Empowering healthy food choices through plant-based recipes
Flexitarian was a concept application designed for a hypothetical client called VITA, an educational social enterprise aiming at scaling their business service through the design of a digital product.
VITA recognized chronic disease as one of the leading causes of death in Australia but that a majority of these deaths could be prevented through lifestyle and diet change.
Our challenge was to empower users to make healthier food choices through the adoption of a plant-based diet.
VITA recognized chronic disease as one of the leading causes of death in Australia but that a majority of these deaths could be prevented through lifestyle and diet change.
Our challenge was to empower users to make healthier food choices through the adoption of a plant-based diet.
2 Person Team
2 Week Sprint
Concept Application
Short Version
Long Version
THE SHORT VERSION
MARKET RESEARCH
Clarifying the term plant-based, we discovered that these diets were inclusive of meat but reduced consumption in favour of plant material. We also looked into habit creation and learnt successful habit creation requires identity motives not outcome based.
COMPETITOR RESEARCH
Analysing competitor platforms we found a lot of approaches to encourage vegan and vegetarian diets but limited solutions to those looking to adopt a specific plant-based diet, as was the aim of our brief.
USER INTERVIEWS
Similarly to us, a majority of interviewees were miseducated on what plant-based diets were, and saw many lifestyle obstacles to pursuing the diet. Users were aware that they should eat healthy to prevent chronic disease, but also required variety in their meals as well.
USER JOURNEY
We decided to target users with an open-mindset, as they would build identity based habits. The typical journey was initial excitement to implement plant-based meals into their lifestyle and a slowly reduction in motivation as they learnt more and become overwhelmed with changes.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Open-Minded Users need a flexible way of incorporating a plant-based diet into their lifestyle so they feel empowered to continue.
How might we show users how easy it is to implement plant-based dieting into their current lifestyle?
How might we show users how easy it is to implement plant-based dieting into their current lifestyle?
SOLUTION
We ideated and designed a mid-fidelity application with a mashup of ideas, inclusive of habit tracking and educational FAQ’s. The predominant feature was a database of dynamic recipes to choose from different plant-based options which generated a shopping list for users.
USER TESTING
We had chosen too many ideas to solve our problem and fallen victim to ‘featuritis’. Users were unable to differentiate and understand all the apps functionality so we reduced the features and improved the navigation elements.
SUMMARY
This project was challenging to produce with only a two person team but ultimately improved my affinity mapping, ability to define problems and taught me how easy it was to fall victim to incorporating all my ideas into a solution.
SOFTWARE PACKAGES
Figma
Miro
Asana
Slack
Zoom
DESIGN TECHNIQUES
User Interviews
Competitor Analysis
Affinity Mapping
Archetype Creation
Hi-Fidelity Prototype
THE LONG VERSION
Click below for the full case study avaliable on Medium or the interactive prototype avaliable on Figma
MORE DESIGN WORK
So wait, what is a plant-based diet?
Having limited prior knowledge of the term we dedicated time to market research to understand plant-based-dieting. I’d previously assumed that plant-based was a more restrictive version of a vegan diet and so was surprised to discover it was in fact focused on meat-reduction not removal.
Different solutions to different diets
With a better understanding of plant-based diets we discovered a few competitor approaches had been created to encourage people to adopt similar diets. Although many solutions existed for vegan and vegetarian diets, we noted almost all of these solutions didn’t specifically cater for plant-based diets, as per our understanding of the term.
Habits must be identity-based not outcome-based
Having previously read Atomic Habits by James Clear I took the opportunity to re-familiarise myself with James Clear’s Atomic Habits to understand the psychology behind behavioral changes and foundational steps someone changing diets would need for success.
Clear states the key to sustainable behavioral change is creating identity based habits opposed to outcome based habits. For our context, this meant we would have greater success targeting a user that identified mindset surrounding healthy eating opposed to an outcome or goal, such as losing an amount of weight
Research Insights
We conducted 15 interviews and 39 surveys to discover user behaviors, pains and motivations, with a wide variety of dietary habits as well as demographic differences to discover the motivations of those featuring plant-based and the obstacles to those who do not.
Nobody knows what plant-based dieting is
Similarly to ourselves, a majority of users assumed plant-based diets completely excluded meat consumption all together; some even considering it a more restrictive version of vegan diets.
Plant-based sounds too hard to me
With the incorrect definition of plant-based, many users concluded that eating plant-based was too difficult, presenting too many obstacles to their current lifestyle, and as a result were dissuaded to pursue diet changes.
What you eat is affected by who you’re around
Linking in with perceived plant-based concerns, food choices were greatly affected by the people surrounding the user, whether in a personal or professional setting.
We know why we should eat well
Users understood the ramifications of their food choices in regards to physical and emotional health, with motivations to eat healthier including less risk of health issues, feeling more energetic, maintaining weight and looking good motivated users to make better choices.
Variety and choice is still paramount
With knowledge of health benefits, users still overwhelmingly needed variety in their diet and ability to choose based on their personal preferences. We noted these preferences were similar to users’ concerns with the restrictive nature of plant-based diets.
So who do we target?
