Timeline:
March 21st - July 9th
Role:
UI/UX Designer on a solo project for Google Cousera online course.
Responsibilities:
Conducting interviews, paper and digital wireframing, low and high-fidelity prototyping and usability studies.
Problem:
Despite the number of people who order food through a delivery app, most people still find it very expensive because of the additional high fees attached.
Goal:
To provide users who order through our app with a fast and easy way to order food. My mission is to make this app stand out to the users more than the competing apps on the market to ensure a regular customer base with the users.
Competitive Analysis:
With a wide scope of food delivery apps out there I knew I had to make sure that my deals section would stand out from other competing apps. I researched the top food delivery apps that were on the market. I took note of their deals section, visual design, the flow of the app (browsing, purchasing, receiving orders), and compared some of the things they did to keep users coming back.
Here are some of the apps I analyzed to get a deeper understanding of food delivery apps that are on the market.
User Research:
In the beginning stages of creating this app, I had my own assumptions on how I thought a food delivery app would be beneficial. However, since placing users at the forefront in all of my developmental decisions is very important, I conducted one on one interviews with users to get an understanding of their needs.
During my interview sessions I received information that I looked deeply into to see how I could address any pain points the users had with food delivery apps in general. After conducting interviews, I realized my assumptions were different from the users, so I started to guide my app to be in line with the user's needs.
Personas
I then formed the information I gathered and turned them into user personas. One of my user personas, Evan Smith, is a 32-year-old full-time employee who doesn't really have the time to prepare his meals. He uses food delivery apps frequently though he knows it takes up a huge part of his budget. He wants to find a way where he can continue to not have to cook and still save money.
Problem Statement
Evan is a full time Engineer who needs to know he’s getting everything he ordered.
He would also like discounts on his orders because he uses this app daily and the fees can be very
pricey. He would like to be rewarded for being a frequent customer.
Once I created my personas, I began to map out their user journey to get a deeper understanding.
Mapping through Evan’s journey map, I realized how important it would be to include a deals section on my app. However, I also noticed the customer service functions on these apps were not the best. I made sure to take note of that to make sure I prevented that from happening in the future with this design. Once I gathered the information I needed from the users I formed a problem statement so that I could have a clear picture of the user needs.
Here is a full display of my wireframes.
Usability Studies:
Once I created my digital wireframes I conducted 2 rounds of Usability Studies to find what needed improvement.
Round 1 Findings
Users desires to:
Order food quickly.
Have Icons to help guide them.
Have a variety of options.
With the information I gathered from my first round of Usability Studies I designed my wireframes into high fidelity mockups.
Round 2 Findings
There Should be a step before item gets added to the cart.
The images should be larger in the deals section.
After the second round of Usability Studies, I used these findings to iterate on my design to meet the user’s needs. Also based on the feedback from my peers + mentor feedback I iterated over my designs. Over the span of 3-4 weeks I implemented some major improvements to my app.
Changes that I made on the selected items page.
I added a page where when you select an item, you could view your items and have the option to add it to your cart rather when you select it goes straight to your cart.
Changes that I made on the deals page.
I made the images bigger. I gave the users the option to filter the items based on their dietary preferences. I took away the breakfast, lunch, and dinner categories, since this was a deal section it would be easier to have one category and let the users filter based on the dietary preferences.
If you would like further details of the information on my 2 rounds of Usability Studies, below is a presentation I did for a peer review project.
Prototype for my final Mockups.
The Final Product:
Given the research that I conducted I wanted to give the deals section on the homepage a higher visibility so that it would stand out. By doing this it is a higher chance the user would select this section and browse the deals page.
Design Process:
Design Thinking
Using the design thinking process allowed me to Empathize with the users and start the process of discovering any pain points that came up through interviewing users, empathy mapping, creating personas, journey mapping, and creating user stories. I analyzed this information and Defined it by forming a problem statement to synthesize and get a clearer understanding of the problem. Before moving to the Ideation phase, I formed a hypothesis statement to give my educated guess on what I thought the solution could be. Once I got to the Ideation phase, I conducted a competitive audit. I began sketching ideas using the crazy eights exercise. I created a goal statement and started to storyboard the user flow. This led to sketching wireframes then turning them into digital wireframes and low-fidelity Prototypes. I Tested out my low-fidelity prototypes through a round of usability studies. Analyzing the data I discovered, I organized it by affinity diagramming, and synthesizing it. I Iterated on my designs to meet the user's needs and began to create high-fidelity mockups. I repeated the defining, ideation, prototyping and testing phase with my mockups which led to my final design.
What I learned
While designing the Zip2U app I learned so much about the role of a UI/UX designer one of the things that stuck to me was iteration is a constant step in the design phase process. What you think your design will look like in the beginning could have a different outcome. Also, keeping the users first in every step is key to having a successful app.
Combining all the steps that I took in this project I was able to create a food delivery app that is easy to use and also addresses the user’s needs. Moving forward, I would like to conduct a round of Usability Studies to see if my current design has any pain points that I can address. If any pain points are discovered I will continue to test and iterate. I will also continue to conduct user research to see if I can work on or add anything to make the app better.
Thank you for reviewing my Zip2U app!