TASTE

Taste is a social media-based platform for food lovers to share and discover their beloved dishes and authentic recipes from people who have the same food interests from anywhere, everywhere. While being the only designer in the company, I helped the team build a design system, iterated the product structure, and designed a mobile application from a low-fid prototype to the finalized testing product.

10 month
2 developer — 1 designer — 1 marketing consultant
Research — UX/UI design —User testing —Minor graphic design

All started with…

Upon joining the team, I was tasked with developing a product aimed at young adult food hunters, using three profile pages as a starting point. Several key questions emerged during this phase:

Who are our end-users? What are their living habits and generational characteristics?
When would they use the product? Can we identify specific scenarios or moments when they would rely on our product?
Where could our product take users? How can we guide them from point A to point B, and what is the ideal timing for this?
What are users searching for? What terms and features resonate with them, and what pain points can we address? How does "authenticity" align with their expectations?
How can we improve the food-hunting experience? How do we reduce frustration and elevate user satisfaction? How can we predict preferences and provide valuable recommendations?
Why should users choose our product? What sets our features apart, and why is our offering unique in this space?"\

The three starting screens I was given to work with.

I also value group communication as well. I was also wondering how could we work remotely as a group? And how could we build trust? How could we set deadlines? Any sprints? How could we develop the workload?

Research & Explorations

I started by conducting a competitor analysis, my goal was to understand the market and analyze the pros and cons. Then, I conducted some user interviews, I wanted to understand the market’s needs, and see if my hypothesis was validated.

Key Insights

Yelp: Users rely more on photos than reviews, as they find reviews to be occasionally unreliable.
Google Maps: Preferred for its more accurate ratings and reviews.
DoorDash: The UI is designed to appeal to a younger adult demographic.
OpenTable: The font size is too small for easy reading, impacting accessibility.
User Experience: Feedback from Yelp and Google users revealed that the food-hunting process is emotionally charged, with many users feeling frustrated and overwhelmed after 30 minutes of searching with no clear answers.
Restaurant Owners: Interviews with two restaurant owners highlighted that third-party delivery services like DoorDash charge high fees. While these platforms serve as a form of advertising, restaurant owners are not fond of the service due to the significant charges.

Overall, some of the key findings throughout the exploration journey:

Food hunters usually scan (0.3-0.5 sec) through photos for food.
Food hunters rely on photos more than verbal content.
Food hunters are heavily dependent on previous orders/posts when it comes to food hunting.
Hangry exist
Emotions ties up to what food the users are searching for.
Restaurant owners are seeking a bridge to communicate with the customers

Brainstorming & Ideation

I did some housekeeping work on the legacy screens that I was handed and conducted some flaws and strengths that the group originally had.

Based on the information and data we got, my team and I started to brainstorm which problem we needed to prioritize. We started by considering "the big picture questions” such as How might we identify the users? How might we reduce the searching time? and How might we connect the restaurant and users together?

In Phase I, we aimed to test the market by narrowing our focus on a single target audience to address a specific challenge. Our key question was:

How might we improve user search accuracy and efficiency?

Target Audience: Food-hunting users, primarily aged 16 to 30.

The design process involved reimagining the product features while revitalizing the TASTE brand for existing users and attracting new ones. I brainstormed several design solutions, sketched different concepts, and collaborated with the team to refine the most feasible options to present.

Based on our research and survey, we learned that different customer has different needs, especially “favorite” food is a subjective category. We then analyzed the feasibility for each direction and figured out that all these four directions can be incorporated into one product (a phrase I).

Goal: Share food hunting experience through dishes instead of restaurants.

For phrase one test release, we limited our product to:

Profile page
Onboarding (For new users only)
Food Explorations
Community (News Feed)

For:

New registered users
Returning users

Our team explored different solutions and sketched out the user flows. It took me about 4 hours of making, from sketches to high-fid wireframes.

Early Mocks- Matching/Discovery page
Early Mocks- Matching/Discovery page II
Early Mocks- Information page II
Early Mocks- Searching
Early Mocks- Home page

Wireframes (Mid-fid)

Finalized Screens (Phrase I)

Profile page - share bookmarked places and shared food maps

the COVID…

The company was affected by the COVID-19 and announced bankruptcy. Our team and I would develop furthermore features like Membership, and have the vision to create a bridge system between restaurant owners and the customer directly.