BAKED4U is a local vegan bakery that creates top quality baked goods. In today’s world where ordering food from your phone is just a few clicks away, more and more businesses are realizing the benefits they can reap just by offering pre-order pick up options.
Overview
Project Duration
January 2022 – March 2022
The Product
This app is a mobile food ordering app for a local vegan bakery.
The Problem
Many people who are vegan oftentimes have problems finding foods that they can eat. On the other hand, there are people who want to eat affordable vegan foods but fear going into restaurants and not knowing what to order. Busy individuals do not have the time to cook and prepare food.
The Goal
Design an app for BAKED4U vegan bakery which will allow users to easily browse, order and pick up food.
Understanding the user
User Research
Personas
Problem Statements
Journey Maps
User Research
I began with conducting interviews to learn more about the needs of users. One primary user group that was identified is people who want to be able to browse food items before they ordered.
This user group encompasses both categories of users in the initial problem statement. Further research suggested that some of these users don’t have the time to cook foods themselves, find vegan recipes difficult or costly to make, and want to see all the nutritional information of what they eat.
User Pain Points
Uncertainty: Users who want to eat vegan foods whether they are vegan themselves or want to just try them out are uncertain about going into a restaurant to order food. Without knowing what is on the menu or seeing it beforehand, they could be confused about what to order.
Time: Users oftentimes don’t have the time to wait in lines or cook meals at home.
Cost: Vegan foods sometimes cost more or even the ingredients to make vegan food costs more. This deters users from even attempting to buy vegan food.
Personas
Sabrina is a busy Nurse who often eats vegan food. She wants to be able to order and pick up food on the way to work so she doesn’t have to cook at home or wait in line.
Design
Lo-Fi Prototypes
Usability Studies
Mockups
Hi-Fi Protoype
Lo-Fi Prototype
After sketching out paper wireframes and going through several iterations, I created a lo-fi prototype by connecting the screens.
My thought process during this was ensuring buttons are clearly marked and the flow is as clear as possible.
I kept the most relevant buttons on the navigation bar so that users can easily navigate between pages.
User Studies
Two usability studies were conducted. Round 1 study was conducted on the final lo-fi prototypes, and round 2 study was conducted on high-fidelity prototypes.
Round 1 findings:
– Users wanted additional nutritional information.
– Users confused by “order” and “full menu” button linking to the same page.
– No idea to know this is a vegan bakery.
Round 2 findings:
– Users wanted the payment information to be easier/faster.
– Users want to know an estimated time before ordering.
– Users found checkout process takes too long.
Mockups
Taking the feedback from the user studies I began creating the final mockups.
The order button and profile page button was integrated into the bottom navigation bar and the full menu button was removed. This makes it easier to access both the menu and your profile from most pages in the app. Vegan bakery was also added at the top so users know what kind of food is offered.
Saved cards are the main payment instead of having to enter payment information every time. This makes the checkout process faster. It’s also a popup that slides from the bottom instead of an entire new page.
Hi-Fi Prototypes
The final hi-fi design takes into account and incorporates all of the user findings we gathered. Rearranging and removing some buttons and pages made the checkout process both less confusing and faster. Additional nutritional information and estimated time before ordering was also added.
Accesability Considerations
– Used text accompanying icons to make navigation easier to understand.
Takeaways
One of the most important takeaways from this project is learning what a user actually needs in an app and what is just visual clutter. The purpose of a restaurant app is to order food. Anything that does not seamlessly lead them from opening the app to checkout can seriously deter a user.
Another takeaway is clarity. Using symbols instead of words might be beneficial to some, but others may find it unhelpful. A design might make sense to you but be confusing to someone else so feedback is very important.