Affinity mapping all insights from our interviews, grouping and simplifying our insights until we had a clear understanding of the spectrum of users we could possibly design for, identifying unique pain points and behavioral patterns for each, creating Archetypes as we felt they would be a more accurate reflection of the research we gathered.
Open-Minded Users set Identity-Based Habits
Considering the research we conducted on habits and behaviours it made sense to target the Open-Minded archetype as they identified themselves as a user who already exhibits behaviours conducive to adopting a plant-based diet. This archetype also aligned with our business goals of empowering users.
How do we maintain that initial drive?
Mapping out a typical user journey we hypothesized an initial enthusiasm but gradually decline in motivation experienced by a individual attempting to implement a plant-based diets. Identifying our users pain points we settled on a problem statement that would address opportunities for improvement in the earlier stages of their journey
What to include when it all seems so relevant?
Running a Crazy 8’s ideation session on two how might we statements, we found it very difficult to prioritize our features as we were convinced each concept was valuable to our user, aligned with business goals and would differentiate ourselves from the competition. Wee took the approach of mashing up a majority of our ideas into an all inclusive solution.
Problem: Open Minded Users need a flexible way to incorporate the plant-based diet into their lifestyle so they feel motivated and empowered to continue
How might we show users how easy it is to embrace the plant-based diet into their current lifestyle?How might we empower users to maintain motivation and continue a plant-based diet?
Give users ALL the tools and free choice
After discounting and mashing up ideas . our feature list covered five distinct areas to solve our problem statement:
In hindsight, we definitely had featuritis
Looking back on our ideation and prioritisation, we could have drastically improved our final solution if we had been more ruthless with our prioritization, especially considering the client brief stipulated an MVP. By focusing on our research during this stage, we could have easily narrowed down the scope of our prototype, and backlogged features.
Reflective Onboarding
Prompts users to consider their reasons for downloading the app, record this reason and affirm their motivations towards achieving their personal outcomes
Prompts users to consider their reasons for downloading the app, record this reason and affirm their motivations towards achieving their personal outcomes
Dynamic Recipes
Recipes with the ability to choose plant-based, vegetarian or vegan requirements alongside a tool for replacing meat products with plant based alternatives that have the same nutritional value
Recipes with the ability to choose plant-based, vegetarian or vegan requirements alongside a tool for replacing meat products with plant based alternatives that have the same nutritional value
Smart Shopping List
Generated from the recipe selections in the app, users can then shop online through supermarket API’s, adding items to their shopping cart
Generated from the recipe selections in the app, users can then shop online through supermarket API’s, adding items to their shopping cart
Empowering Educational
Provide a database of videos, FAQ’s and wellness articles to gives users the knowledge to make their own decisions.
Provide a database of videos, FAQ’s and wellness articles to gives users the knowledge to make their own decisions.
Sketch-out the checkout then test
We created a paper prototype to test our main task flow, completing on-boarding, searching and selecting a recipe then adding items to their shopping list. We wanted to ensure users could complete this particular task flow with zero errors in less than 5 minutes whilst also ensuring the information architecture and navigation was intuitive to navigate.
The main task flowed, but the rest was unclear
Upon completion of our testing, the main task flow proved to be intuitive when tested with users, with all completing the task successfully without error within time limits, whereas outside of the main flow the prototype did not articulate the rest of the app’s features. We implemented the below changes into our mid-fidelity prototype.
Final Propject Prototype
We were able to deliver a mid-fidelity prototype through out main task workflow, implementing testing changes due to the time constraints of the projects sprint.
Independently I spent some more time developing our prototype into a hi-fidelity to further refuine my UI design skills.
Click here for the Figma Prototype
Independently I spent some more time developing our prototype into a hi-fidelity to further refuine my UI design skills.
Click here for the Figma Prototype
Upon reflection, not bad for a duo
I found this project really challenging to complete with only a two person team, especially considering we were only working afternoons and nights for 2-weeks in the middle of a global pandemic, so overall I was immensely proud of what we were able to achieve.
This project really honed my UX research skills as I proved that I was developing research documents at a much faster rate, due to the heavy requirement of the project.
As covered previously, I have learnt the value of proper feature prioritisation and utilising user research to narrow down possible solution to create a true MVP (opposed to an overwhelming swiss-army knife of ideas)
Going forward the next steps would be:
Application of Hick’s Law: drastically further reduce the apps features, with potential to gradually implement across the applications life-cycle
Development a Design System and Style Guide to create consistency across application design
Further Usability Testing to refine application design, flow and functionality.
This project really honed my UX research skills as I proved that I was developing research documents at a much faster rate, due to the heavy requirement of the project.
As covered previously, I have learnt the value of proper feature prioritisation and utilising user research to narrow down possible solution to create a true MVP (opposed to an overwhelming swiss-army knife of ideas)
Going forward the next steps would be:
Application of Hick’s Law: drastically further reduce the apps features, with potential to gradually implement across the applications life-cycle
Development a Design System and Style Guide to create consistency across application design
Further Usability Testing to refine application design, flow and functionality.
Short Version
Short Version
Short Version