FOODTIME
A meal planning app making it easier to eat healthily.
I was tasked with designing a mobile app that would solve a widely experienced problem. A problem I identify with is having the time, and being prepared enough, to eat healthily. Therefore, I chose to design an app that would help students, families and individuals to plan their meals for the week in advance. This would, in theory help to remedy the healthy eating dilemma plaguing society.
The first stage of my research looked into competing apps and how they went about addressing a similar problem. There were none that I could see that allowed the user to set cooking skill level, time constraints, or even the number of people you were catering for. This was how my app could stand out.
I conducted a survey of ten people asking what they would expect from such an app and whether they would find it useful in their lives. I recorded their answers and used their insights when I began the drafting process
The drafting stage for this project involved first producing basic sketched wireframes, then adding a little more detail, just in grayscale to begin with. And it was not just each individual screen that needed drafting, but also the icon and on-boarding.
The design of the home screen was heavily inspired by the apps I looked at for my competitor analysis. Most used a grid system not dissimiliar to a calendar. My design, however, reversed it so the day was on the left side of the screen. This was simply to maximise screen space and ensure that there was enough space in the grid to be able to read the meals that had been added.
These screens were developed for use in the digital prototype that was produced at the conclusion of the project. There were four main paths that screens were created for – one of which constitutes the error path. The first was
to add a meal to Monday dinner, the second was to remove this meal from the plan, the third was to set the number of people being catered for, and the last was to locate the shopping list and tick off and item.
Not only the screens that were required to complete these paths were created. In the interests of making the prototype as realistic as possible, I also created a screen for each link in the menu.
I conducted usability testing
and found that most, if not all users had very little trouble completing the appointed tasks. Very slight adjustments were made to the digital prototype post-usability testing.
I then made a showcase, approaching it as an opportunity to show off the app, its design, and unique features. It was important to me that it came across as a simple app addressing a simple problem.
