Wedding

Catering app

Overview

Wildflower Weddings is a rustic wedding venue in Denver, Colorado. They offer customizable wedding menus to suit their client’s dietary needs – from lactose-free, gluten-free, and soy-free to specific allergies and even vegetarian dishes.

The problem: People with dietary restrictions find it difficult to find food for their wedding that will suit themselves, as well as their guests.

Role

Lead UX Designer

Tools

Figma, Photoshop

Interviews

I conducted interviews and created empathy maps to understand the users that I’m designing for and their needs. A primary user group were people who have digestive issues or allergies to food.

The user group confirmed that there are many people who have dietary restrictions, and are frustrated finding food menus that they like for their special day.

Goal

Design an app that users can easily search by dietary restriction, add and remove ingredients, and save the menu.

Responsibilities

Conducting interviews, competitive analysis, paper and digital wireframing, low and high-fidelity prototyping, conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, and iterating on designs.

Timeline

August - December 2022

Personas

I wanted to form a deeper understanding of the users' goals, needs, experiences, and behaviors. I created a persona for the user segment that was based on user interviews.

User Journey

Maryanne’s journey map revealed it would helpful to bring dietary restrictions up front and center, as well as present a menu in the app as opposed to a downloadable PDF.

I began the design process with low-fidelity sketches and wireframes to accelerate decision-making through visualization without losing time. My sketches were based on the initial user interviews, the business goal, and the heuristic evaluation. Starting with paper wireframes allowed for many different solutions to find the most clear and direct path before creating digital wireframes.

Sketches & Wireframes

Using Figma, I translated my first sketches into low-fidelity wireframes. Then, I improved them by adding a few relevant stock images and copy. At this stage, the wireframes were defined enough for some user testing.

Low-fidelity Wireframes

Design System

Maryanne’s journey map revealed it would helpful to bring dietary restrictions up front and center, as well as present a menu in the app as opposed to a downloadable PDF.

UI Design

Once the usability issues were resolved, I moved on to design the final screens in Figma. My goal was to create a visual identity that’s aligned with the brand’s values. Also, I’ve checked the competition and took a deep dive into my catalog of references for inspiration.

The final high-fidelity prototype presented cleaner flows, with a more streamlined process to completion.

The final high-fidelity prototype presented cleaner flows, with a more streamlined process to completion.

Learnings

With consideration of people who may be color-blind, I applied colors with enough contrast to mitigate the issue.

Inclusivity: people with digestive issues and special dietary needs are no longer feeling left out.

Testing on real users was the true test. It revealed more ideas I didn’t think of. Peer feedback helped me to refine and evolve the app to suit users needs.

Next Steps

Conduct another usability study to validate whether the pain points users expressed were addressed. Conduct more user research to determine any new areas of focus.