So, the idea started from my daily meals.
When you’re going to have dinner with someone, no matter who they are, one of you have to make the decision. Or, you guys making decision together? To me, discuss for dinner with others is not always easy. For instance, people sometimes doesn’t even know what they want. You know there are a hundred of options, but you just can’t pick one. Things are getting more complicated when there are more people. Friend A doesn’t like seafood, friend B doesn’t like beef and friend C doesn’t want any pork. Then, the discussion might takes forever…
My idea is letting people select type of food they like and dislike individually, and the application will find the best options for us. So I started to create a paper prototype.
The UI of the application have to make user easy to find the type of food they like. Since they might not remember all of them, I need to provide a list to them. I come up with a expanded list with search function.
After I tested my prototype with friends and getting more feedback from those potential users, I learned a lot from it. The application was evolved by few iterations. The most important thing that I changed is “remove” additional features. I thought having more features will make my app looks better. However, users are confused and not sure about which button should they click when they visit the landing screen.
Finally, I decided to make it “Creative”. I not only want to let friends or family decide on dinner easily, but also like to provide additional ideas to user. I understand that some people will not actively try new food, restaurants or drinks. That’s why I want to bring more possibilities to user, and they can take it if it sounds cool to them.
I believe that software is to make our life easier, but not more complicated. My solution is to helping people on dinner decision. You don’t have to tell others that what you like, and what you don’t like. Sometime is not comfortable to say it, because others might love the food you hate, and the discussion could become argument. Making decision should be easy as just few clicks.