Process

Concepting

Right before I started my Mobile App Design course, a friend of mine came to me with an idea. She wanted to start her own meal delivery business and was thinking about creating an app to do so. Here's an overview of the idea: People could buy daily or weekly meal plans, compiled by a nutritionist based on their needs, and delivered to them on a specific schedule. Unfortunately, my friend gave up on her intentions, but since I was in the middle of my training and was interested in creating something from scratch, I took the idea anyway and created a meal delivery app concept.

research

market research

Having decided on the concept of the project, I began my research. The main goal was to identify the problems that the app should potentially solve. I wanted to get to know the market better, learn from experts about the key points to consider when creating a food delivery app, and read about best practices. Another point was to study the competitors - who they are, what their key and unique features are, what people (users) say about these competitors. All of this information helped me identify the main points of frustration that users typically encounter when using similar (in some ways) apps, and gave me a better understanding of what problems need to be addressed to make the app better than others and unique.

Key findings of what problems users usually face:

• Inability to reschedule/edit/cancel an order

• No refund option

• No customer support

• Lacking advanced filtering

• Can't check order status

• Inability to reorder

• Inability to add to wishlist

• Can't contact restaurant or a driver

• Inability to exclude/replace a dish from the meal plan

• Inconveniently large delivery intervals

• Can't check the current menu for the week

• Can't rate delivery or/and dish

As a result of my research, I also discovered that most meal delivery apps either allow you to choose meals from restaurants that are listed in the app, or you can only order a meal program (for a day or more) without the option to order an individual meal. And most meal delivery apps don't pay enough attention to people with different food preferences (allergies, people with food intolerances, people on specialized diets, etc.). I decided to dig deeper and analyze the feedback from users of existing applications to find out what the users are dissatisfied with. Here is what I found:

• Can't find food options on the menu

• Can't find truly balanced meal programs

• Can't see a complete list of ingredients

• Can't remove/substitute an ingredient from a dish when ordering

• Can't communicate that he/she is allergic to something

• Can't be sure of the quality of food

Competitor analysis and market research also helped me come up with a list of features to consider for the application I was working on, followed by prioritization.

These features are:

• Onboarding

• Registration/Login

• Program customisation

• Ingridients customisation

• Program purchase

• In-App Payment

• Real-Time Order Tracking

• Program progress tracking

• Reorder option

• Communication options (in-App chats, calls)

• Reviews & Ratings

• Order History

• Loyalty Program