Salad.ly

An app concept to order salad

A fresh and pretty salad

Though I don’t intent to build this (be my guest, the domain is actually available I believe), this is an idea I had going around in my head for some weeks, so I thought I’d play it out.

Disclaimer: this is strictly based on my opinions, preferences and assumptions, and at no point did I interviewed anyone. I did talk about it with my wife, so I guess that counts for something 😁

What the app does

Order a custom salad (with the ingredients you want) for delivery.

Steps to do so

• Choose a size: small, medium, large
• Choose the ingredients that will go in it

Seems simple, but along the way, there are plenty of points to consider. Also, some ideas or features I thought of but am ignoring for this post:

• Pre-built salads
• Saving “Your salads” so you can order the exact salad again in the future
• User profiles

So, starting to think about the process of ordering a custom salad, these are the main points I thought of:

How much of each ingredient?

I’d assign values for each ingredients.

• 1 = not too much
• 2 = average amount
• 3 = more than the rest

So, if you did 4 ingredients, whose ratios add up to 8:

• Lettuce (3) = 37.5%
• Tomato (2) = 25%
• Avocado (2) = 25%
• Beans (1) = 12.5%

This is a easy and clear way, for users and Salad.ly to work. Users have a way to indicate how much of each ingredient they want that they understand, and Salad.ly has number they can work with. Users should also not bu surprised by the amount they get in their salad, as they will see a full container, with the proportions of ingredients they entered.

I thought of using 2 other alternatives (explanation and reason for discarding each below):

• Weight: as in add 0.5 pounds of avocado. I felt it’s complicated to keep tabs of the weight of your salad as you add ingredients. Besides, how many people know how many pounds of avocado they want in their salad? And if you did get to your size limit (say small = 0.8 pounds), you then have to go back and edit the amount of each ingredient in order to add more if you have a full container.
• Amount: as in 2 handfuls of spinach. This can quickly become complicated, as you can quickly fill your salad containes without putting all the ingredients you want. That’s why I opted for ratios, because that way, even if you select a “3” for each ingredient, everything will fit.

How do you know you can’t fit more or that you’ll get too little of each?

If you add 20 ingredients in a small container, odds are you’ll get too little of each (something I fear most people won’t realize). This is why I feel there should be a limit to the number of ingredients, for each size.

Additionally, as you add ingredients, the app could offer an easy way to bump up your size.

The actual user flow

These are the steps I landed on for the final flow:

1. Start screen
2. Select size
3. Add ingredient / see cart
4. Review
5. Checkout

What do you think? Let me know if you spot any other kinks in this design, I’d love to hear them and further discuss them 😁.