How I Designed a Family Nutritional Meal Plan Mobile App 🍴👨👩👧👦👪
For the 10K Designers Assignment, I chose the prompt “Meal plans according to your habits + mood.” from 120 Prompt.
✋The Story behind this
As a working professional and having 2 kids with my husband and 2 elders at home, I have to prepare a lot of healthy home food with enough nutrition for my family. I was not interested in ordering food from restaurants or eating out since am very conscious about my family’s health and wellness. I used to spend a lot of time on meal planning, Shopping list creation, and Cooking. I wanted to do it smartly, and for this, I used to look for 3 apps to solve my problem. 1. meal Planner app → for planning my meals, 2. Cookbook and shopping list creation, 3. Look for cooking assistance in the online or manual search
Pain Points
As am very busy with work, I realized that preparing food at home is a hugely time-consuming activity. so I was looking for a better solution.
- Planning for the weekly menu is a mundane boring time consuming routine. but it is important to do.
- I don’t know how much amount and what kind of nutrition I have to add to my daily meals.
- Planning and choosing the correct nutritional meal for the week is time-consuming and not have enough knowledge about it.
- Each person has a different diet pattern because in my family elders can’t eat some of the food, since they have some old age problems like increased sugar levels.
- I used to search YouTube, and Google or some specific cooking apps for my recipe preparations if I got doubts or was struck somewhere in cooking. this searching time also consumes a lot of time.
My Design Process
Research(Mood Boarding based on visual inspiration, User Interview, Competitive Analysis, Persona, Jobs to be done framework) -> IA -> Sketch -> User Testing -> Low-Fi Visual -> Testing -> Hi-Fi Visual -> Prototype
My Role: Research, Design Decision, Strategy, Branding, IA, Visual Design
Duration: 14 Days
Research
User Interview:
I just made phone calls with my like-minded friends who go through the same situation. asked the below questions to them and got the answers like this
- What are the biggest challenges you face when it comes to preparing home-cooked meals for your family?
Ans: “The biggest challenge is finding the time to plan and prepare meals, especially since I work full-time. It’s also hard to come up with new meal ideas that are both nutritious and appealing to my family.”
2. How do you typically plan your meals for the week? What tools or resources do you use?
Ans: “I usually sit down on Sunday and plan out meals for the week. I use a combination of cookbooks, online recipes, and my own tried-and-true recipes. I also take into account what ingredients we already have on hand.”
3. How do you ensure that your family’s meals are balanced and nutritious?
Ans: “I try to include a variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins in our meals. I also try to limit processed foods and added sugars.”
4. What information or resources do you rely on to determine the nutritional value of your family’s meals?
Ans: “I often use online resources like MyFitnessPal or the USDA Food Composition Database to determine the nutritional value of ingredients and recipes.”
5. How much time do you typically spend on meal planning and preparation each week?
Ans: “I would say I spend about 2–3 hours on meal planning and grocery shopping, and another 5–6 hours on meal preparation throughout the week.”
6. Have you tried any meal planning or tracking apps or services in the past? If so, what did you like or dislike about them?
Ans: “I’ve tried a few meal planning apps, but I found them too time-consuming to set up and use regularly. I haven’t tried any tracking apps for health or nutrition yet.”
7. How do you currently track your family’s health and wellness?
Ans: “I don’t have a formal system for tracking health and wellness, but I do make notes on how my family members are feeling and any health issues they might be experiencing.”
8. Are there any specific features or functionality that you would like to see in a meal planning or health tracking app?
Ans: “I would love an app that could suggest meals based on my family’s preferences and nutritional needs, and that could help me create a grocery list based on those meals. For health tracking, it would be helpful to have an app that could remind us to schedule regular check-ups and track any health issues over time.”
9. How important is it to you that the meals you prepare are both nutritious and delicious?
Ans: “It’s very important to me! I want my family to enjoy their meals and feel good about what they’re eating.”
10. Do you have any other concerns or considerations when it comes to feeding your family, such as budget or food allergies?
Ans: “Yes, budget is definitely a concern. I try to find affordable ingredients and plan meals around what’s on sale at the grocery store. We don’t have any food allergies, but I do try to avoid certain foods that my family members don’t like or have trouble digesting.”
Finding My Jobs to be Done
I used chatGpt as my creative partner for this.
Click here to View my JTBD FigJam file
Competitor Analysis:
Click here to view My Notion file for Competitor Analysis
Information Architecture
Yes, Now I got pretty good insights from my user interview, Jobs to be Done lists, and Competitive analysis. Now It’s time for Architect with all the information I got.
