Keto Near Me: A UX case Study
The keto diet’s popularity surged in 2018, reaching a peak of 106 million monthly google searches on January 6th 2019, up from 35 million in March of 2018. The main reason for this astronomical growth is the diet’s effect on weight loss. On keto, body fat doesn’t just decrease, it vanishes.
So what’s the problem?
While the effects of Keto are almost other-worldly in comparison to other weight loss strategies, maintaining the diet often proves difficult, if not down right impossible for some people. A single slip up; a few slices of pizza, a slice of cake at a friend’s birthday party, and you’re out. The fat-loss stops and you have to work your way back into ketosis.
If you’re self-disciplined, prepping your meals ahead of time, and know where you can get a keto-friendly meal no matter what life throws at you, then keto isn’t too bad. But if you’re just looking to get started and the idea of meal-prepping doesn’t seem feasible, or you’re worried you won’t be able to control yourself in social situations, then keto can seem like a chore that’s not worth the pay-off.
The Goal:
To make keto easier for busy urban professionals who want to be able to eat out whenever they like, and to make it easier to find keto-friendly meals for those who don’t have the time to meal prep, all while addressing one of ketoers most common complaints; the lack of food options.
Some common challenges
“For me the biggest challenge is similar to when I was a vegetarian for a long time: social eating.”
“Food “boredom” is becoming a bit of an issue, as there is not the rich history of foods that follow this”
“Be strict with the diet or suffer. It’s easy to waver and make excuses. But weight loss only happens when you stick to the plan. No cheating, unfortunately.”
Affinity Diagram
I analyzed the data from 27 survey respondents and 5 interview participants, coupled with some secondary research spent talking to members of online Keto communites on Slack, Reddit, Quora, and Discord. I used the results to complete an affinity diagram that culminated in 6 core experience statements.
“I wish eating on the keto diet was exciting and easy.”
“Technology is helping me stick to this diet.”
“I’ve learned how to make this diet work, but I still want to enjoy my life.”
“This is just how I eat now.”
“The health benefits have been astounding.”
“Keto is becoming part of my identity.”
Key Pain Points
- Food Boredom
- Not enough time to cook or meal prep
- Difficult to find Keto options on the fly
- Succumbing to cravings
- Diet-stress
Personas
I used these findings to create two Personas that the app would target.
Sam Jones represents the core target audience; a young busy professional seeking weight loss who still wants to be able to go out and enjoy what the city has to offer.
Miranda Keyes represents the secondary target audience; A mom with two kids at home, and a successful career, who wants to keep fit both physically and mentally, without taking time away from what matters most.
Competitive analysis
I then began an extensive competitive analysis, looking at dozens of apps and influencer pages.
These five apps and influencers became the basis for finding out what’s missing in the keto marketplace.
- Open Table (Much of the design I ended up going with was inspired by this clean and fluid application helping people make dinner reservations.)
- Keto Connect (Keto Connect are the largest influencers on the scene right now and I studied their youtube, social media, and website)
- Lazy Keto (An app to help with recipes where members can contribute their own recipes. This mostly served as a guideline for poor app design and what not to do.)
- Lifesum analysis (Great onboarding structure)
- Total Keto Diet (Another recipe focused app with a diet calculator, also in need of a design overhaul)
Getting closer: Pencil to Paper
Seeing what was already out there made me realize that Health and Diet apps still have a long way to go on the design end. Most are heavily focused on utility and lack polish. I started sketching designs that would tackle both in a satisfying way.
Journey Mapping
After sketching some basic wire frames, I had a look back at my affinity diagram, and started to weave the threads between the two and constructed a user journey map.
Wire Frames and User Flow
With the User Journey mapped, I had a long look over everything I’d done so far. The notes from my secondary research, the interview and survey results, The sketched wire frames, and I brought it all back to my two personas; Sam Jones and Miranda Keyes, their goals and pain points, and I headed into Adobe xD to start the higher fidelity wire frames.
After completing the MVP wireframes, I created prototypes and sent them to my interview subjects to see how they got on. I gave them the goal of navigating to the Kisume restaurant page and adding it to their favorites. Everyone was able to do this first try, so I then asked for overall experience, and if they had any questions. Mostly, people understood my design quite well. I made some small changes, and then headed into Adobe xD again to polish it off.
I created a mood board to get an idea for what colors would be used in the design.
Mood Board
And then began to fill everything in.
Prototype and Animation
Conclusions
The market for an app like this is only growing as more and more people commit to diets that improve their physical and mental health, as well as diets that reduce our carbon footprint. This has only been applied to the Keto diet, but I imagine an app like this could be made for the vegan diet, Paleo, Carnivore diet, and so on.
Thank you for your time.