TasteBud
OVERVIEW
Tastebud is a social dining app where users can find people to go on exciting food adventures with.
The idea of this app sparkled from my experience of traveling alone. I worked from defining the concept to final prototype.
GOAL
Design a social dining mobile app that
- connect users with their friends through dining
- help users meet new people through dining
- easy to use
- immediate
RESULT
"The design is very intuitive... I can see myself using this app a lot."
— Usability Testing Participant
PROJECT PROCESS
Research
Define
Ideation
Prototype
Testing / Iteration
MARKET RESEARCH
Market research shows that there is an opportunity for apps that merge people's social habits with dining experiences.
56% of American people dine outside at least 2 to 3 times a week.
Social is the top reason for American to eat at restaurants.
57% of American adults (age 25-34) made friends online.
USER RESEARCH
to have a better understanding of people social dining behaviors and their perceptions of dining with strangers.
#
Key Findings
80% of respondents dine frequently with their friends.
68% of respondents prefer to invites their friends to eat together through texts or social media.
78% of respondents consider dining at a restaurant as an opportunity to socialize.
Security and awkwardness are the top two concerns for users about dining with someone online.
3 Interviews
50 Survey Responses
User Quotes
Dining is a great way to meet new people, but I hate scheduling and picking restaurants, etc
I might not enjoy that person’s company. I’d rather eat with someone I know
From User Interview, I learned that most people are not quite extroverted enough to be willing to share a meal with strangers.
Based on the research findings,
I created two personas: the Introvert and the Extrovert, with different goals and expectations from the app.
PERSONA
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
To identify the strengths and weaknesses of different social dinning service app.
I analyzed 3 direct competitors: Eatogether, Eatwith, FoodSocial;
and 2 indirect competitors: MeetUp and Eventbrite.
From Competitive Analysis,
I identified three Unique Selling Points of Tastebud:
-
Advanced Social Features - allow users to filter dining invites by people; message each other before dinning.
-
Customization and Flexibility for Preferences - users can choose to invite friends or strangers; user can also choose1 on 1 dining or group dining.
-
Spontaneity - encourage quick responses among users and require minimal planning
FEATURE IDEATION
I did feature ideation and prioritization to narrow down the scope of app development.
Mapping Workflow based on Remaining Features
initial sketches of the main screens
feature prioritization based on
efforts and impacts
WIREFRAME
Based on the workflow, I created low-fidelity prototypes with Adobe XD, focusing on the Social Interactions among Users.
This is a high level view of the main wireframe screen.
USER TESTING
I conducted testings with 8 participants.
Users were asked to think aloud during the process.
During the test, users were asked to
1. search and join a social dining
2. create a dining invite
3. explore the app.
From the User Testing, I found that
The social feature didn't stand out to users, because they were overwhelmed by other different features.
ITERATION
From the user testing, I learned that having a separate restaurant page as home screen led users to pay more attention to searching restaurant than socializing with other users.
Thus I referred to social apps such as instagram and weibo, where the updates from friends are displayed on homepage.
Based on the findings, I simplified the user flows by removing calendar reminder, and incorporating restaurant search into the flow of creating dining invite, instead of a separate flow.
Final Prototype
Browse Dining Invites
Create an Invite
Join a Dining Gathering
