back to the app through rewards. 

When there is so much saturation in the marketplace for food delivery apps, users may compromise on their experience to choose what is known if there are not genuine differences in experience and outcomes. Nourish will cut through the noise and provide users a new experience in food delivery apps.

My users are young, busy professionals who love food, love spending time with their friends and family and do not always have time to make a meal at home or go out to eat. They generally order food off food delivery apps when they are pinched on time or if they have people around who want to share a meal. One user shared, “There are times where I am too busy, and need to order food online to my home, but it is a hard decision to make since I miss talking to restaurant staff, my friends and other customers when I am eating alone at home.” Another user shared, “I love food and gathering with my best friends. We try to go out once a month to a new restaurant. We have a shared note, called “Places to go Together” to keep track of all the restaurants we want to try. We rarely stay in, but would sometimes are convinced to do so if there is a good deal on delivery and we are tired.” 

They are looking for a food delivery app that still keeps them connected to their community while ordering in. Nourish is setting out to meet that need and enhance their lives through a seamless delivery process, ample restaurant options and an engaging social networking feature.

As I began to consider food delivery apps, I thought about who would use the app. I sought out 3 people who used food delivery apps regularly and met with them over zoom to conduct directed story-telling research. I wanted to identify more concretely the areas in which people felt current apps in the market  were serving them well and where there was room for improvement. 

The commonalities: 

CONNECTION

WELL-BEING

REWARDS 

My aha moment after the Directed Story Telling sessions was realizing that ordering off food delivery apps was seen as a treat or splurge outside of their regular meal planning when the users were busy or tired. How could I create an app that would keep users coming back? 

Following the first round of interactive prototyping, I recruited 3 more individuals to participate in a Think-aloud Evaluation for my app. Their insights helped me elevate the next level of the interactive prototype of Nourish. 

• 66% of the participants felt confident in navigating to and around Nourish’s “Friend Feed.”

  • One participant struggled to identify where they needed to go to see the “Friend Feed” from the apps home page, but once there, they were pleasantly surprised with the feature, stating “I could see myself using this a lot when i do not know what to eat or where to order from. It is inspiring me to order Wrectangle Pizza right now.” 

• 100% of the participants reflected that having a social networking style feature for a food delivery app was novel and would incline them to use this app over competitors since they felt more tied to their community despite ordering delivery. 

• 100% of the users were able to navigate the app easily from browsing restaurant options, using the order screen and accessing their cart.

Their feedback around app aesthetics like color choice, font, imagery and iconography used helped me in creating second round changes that would enhance users functional and aesthetic consistency as well as users mental models on how to interact with a food delivery app that has social media capabilities.

This was my first time working as a UX designer on any project. I was able to follow the identify, prototype and evaluate design lifecycle and find areas that challenged me and areas that excited me while creating Nourish. This was the first time I conducted UX research, implemented specific design principles and communicated my findings and ideas to others. Bringing sketched wireframes to life on Figma was an incredible feeling as well. I initially appreciated being able to spend a shorter amount of time on sketches of each app page, but I do feel that as a designer, seeing the full picture outside of IA Diagramming, will help provide the best possible user experience outcome. If I am working on creating an app from scratch again, seeing all pages from A to Z will also support how I understand my initial research and what my goals are during app evaluation. I am excited to continue to grow as a UX designer and learn all the things I do not know I want and need to know in this process. 

Lessons Learned 

• Spend more time on initial research to understand user goals and pain points to help focus the work 

• Spend more time identifying what users actual desire versus what they want or may have interest in seeing in an app

• Focus on the basics of the design, then build out more thoroughly  

• Create better outcome for user goals and genuine app usability 

Moving Forward 

As I reflect more on my first project, I want to spend more time learning about the different ways to conduct initial research, pull information/insights  from my conversations with user groups and learn how to refine and concretely outline project scope. I am also eager to deepen my knowledge in Figma and learn how to increase my designs' interactivity. I believe this will lead to better user experience outcomes in the evaluation stage of the design lifecycle and as I go back to implement improvements.