eatwell
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is a challenge for many people, and our diet is a crucial part of it.
The aim of this project was to create a tool that makes meal planning easier and less time-consuming. The project is focused on creating a user-friendly experience that will help users achieve their goals of leading a healthy lifestyle.
8 days / Figma / Adobe Illustrator / Notion / Trello
Empathise
Researched the challenges faced by users in meal planning and gathered insights about needs and preferences.
DEFINE
Identified the problem of users not consistently planning their meals due to the effort and time required for grocery shopping and cooking.
IDEATE
Created the idea of a meal planning app called eatwell, which prioritises overal health and a balanced diet.
PROTOTYPE
Developed low-fidelity, mid-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes of the app, incorporating changes after testing.
TEST
I tested the different prototypes with potential users.
Trends in the field
I started with desk research to gather background information and trends in the field. This showed that there is a growing demand for meal planning and cooking at home. There are a variety of trends and factors driving this demand.
Sustainable eating
Many people are becoming more interested in sustainable eating, which involves reducing food waste and making more environmentally-friendly food choices.
The COVID-19 pandemic
The pandemic led to an increase in meal planning and cooking at home as people seek to reduce their exposure to public places and control their food costs.
User research
To dive into the target audience's needs, I sent out a survey that 21 people responded to. On top of that, I talked to 7 people directly through in-depth interviews.
33% of survey respondents plan their meals, while 52% try to plan sometimes.
The main reasons for meal planning are to prevent food waste, save time, and stay healthy.
The key challenges faced by users when planning meals include thinking of all the ingredients when grocery shopping and a lack of inspiration.
User needs
Potential users expressed a desire for personalized recipes that are:
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balanced
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varied
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quick
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based on similar ingredients to prevent food waste
On top of that, they wanted insight into food macros, but without the focus on calories. As that makes them feel stressed about their food intake.
The problem
Users try to plan their meals but don’t do this consistently. The effort and time needed for grocery shopping and cooking make meal planning demotivating for many.
"How might we create a system that decreases the mental effort needed for grocery shopping and cooking?"
The user
To help understand the target user, I created Elisa’s persona. This persona is based on the demographics of the survey respondents and interviewees and shares the most common frustrations with the target audience.
Elisa just got her master’s degree in computer science and has a dedicated personality. She likes to go out for social activities and has a busy social- and working agenda. She goes to the gym and tries to eat healthy and balanced.
Struggles
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Wants to plan her meals better, but finds it difficult to maintain
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Often falls back on recipes she knows, and ends up eating similar dishes
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Has to throw away leftover ingredients she bought for a recipe on a regular basis
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Elisa finds it hard to find the time to do groceries and cook
Goals
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Limit food waste and spendings
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Invest just little effort and time
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Maintain a busy social life
Competitive analysis
What’s already there for Elisa? To gain insights into the existing solutions, I analyzed different meal-planning apps. Yummly, Mealime, and MealprepPro were found to be popular meal planning and recipe apps that offer features such as recipe recommendations, ingredient shopping lists, and meal planning calendars.
As can be seen below, these solutions use bright colours in their branding and have counting calories as a central aspect of their dashboards.
Concept
Introducing:
eatwell
The meal planning app that prioritizes overall health and a balanced diet. Say goodbye to the stress of counting calories and hello to a more holistic approach to meal planning.
With eatwell, you can create meal plans that suit your taste and lifestyle, with quick and healthy recipes, and a plan that minimizes waste with overlapping ingredients.
By celebrating small wins and progress, and providing encouragement along the way, eatwell helps to create a positive experience and keeps users motivated.
Style guide
The calm, green colour palette and earthy tones evoke feelings of eco-friendliness, and natural, organic and healthy food choices. EatWell’s brand personality is friendly and motivating. This personality is incorporated into all aspects of the app, from the colour palette and design to the tone of messaging and interactions with users.
User flow
We know now better what the user wants and how to brand ourselves to stand out. Time to think about the design of the screens. To do that, we need a user flow. I created two user flows, which I designed to be simple and intuitive.
User flow #1 guides the user through the process of creating a personalized meal plan, and user flow #2 is related to users tracking their progress after some time.
User flow #1
User flow #2
