Making meal planning simple and healthy for busy people.

Project: Healthy Project App

Project type: Bootcamp Project

Time: 1.5 weeks

Tools: Figma

Member:

Jack He: Researcher, UI/UX Designer
Brian Chan: Researcher, UI/UX Designer
Aiden Ruiz: Researcher, UI/UX Designer

My responsibilities were -

> Synthesizing User Feedback

> Conducting User Research

> Delivering solutions through design methods and techniques

Introduction

The Healthy Project app is crafted to support busy individuals in efficiently managing their meals, offering a practical solution to the challenge of combining nutritious eating with hectic schedules. Developed as a Bootcamp project, this app serves as a companion in the quest for a healthier lifestyle amidst daily rushes.

The problem

The app confronts the significant challenge busy people face in meal planning: balancing the need for quick meal solutions with the desire for nutritious, balanced diets. The goal is to make healthy eating practical and accessible for everyone, regardless of their tight schedules.

Goals & Objectives

Our primary objective is to help users create well-balanced meals quickly and easily, furnishing them with all the necessary information to make informed food choices. Key goals include:

Providing a broad selection of healthy recipes.
Offering nutritional information and meal tracking features.
Enabling users to maintain a balanced diet effortlessly.

Solution & Features

The Healthy Project app includes several key features designed to customize the meal planning experience:

Flexible Meal Planning: Tailor your meal plans based on dietary preferences and time constraints.
Advanced Filters: Find meal options that fit your health goals and dietary needs.
Nutritional Insights: Detailed nutritional information to guide informed meal choices.

Understanding Our Audience

User Research & Personas

Our primary audience includes individuals aged 25-30 who lead busy lives. Insights from interviews with this demographic have shaped the app's development, highlighting a strong need for our meal planning solutions.

It's all about finding out if they've tried apps or any tricks for planning meals and what's worked or not. we're figuring out if people use any apps or hacks to fit healthy eating into their busy schedules.

We asked these questions to understand the daily food challenges for busy people.
We want to know what makes healthy eating hard when time is tight.
Our goal is to create an app that makes healthy meal planning quick and easy.

We chatted about eating and cooking in their busy lives. Here's the scoop:

Taste Wins: Everyone wants food that tastes great. So, our app's have tons of tasty, healthy recipes.
Quick & Easy: People grab fast food because it's fast. Our app needs to be just as quick but way healthier.
Money Talks: Eating well can be pricey. We're making sure our app helps find meals that are good for your body and your wallet.
Personal Touch: Diets and food needs vary. Our app will let people customize also add to plan to what they like and need.

User Persona

A typical user persona might be "Amy", a busy professional who struggles to find time for meal prep but wants to maintain a healthy diet.

Design & Development

The Affinity Diagram Narrative

Our story begins with a whiteboard, markers, and a pile of interview notes — the raw material for our affinity diagram. We start plotting the data under five key signposts that emerge as the chapters of our app's development tale:

Challenges in Planning: We discover that our users' paths are often blocked by the time — there's just not enough of it. They want to eat healthily but can't seem to dodge the quicksand of fast food and skipped meals.
Meal Prep Plans: They're cooking lots of meals at once or planning ahead, but when plans change, they need an app that helps them adjust quickly.
Dietary Restrictions: We navigate the forests of gluten-free, the low-carb deserts, and the peaks of protein-rich requirements.
Must-Have Features: A way to keep track of their grocery shopping, regular reminders for meal times, and recipes that match what they like and need.
Calorie Consideration: A lot of folks keep an eye on their calories. They're looking for an app that makes it easy to keep track of everything they eat.

As we connect these dots, our affinity diagram becomes a map, guiding us through the design labyrinth. Each sticky note, each insight, is a step towards an app that understands its user's quests and prepares them to conquer the day, one meal at a time.

Storyboards & User Flows:

Visual tools that helped map out the user experience, focusing on the user's interaction and emotional engagement with the app.

Our user flow begins with Starting the Journey, where users like Amy are welcomed and guided through the app. Then comes Making Choices, where users set up their profile and outline their dietary preferences. The next step, Customizing the Experience, allows users to tailor the app based on their unique tastes and needs.

Moving on, Discovering Possibilities presents users with meal options that fit their lifestyle. In Deciding the Next Step, the app offers solutions whether Amy wants to dine out, order in, or cook for herself. Finally, we reach Reaching the Goal, where users achieve their aim of a healthy meal, tailored to their time and place.

This user flow is designed to be a straightforward path to healthier eating habits, with every step tailored to make the process intuitive and supportive for our users.

Clickable Prototype Click to see full prototype

An interactive prototype that showcases the app's functionality and design.

Testing & Feedback

User testing sessions were conducted to gather feedback, which led to several iterations of the app to improve usability and satisfaction. Highlights from user feedback emphasized the app's ease of use and informative content. Here are feedback what can be improved:

Increase font size for better readability on small devices.
Create an community forum where users can discuss topics, and meals.
Add rating or top list on meals.

Results & Impact

The app has been well-received, with users reporting that it significantly eases the burden of meal planning. Metrics and testimonials collected suggest improvements in users' dietary habits and overall satisfaction with their meal management.

Conclusion & Future Directions

Reflecting on our journey, the development of the Healthy Project app has been a learning-rich experience. We faced challenges, such as meeting the diverse needs of our target audience, but the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Future developments will focus on expanding our recipe database and integrating more personalized nutritional tracking.