App Invention: Foodie Friends
Details:
Role: UX/UI Designer, Interviewer, Researcher
Duration: 3 weeks
Team Style: team of four
Tools: Adobe XD, Figma, Miro, InVision, InDesign
The Problem:
Foodies need an easier way to try new foods and restaurants when their peers can’t join them in the experience.
Project Overview:
We designed a meetup app that matches foodies based on food and restaurant preferences.
Research
The Initial Idea:
We originally set out to create an app that was a take on Tinder where we would match people romantically based on their food cravings alone.
The Pivot:
Through preliminary conversations, we decided the marketplace was over saturated with dating apps and thought there was more of a need for a platonic meetup app targeted towards foodies.
The Goal:
We believe that food is a common connection among all people. With this mindset, we wanted to create an app where foodies can expand their social network through their shared love of food.
Interviews & Insights
We conducted 4 zoom interviews. Before beginning the interview process, we tried to find interviewees who tend to consider themselves as more extroverted and are open to the idea of meeting strangers.
Our questions targeted the importance of food and the factors that help determine where a user chooses to go out to eat.
Based on our interviews, we found two common themes:
People have busy schedules but generally enjoyed taking time to eat out at least 1-2x’s per week
People expand their social network through friends of friends or hobbies, but beyond that our interviewees were at a loss on how to meet new people
Notable Interview Quotes
01
“Everyone recognizes that eating is an important part of the day because you literally need it to survive. But then it's also a part of the day where you can chill out, talk with others and take a step back. I think that’s really valuable.”
02
“[Eating alone] is like going to the movies by yourself. I know some people are super into it, but I’m not. If I do, I like to sit at a bar or something where you can talk to the bartender or watch TV.”
User Persona
Definition & Ideation
User Insight Statement:
Michelle, a Marketing Director with limited free time, needs to find an easy way to discover new restaurants and meet new people because her demanding career leaves no time for a social life.
Problem Statement:
We believe that food is a common connection between all people. Foodies need a way to easily try new foods, discover new restaurants and form new relationships.
Feature Prioritization:
We created a feature prioritization matrix to determine the features with the highest impact and lowest complexity. For example, we wanted to include a budget feature that connects people with similar price ranges.
Competitor Analysis
Strengths: Millions of users and reputable company. Sign-on can be done via social media.
Weaknesses: The matches will disappear after 24 hours if users decide not to act.
Opportunities: Bumble is taking advantage of different types of connections: corporate networking, romantic and platonic.
Threats: Bumble is a one-stop-shop.
Strengths: Provides images of the food for each restaurant as well as options to make reservations or get take out.
Weaknesses: Doesn’t provide a way to connect with others who like similar foods or restaurants.
Opportunities: Generates revenue by selling ads to restaurants, creating a mutually beneficial relationship.
Threats: Large library of reviews and loyal users.
Strengths: Matches users based on mutual food and restaurant choices.
Weaknesses: Women can interact for free, while men have to pay. Only connects people who are romantically interested in one another.
Opportunities: Profiles only include basic info like height, weight and a freeform about me section.
Threats: A similar product that’s already on the market
Our main feature includes a swiping function that connects like-minded foodies. The challenge was determining how exactly a user would swipe to find a match. We decided to categorize potential matches as “candidates” and explored the concept of distinguishing between pending vs. mutual matches.
User Flow
Each member of the group sketched screens for the onboarding process, user profile and matches section. We used a Frankenstein method to create our app, meaning we combined the best sections from each of our sketches into one cohesive app.
Sketches
My group originally selected burnt orange, light blue and white for our app’s color scheme. After further consideration, I decided to make an alternate color palette for my own personal version of Foodie Friends. I believe bold, playful colors better suit the app’s youthful target audience and better relate to the vibrant food scenes around the world.
Visual System
High-Fidelity Wireframes
In the Future
As far as next steps, we would like to develop more features such as:
Group meetups & chats so that users can meet with more than one person at a time
Workplace-specific searches that allow users to search for candidates who work at the same company (ideal for bigger companies)
Mutual connections via social media so that users can meetup with friends of friends