Designing a reliable, useful, and convenient Food-as-a-Service
MealPal is a meal subscription service that allows people to have their daily lunch from the nearest restaurants for less than $6 per meal. I've been using the service for over a year. After using it for a couple of month, I faced some frustrating points, and noticed that there were people who felt the same as me and eventually decided to stop using it. As a big fan of MealPal, I thought I might be able to solve the problems through design.
In this case study, I wanted to suggest the ideas on how they may retain the users by solving those problems. See final work here.
TIMELINE
June- Oct 2019
Role
Product Design + Research (Individual Project)
TOOL
Figma, Illustrator
See Your Save
Reserve Meals Easy and Quick
Learn More about Your Meal
PROBLEM
Although the Food Service Market has experienced steady growth and MealPal's unique positioning as a “Meal-pickup-only service”, users are uncertain about continuing their subscription. Why?
1
Lack of Reliability
Users are suspicious of their saving as there’s no mention about the original cost of the meal
2
Lack of Information
Users care about their dish more than provided information on the current Meal Detail
3
Lack of Convenience
Mandatory rating, poor map-defaulted-page, and complex steps for changing meal plan drop the service usability
By providing what users want to know when selecting the menu and proving its core value that is time/cost saving, MealPal will be a better food-as-a service than competitors, in that is more efficient and worthy to renew their subscription.
Curating System
Suggesting customized recommendation based on user’s history would save their time on menu decision
More about the Meal
Providing more information to help users understand more about meals
My Save/Good News
An indicator to show how much users save compared to dine-in or delivery services
Process
Discover
research
The Food Service is undergoing rapid change more than ever before, by digital technology and mobile evolution. While digging into research, I found major key trends happening in the market now.
Market Research (Click to enlarge)
Market Research (Click to enlarge)
Insights
Food Service Market has been continuously growing, led by online food delivery.
Consumers now are constantly demanding convenient, time-saving services. The change is driving an emergence of new types of Food-as-a-Service, which is on-demand, and direct-to-consumer (D2C).
In this growth, subscription has become commonly adopted as a business model, aligned with consumers' desire for convenience and various options.
USER INTERVIEW
At the same time as I did the research, I met 7 users to understand their behavior and thoughts about food services. Throughout the interview, I was able to find how users felt about MealPal and what they expect for mobile food services.
7/7 care about every aspect of their dish from its photo, reviews, price, ingredients, but the priority was different.
7/7 users wanted to know how much they would save money via MealPal compared to other food apps, especially delivery services.
5/7 expect a better food service that helps them select a menu faster and easier.
6/7 users said Time Saving is the greatest motivation for using mobile food service.
What I Found
Research
At the same time as I did the research, I met 7 users to understand their behavior and thoughts about food services. Throughout 7 interviews, I was able to find how users felt about MealPal and what they expect for mobile food services.
Synthesis
7/7 cares about every aspect of their dish from its photo, reviews, price, ingredients, but the priority was different.
7/7 users wanted to know how much they would save money via MealPal compared to other food apps, especially delivery services.
5/7 expect a better food service that helps them select a menu faster and easier.
6/7 users said Time Saving is the greatest motivation for using mobile food service.
Food Service Market has been continuously growing, led by Online Food Delivery.
Consumers now are constantly demanding convenient, time-saving services. The change is driving to emerge new types of Food-as-a-Service, which is on-demand, and direct-to-consumer(D2C).
In this growth, subscription has become commonly adopted as a business model, aligned with consumers' desire for convenience and various options.
MealPal’s subscription-model is a clear value proposition that is providing affordable price and time convenience.
People expect faster and more convenient Food-as-a-Service, including a reasonable price.
MealPal’s strengths are obstructed by unclear communication and inconvenient UI that prevent users from continuing their subscription.
Food Service is undergoing rapid change than ever before, by digital technology and mobile evolution. While digging into research, I found major key trends happening in the market now.
User Interview
SYNTHESIS
1
Highlight Value Proposition
MealPal’s has a clear value proposition that is providing affordable price and time convenience, and it's worth to be more highlighted.
2
What Do People Truly Need?
People now expect faster and more convenient Food-as-a-Service, including a reasonable price.
3
What Makes MealPal Difficult to Accomplish That?
MealPal’s strengths are obstructed by unclear communication and inconvenient UI that prevent users from continuing their subscription.
Define
THE USER
I had categorized user types into three groups to identify what are the key variables to them when using food apps. Then I developed 3 personas representing each group.
Saver : People who consider cost & time efficiency the most important
Explorer : People who love to try diverse food at affordable price
Picky Eater: People who are selective and avoid certain group of food
Design Goals
So how can I improve user's problems? I set three goals below:
1
Increase Reliability
Build trust for the service through transparent communication about the meal cost
2
Let Users Know More
Give more information about each meal that users want to know
3
Be Easy and Fast
Provide more simple, easier and faster steps to feel the service is truly convenient and useful
DESIGN REQuirement
Using How Might We method, I brainstormed design requirements. And finally, I narrowed down to final features.
Saver : How might it show saving estimation and walking distance? (Feature 3 - Good News)
Explorer : How might it provide users’ review with photos when making a reservation? (Feature 2 - More about the Meal)
Picky Eater: How might it suggest a curated meal list based on the user’s past history? (Feature 1 - Curating System)
Develop
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
For the next step, I designed an information architecture to determine which features should be placed where. Since many new pages were required to create, figuring out the flow and key elements on each screen was helpful to design efficiently.
Information Architecture (Click to enlarge)
SKETCH & WIREFRAMES
I did rough sketches first, then created low-fidelity wireframes of the key changes. Since my design has many changes from the original app, I decided to do a user testing with low-fidelity design before moving on to prototype.