After the IA Part, I realized what I had planned to do with the 14 days was very huge. It was overwhelming. So I decided to do version 1 MVP in these 14 days with the help of the MoSCoW Framework. This targeted approach helped me to streamline my design process and create a more user-centric and valuable product.
Sketch
After the IA Part, I just poured my all of ideas into the paper.
Visual Designs
I Searched and spent more time on mood boarding for the app vibe, color, and design decision. As I got advice from my mentor, I got better meaningful visual design clues from my mood board once I finalized the user flows.
Finally, I decided to go through with a minimal app UI design with a clean aesthetic.
Style Guide and Branding
Choosing colors and typeface
When I chose color for branding, I preferred blue color since I like it. then I started to use it.
Finally, while I work with the logo, green and muddy(brown) colors would be good for my project, since am aiming to get nutrition and family(like Home-Nest) sharing kind of things.
Then I realized my bias with colors while working on my project. As I got advice from my mentor, hereafter I decided to worry about colors at the end of the project since it shouldn’t restrict my process.
Illustration
Used online illustrator creators for onboarding images.
Components
Brand Name and Logo
I named this app “NutriNest”. This means that the app helps users establish a routine for making nutritious food for their families and maintain it in everyday life.
Logo Iteration I tried
Splash Screen, User Onboarding Registration & Login user flow and Design
Since it is an app for families to eat Nutrition and share the work burden with the family members to reduce the working professional mom, I Created this kind of illustration with the help of AI Image illustration.
I made Adding phone number identity verification mandatory to reduce fraud and comply with regulations. Verification of the customer’s legal entity and verified phone numbers is part of ‘know your customer (KYC)’ requirements.
The Basic and dietary information inputs are taken after the verification on the onboarding to fill the very first-time meal planning and cookbook recipes.
Meal Planning Workflow and Design
This is the most awaited Solution part for the user.
Significant time savings in meal planning, since it is automated.
Improved confidence in creating nutritionally balanced meals, since it is restricted with users’ dietary options.
Simplified coordination of family dietary needs, since the user’s family shares their work and is accountable and motivated themselves.
Enhanced cooking experience with diverse and healthy recipes, since it is easily accessible with a cookbook within the app.
Cookbook Exploration Workflow and Design
This part helps users to simplify the cooking process effectively.
It solves the Lack of time to search for recipes that match dietary preferences, Difficulty discovering new and exciting recipes that suit family needs, and Limited access to a curated and diverse recipe library.
Shopping and Grocery List Workflow and Design
The following solutions are implemented for planning and organizing grocery shopping while encountering these issues
Automatic sync of shopping items solution for Time-consuming manual creation of shopping lists.
Manual items add options and sync from meal planning solutions for Difficulty coordinating grocery needs with meal plans.
Using third-party online shopping partners and shopping lists share with others options solutions for Lack of organization and efficiency in the shopping process.
User Profile Settings and Preferences Workflow
This section solves the following issues such as:
Difficulty in accommodating diverse dietary restrictions and preferences. Lack of a centralized platform to manage family health. Limited customization options for individual profiles.
Personalized & Customized Individual Family Profile Feature offers:
- Individual profiles for each family member with unique dietary preferences and restrictions.
- Options to input health conditions, allergies, and other relevant information.
Preferences and Settings:
- Customizable settings for meal preferences, dietary goals, and health targets.
- Options to receive personalized notifications and reminders.
Leaderboard:
This part helps the users to Improve user engagement and retention and strengthen community bonds through shared achievements and Positive feedback on the motivational aspect of the leaderboard.
Lesson Learnt
- while I chose color for branding, I always preferred blue color since I like it. then I started to use it. Then I realized while I was working with the logo, green and muddy(brown) colors would be good for my project since am aiming to get nutrition and family(like Home-Nest) sharing kind of things. then, My Mentor suggested, “Worry about colors at the end of the project for this kind of restricted thought”. And I understood how my bias affected me in making the correct design decision.
- Thought me to Choose MVP wisely to finish within the project duration.
- Do a lot of Testing and iteration while in the wireframe stage itself.
- I am documenting everything during the project journey.
What Next?
I have a lot of things in store for Version 2.0
It’s a wrap!
🚀 Ready to elevate your design team? Let’s connect!🤝 am currently open to Product Designer opportunities. Find me on LinkedIn or Twitter, and let’s chat about the exciting possibilities ahead.
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👋🏻Thankyou!
