The Perfect Food Guide App for Your Taste
Feeling confused about finding new restaurants? The newly designed app brings you the smartest search experience! With features like "Today's Hot Picks" and "Food Radar," you can quickly find your favorite restaurants and stay updated with the latest trends and nearby dining options.
Project Overview
Team Goal
Redesign the search experience of the AiFoodie app for food enthusiasts looking for new restaurants by restructuring the product architecture and integrating diverse restaurant information.
Role and Deliverables
Collaborating with two team members, I was primarily responsible for the UX and UI design process and deliverables from the homepage to the search results page. Additionally, I took on the role of team leader in the later stages, planning and tracking project progress.
Project Challenges
The team members came from non-UX and UI backgrounds, and we had to deliver a user-valuable MVP product within three months with limited resources.
Project Background
Seven years ago, AiFoodie was created to address users' needs for discovering new restaurants. At that time, people preferred reading reviews and articles to choose restaurants. However, with technological advancements and the rise of social media, people now tend to search for appetizing restaurant photos on their small screens.
Currently, the AiFoodie app offers key features such as review exploration, restaurant search, and restaurant pages to quickly provide integrated restaurant information. However, there is a subtle gap between users' actual experiences and the features the AiFoodie app currently provides.
User Research
In the early stages of the project, we conducted interviews with 12 users. Here are the key insights from these interviews:
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Users felt overwhelmed by the way information was presented on the Ishiji homepage and restaurant introduction pages.
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Users found it time-consuming to learn how to use the dual-column search box and the slight differences in main product features.
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Overall, users did not consider Ishiji their first choice for finding restaurants, as they felt the current visual style and information presentation did not match the tools they typically use.
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The experience of finding restaurants felt clunky. Users found it inefficient to locate the restaurants they wanted to try. They appreciated the feature of locating nearby restaurants and the professional reviews that helped them understand the restaurants better, but overall, the app struggled to meet their needs for discovering new dining options.
Users are accustomed to search tools that primarily display images with supporting text. This approach makes food enthusiasts eager to visit the restaurants immediately.
Persona
Customer Journey
HMW (How Might We)
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How might we enable Lily to efficiently discover new and untried dining options through authentic and objective reviews, given the importance of maintaining her personal brand on social media?
Project Goals
We conducted multiple online workshops to discuss user personas, design assumptions, project objectives, and the prioritization of problems to be solved. This ensured that every team member was aligned with the design goals for the upcoming three months.
Prototype High-Fidelity Prototypes
Design Deliverables
Project Results
My Learnings
In this project, as the team leader, I learned how to effectively manage project progress and coordinate team collaboration. Initially, the team members came from different backgrounds and lacked experience in UX and UI design. I developed a detailed project plan and timeline, and regularly held project meetings to ensure that each member was clear about their tasks and deadlines. Additionally, I utilized Agile development methods, conducting iterative design and continuous feedback to ensure the project could adapt to changes flexibly.
To motivate team members, I emphasized the achievement of goals and celebrated small successes at each stage. I actively listened to and encouraged everyone's ideas and opinions, fostering an open and collaborative work environment. I also provided resources and training to help team members improve their UX/UI skills, ultimately enabling them to confidently complete design tasks.
Regarding user testing, I used the remote testing tool Maze to conduct A/B tests and usability tests, collecting a large amount of user feedback and behavioral data. I analyzed this data to identify key user pain points and needs, and iterated on the design based on these insights. For example, I simplified the dual-column search box into a single column, enhancing the search efficiency for users.
Through this project, I not only improved my project management and team collaboration skills but also deepened my understanding of user experience design. I mastered more professional tools and methods, and these experiences and knowledge will have a profound impact on my future design work.