Initial Sketch (Click to enlarge)
Wireframes (Click to enlarge)
PAPER PROTOTYPE
I conducted 4 user testings with paper prototypes to test the general usability and weed out confusing element. This is conducted by requiring users to execute instructions regarding the several tasks with little to no help. By doing so, I was able to figure out what flow/layout would be the best decision. Then, using the feedback from the usability test, I outlined the wireframes of the entire app and created several key path to further analyze the flow of interaction of the app.
USER TASK + GOALS
1. Reserve a Meal
[Scenario] You’re Alex. Reserve a Chicken Burrito at Mexicana for tomorrow’s lunch at 12:00 P.M.
[Goal] To identify how user feels about the process for reserving a meal
2. Post a Review
[Scenario] You want to post a review about chicken bowl you had yesterday. Write a photo review with a short comment about the meal.
[Goal] To understand how user proceed to review for about meal
3. Check out My Save & My points
[Scenario] You'd like to know how much did you save & how much points did you earn during this cycle. Find My Save & My points and see your benefits.
[Goal] To identify how easily user find My Save and My Points
Design
How I got here
After several rounds of critique on the wireframes, I then moved on to creating high-fidelity prototypes. I decided to keep the primary red and typeface of the original app rather than changing them because they represent the brand. Instead, my solution was more focused on creating new features that will smoothly be added to the current app. The redesign is created using an 8-point grid to provide a better structure, the icons are redesigned to create a better consistency, and the typography is revamped to provide better information hierarchy. See the comparisons below.
1. My Save & Good News
My solution to solve 'lack of reliability' was providing information about how much a user actually save their money through MealPal.
In Good News, users can see how much money they approximately would save on each meal compared to delivery service or dining-in at the restaurant, when reserving a meal. This was an idea to build trust about the service by proving MealPal is cost beneficial.
Another feature, My Save is where users can see a dashboard that is aggregation of their saving amount in their meal plan.
2. Curating System
One of the main reasons I found why people prefer pick-up service was because “It saves your time". In this regard, users can skim daily recommendation via new curating system- categorized by cuisines and the filters based on their history.
I noticed the context behind how people decide their menu is similar to when we pick a song on the music app. It can be weather, the most-popular list, their feelings or situation.
So I created 5 different categories. (Your recent pickup, The most-popular meals, Fresh and light, Guilty pleasure, New Challenge You Never Had). A user simply can see more menus if there's particular curation they're interested in.
3. More About the Meal
In order to give more information to users, I changed Meal Detail has more photos, nutrition facts, saving estimation and a user review about each meal.
Adding a user reviewwas another important change here. I thought the review should be optional since current mandatory rating can’t guarantee the quality of comment , it's rather an annoying step for users can't skip. Instead, I chose giving a reward point to users in return.
In my design, users can write a review through the reminder box on the first page or at their past reservations.
1. My Save & Good News
My solution to solve 'lack of reliability' was providing information about how much a user actually save their money through MealPal.
In Good News, users can see how much money they approximately would save on each meal compared to delivery service or dining-in at the restaurant, when reserving a meal. This was an idea to build trust about the service by proving MealPal is cost beneficial.
Another feature, My Save is where users can see a dashboard that is aggregation of their saving amount in their meal plan.
FINAL OUTCOME
Curating System
One of the main reasons I found why people prefer pick-up service was because “It saves your time." In this regard, users can skim daily recommendations via new curating system- categorized by cuisines and the filters based on their history.
I noticed the context behind how people decide their menu is similar to when we pick a song on a music app. It can be weather, the most-popular list, their feelings or situation.
So I created 5 different categories. (Your recent pickup, The most-popular meals, Fresh and light, Guilty pleasure, New Challenge You Never Had). A user simply can see more menus if there's particular curation they're interested in.
In order to give more information to users, I changed the Meal Detail page so that it has more photos, nutrition facts, saving estimation, and user reviews. I thought the review should be optional since current mandatory rating can’t guarantee the quality of comment , it's rather an annoying step for users can't skip. Instead, I chose giving a reward point to users in return.
To build trust about the service, Good News provides information about cost benefit users can achieve through MealPal. When reserving a meal, users can see how much money they approximately would save on each meal compared to delivery service or dining-in at the restaurant. Another feature, My Save is a dashboard where users can see an aggregated saving amount in their meal plan.
One of the main reasons I found why people prefer pick-up service was because “It saves your time”. In this regard, users can skim daily recommendation via new curating system- categorized by cuisines and the filters based on their history.
I noticed the context behind how people decide their menu is similar to when we pick a song on the music app. It can be weather, the most-popular list, their feelings or situation.
So I created 5 different categories. (Your recent pickup, The most-popular meals, Fresh and light, Guilty pleasure, New Challenge You Never Had). A user simply can see more menus if there's particular curation they're interested in.
3. More About The Meal
In order to give more information to users, I changed Meal Detail has more photos, nutrition facts, saving estimation and a user review about each meal.
Adding a User Review was another important change here. I thought the review should be optional since current mandatory rating can’t guarantee the quality of comment , it's rather an annoying step for users can't skip. Instead, I chose giving a reward point to users in return.
In my design, users can write a review through the reminder box on the first page or at their past reservations.
Current Design
My Design
Reflection
LESSON LEARNED
1
Focus on "why"
I learned that the most important part of the discovery phase is understanding WHY/WHY NOT users use the service and what it implies. Because that gives me a direction of what my design goal will be. I found this process was very similar to marketing in terms of figuring out what intrigues users to the service.
2
Test, Test, Test
Design is a never-ending process. Through conducting user test many times, I learned how design can evolve through iterations, so I should always be ready to change and improve by those repetitive journeys.
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