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MEALS MADE EASY

UX Research / UX | UI Design | Usability Tests

(View on mobile)

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Project Background

How many times this week have you ordered food from a food delivery app because you are hungry, have no time to cook, and/or are just plain lazy? Bombarded with the number of meal options available online, we often stress, procrastinate, and struggle to find time to plan what to eat amidst our busy schedules.

Most of us end up ordering takeout, which is a contributor to expanding waistlines and can be costly over the long term. 

Duration -June-July 2021 (5 Weeks)

Team

Mabel Teng - Product Manager
Jesse Brault - Developer
Me - Product Designer

Tools

Figma, Trello

UX Methods

User Testing, Prototyping, Design System

Solution

Meals Made Easy is a progressive web application that organizes your end-to-end meal planning process from customizing Personalized Preferences, Recipe Browsing to Building a Calendar Planner. 

How Might We ...
address the user's problem?

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Final Design

Key Features -

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  • Customize your preferences 

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  • Browse meals catered to your needs

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  • View Recipe

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  • Build Meal Planner

Research

Market Research

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Restaurant delivered meals are 5X as expensive as homemade meals

Meal kit delivery services are 2X as expensive as homecooked food.

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54%

Pandemic has re-sparked a joy in cooking for Americans.

51%

Americans have indicated that they prefer to cook more at home post pandemic.

User Research

We learned that most people plan 1-6 meals each week,  diving deeper into our user interviews, we identified some common themes that influence their meal planning process.and most of them struggle with:

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Survey results - Pain Points.png

Key takeaway: As it currently takes too long for users to plan their meals while keeping their needs in mind, there exists a whitespace for us to find a way to help users in their meal planning process.

Ideation

Persona

Creating personas helped me understanding who my user is, to acknowledge that different people have different requirements and expectations.

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Brainstorming

I sent up a collaborative session with my PM & Developer to understand the personas to center the solutions around the users and our data.
The mission of the product is to help individuals focus on other areas of their lives without worrying about planning what they want to eat.
Our hypothesis is that if we provide an end-to-end solution that simplifies their meal planning process, it will:

Prevent decision fatigue - It stops people from stressing out and procrastinating when deciding what to eat amidst their busy schedules since meals are planned.

Promote variety and a healthier lifestyle - It enables variety that not only meets your nutrient needs but also gives you more control over what you are eating, thus encouraging a healthier lifestyle.

Save money - Not only does it reduce the temptation to impulse purchase takeout food, but you are also able to avoid waste since you are planning meals ahead of time.
 

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To narrow our focus in delivering a minimum viable product (MVP) within a tight timeframe, we decided to prioritize our solutions using an importance-prioritization matrix:

Journey Map

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Existing

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To Be

Story Board

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Low-Fi Wireframes

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Mid - Fi Wireframes

After getting feedback from my mentor and understanding the constraints from the developer, I started to build more detailed Mid- fi wireframes for my first round of testing.

User Testing

After getting feedback from my mentor and understanding the constraints from the developer,

I started to build more detailed Mid- fi wireframes for my first round of testing.


Results
 

  • The design resulted in a 95% average task completion rate of adding a particular recipe to their meal planner

  • Participants had a positive experience completing the tasks.

  • Users were confused about the category tab

  • User's felt the process was long.

Hi - Fi & Iterations

After getting feedback from my user’s I incorporated the changes into my fi-hi mocks ups.

Challenges
 

  • While I was conducting user testing, our developer was working on getting an API at a minimum cost. Only once we had access to the API, we were able to get more clarity on the limitations we might have.

  • Building a search engine was not possible due to technical constraints, So I had to redesign my screens making sure the app was intuitive enough for something to navigate through the app without reaching the search bar.

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What’s next?

Up next, I plan to run another round of usability tests to measure task completion rate and user satisfaction. By increasing user satisfaction and credibility, usage should increase and help advocate for the product I will also be coordinating with the developers to more accurately reflect the designs across the different screen sizes.


This app is currently live at Meals Made Easy

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Learnings

  • I got to learn by doing, trying, and finding solutions to specific problems.

  • To design following inclusive design principles and deeper knowledge of accessibility - (Which currently doesnt reflect in the MVP but I’m working on it.

  • How to prioritize, pivot, and adjust constantly to release an MVP within a short deadline.

  • Collaborate with teammates with different skillsets and expertise.

  • Working in an Agile setting.

  • More knowledge about Figma having used it extensively.

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