Overview

FoodFlex is an app to help users make smart decision on food delivery that meets their budget and diet preference.

Background

Demand for food delivery has soared during the pandemic. The delivery apps boomed fiercely, especially DoorDash has achieved a 83% increase in their revenue.

Role

The services are also found to be much pricier than they were pre-pandemic. Besides the rise of food costs, the platforms adds many fees that results in incredibly high total. If being with users, what can we do to cut their expenses while avoid trading off the quality of a meal?

UX Research, UX Design, Product Design, UI/Visual Design, Branding

Timeline

Feb-May 2021

The Proposal

Business Goal

“Find the best deals that satisfy users”

When there are two options that cost more and less, it's likely that people are happy to go for the later one. But realistically the food delivery platform offers great varieties of options, and making choices is not necessarily easy. To satisfy users' need in making choices they indeed like, we sure have to make comprehensive consideration.

Challenge

“How to get there?”

There are multiple factors that participate in the decisions making process. Besides costs, diet preferences and restrictions are also crucial to be included. The delivery apps currently available on market could allow users to adjust their preferences, but there aren't any concrete features to find cheaper options. In order to achieve finding the best deals, we need to find ways to differentiate this product from those delivery apps.

Research

User Personas

Henry Healthy

25 - 45 in age
Busy professional

Their GoalMaintain a healthy diet with hectic working schedules

Bridget Budget

18 - 35 in age
Student/ New professional

Their Goal
Enjoy quality food at a fair cost of delivery service

User Interviews & Insights

10

Interviewees

6

4

Busy professionals

Students

(The other 2 interviews were done in person)

The Synthesis & Patterns

What did I learn? ✨

Assumptions

Learnings

Users would define healthy food similarly.

Users would browse through app when they need to order something.

Users would find subscribing to automatic delivery service to be helpful.

Users would rely on reviews from other users in app.

Users want to choose healthy food based on their own standards.

Users want to know ahead of time what they want to eat .

Users want to be free from the inflexibility of subscription service.

Users still wants to do their own research.

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👉

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👉

The Problem 😩

Both busy professionals and students care to stay with a great diet while make sure they don’t overspend on their delivery orders. They struggle to find the best deals for the food they want with having to scroll through many restaurant menus and compare them back and forth. They end up skipping the time-consuming procedure for quicker decisions, failing to cut the expense they want to avoid.

Ideation

User Journey

Concept Testing

“Nice try but...”

👍

Likes the set-up questions of the chatbot to be easy to read with offering enough options to response with.
The step-by-step guiding through to set up preferences feels smooth.

🤔

"Create" doesn't feel like an intuitive action in this context.
Dislikes that the messages could occupy too much space due to the layout and needs to be scrolled through when being revisited.

👍

Likes the fact that it lands on discovery page
Switching side to side with the toggle switch button feels easy to use.

🤔

Dislikes that "Compare" button is confusing. Thinks that it may guide them to compare different restaurants but unclear with its purpose.

👍

Thinks that the swiping feature is very intuitive.
Likes that there is the option between "like" and "dislike" to allow the item to show up again.

🤔

Dislikes that there aren't more options to look at on the page
Not helpful for making fast decisions when there is no time for swiping.

The Solution

“What if we reorganize the information from current food delivery platforms in a way that maximizes users’ possibilities of making the best decision?”

Iteration Highlights

Taking feedback from the user testings, the app replaced chatbot with filters to avoid longwinded display of texts and infinite conversations with the bot. All preference settings can now be adjusted all at once.

Instead of keeping the confusing "Compare" option in a toggle switch button, the app separates the fee-comparing feature from home screen by creating the "Budget" page. Canceling the toggle switch on the top is also to make space for displaying the details of fee.

By removing the "swipe to discover" feature, the app choose to layout the home screen that looks more generic. However, instead of prioritizing showing the restaurants like most delivery apps do, it shows the dishes first for users to refer to. After all, it is the food that the users want to order for their meal, not who that provides the food.

FoodFlex