Lean Food Co.

Food delivery app for the active professional

Reading time: 5 minutes

Project Intro

This was the first project that I worked on after starting my UX Design Immersive course with General Assembly in London. The project is about designing a mobile app to solve a simple user problem for a fellow student.

Type: Solo Concept Project

Duration: 1 week + 1week

My Role: All project aspects, from user research to the high-fidelity prototype

Platform: Mobile app

Background

I was assigned a student partner to work with for the entire week and my tasks were:

Interview my partner about his needs and desires around a chosen theme
Identify a simple problem that could be solved through the synthesis of my research
Design an app for my partner to solve in an effective manner the problem identified through my research

The Challenge

The expected deliverables for this project can be summarised as follow:

User research, Experience Map, User Journey
Storyboard, User Flow
Paper Prototype, UI/Visual Design, Hi-Fi Interactive Prototype

The Process

My UX process follows an iterative path and can be represented in several different ways. Adaptability is key to the digital world that is constantly evolving and changing and my objective is to deliver incremental value to a product or a service.

Week #1

From UX research to Marvel paper prototype

Phase 1 — Discovery

User Interview

Leading with empathy means to be able to put yourself in the users’ situation, feel their pain and frustrations, as well as understand their objectives and motivations.

I interviewed Sam, who was intended to represent the “persona” for whom the app had to be designed for.

He comes across as a young and health conscious professional in his early-twenties, who enjoys food and keeps fit by practising sport activities. Productivity is also important for him, so saving time in some ways is a big plus.

Phase 2 — Synthesise

Pain Points

“I get frustrated when I cannot decide what to get at the grocery shop”

“I get irritated if I cannot find items or if I don’t know where they are”

“I get annoyed if I have to queue too long at the till or have to pay cash”

Motivations

“It would be good if I could get my grocery delivered at my doorstep”

“I do watch what I eat […], calories ingredients, fat content, etc.”

“It is nice when they offer you to try something new for free”

Experience Map

I used the Experience Map to imagine how Sam goes through his journey, what actions he needs to take to achieve his objectives and how his emotional state is during the whole process.

Phase 3 — Ideate

Storyboarding

I imagined how Sam would go about in his journey to get his groceries, so to visualise the key concepts I sketched a storyboard.

Outcome Statement

The storyboard helped me to pinpoint the problem and generate an outcome statement:

Situation: Sam needs to do his weekly grocery shopping

Problem: When Sam goes to the local store he is undecided on what to buy and at the till the queue is too long or only cash is accepted

Solution: By using the app, Sam can buy predifined grocery boxes online, check content details and book a slot for delivery

Outcome: Sam can now get his weekly grocery shopping deliverd to his doorstep and receive a chosen free sample

User Flow & Sketches

From the outcome statement in order to visualise what Sam would see and do with the app I had in mind, I created the user flow and sketched the wireframes:

Phase 4 – Prototyping

Usability Testing

My paper prototype was tested with 4 users, and the tests highlighted the following usability issues:

All users were confused about the delivery time-slot in the checkout screen
Payment screen was missing the button to review the order
In the box details screens, 2 users did not understand what the ingredients meant

This important feedback was then used for further improving my design solution.

Week #2

From paper prototype to UI Design and full interactive prototype

UI Design week started 2 weeks after the completion of the first part of the work. Before diving into the visuals, I ported the paper prototype created in the first week to a greyscale Mid-Fi mock-up.

While working on the Mid-Fi I realised that there were changes that I could do to further enhance my solution. I also did some additional usability testing with 4 users and implemented all the relevant changes in my prototype.

User Interface & Visual Design

I carried out a full study for the UI Design to define the brand.

I started with the brand personality, based on Sam’s personality: he is an active young man, one of the traits that I wanted the brand to reflect was energetic.
Sam’s health consciousness pops into my mind the adjective balanced, and his cheeky and friendly personality throws also humorous and sense of belonging.
His openness to try new foods reminded me of exploration.

For the branding study I then analysed the brand positioning, brand affinity and voice statement. and I created a number of moodboards.

Branding Positioning

Feelings Moodboard

Brand Affinity

Colours Moodboard

Solution

A fully working Hi-Fi prototype was the result of my 2-week effort. During my presentation to my student peers my project was well received.

Achievements

Sam would be able to comfortably order pre-set boxes of grocery from his mobile phone
The boxes are delivered at his home address on a date and time that is convenient to him
Sam would be able to experiment with new food by selecting a freebie available with each box
All payments are done via electronic means (no cash involved)

Future Considerations

A proper study for the logo should be done, as the current is rather basic
Provide the user with the possibility to customise the box content

Learnings

Designing an app around a single individual (as per project request) is rather limiting and taught me straight away that, as a UX Designer, I must search a wider number of participants to both assess user needs and help with the testing.

Personal bias and assumptions were probably the most challenging issues to overcome and at the end result, although functional, could have benefited from a slightly longer time-frame, with additional research done on competitors and the visuals design.

Do you like what you’ve seen? Contact me on mg.uxdesign@gmail.com

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Jimmy Tendency

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