Food Groups App Development

App Description

The app is used to find restaurants that are located near the user (they can also enter a location to see restaurants in another area). The user enters their food preferences when they create their account. They may also rate restaurants that they have been to, so that the app may further evaluate the type of restaurants the user prefers. The app also allows users to see other users' ratings of the restaurant, menus, and restaurant contact information.

Users will create a new account or log-in to the app through Facebook or Google. They can connect with friends and family through these accounts or through basic contact information. Once the user is connected to family and friends they will be able to see their friends' preferences and favorite restaurants.

The app is unique in that it allows users to evaluate restaurant options with other members of their group. The app displays a list of the user's friends who are nearby. The user can then choose the friends that will be included in choosing the restaurant. In other words, if the user is in a group of 10 people who use the app, but only 5 are going to dinner, the user can choose just those 5 people. The app then takes into account the preferences of the entire selected group and recommends restaurants that are most likely to satisfy everyone. The user can also select a location and group of people even if they are not currently nearby or with that particular group in order to allow them to plan in advance.

Personas

Goals/Anti-Goals

Process Flow

Competitive Research

UI Inspiration

See Pinterest Board

Use Cases

1. Gary and his friends are foodies who go out to eat several times each week. They all have the app since they are interested in food and are tech savvy. When they meet up Friday night, they all open the app on their phones, select everyone in the group as their friends, and browse local restaurants that meet their preferences.

2. Karen goes out to eat most often with her husband. She uses the app to plan out their date nights in advance. Her husband set up his own profile in the app, but doesn't typically use it since Karen always makes the plans. Karen is still able to select her husband as her friend and pick a location nearby where she wants to go to eat before they actually go out together.

3. Rick travels a lot for work. He doesn't know people in most of the cities he's visiting, but he's good at making friends quickly. He is going somewhere to eat with the new friends he just met. He doesn't know them well enough to know their preferences, but most of the people in the group use the app. Rick is able to connect with these people through the app and compare their preferences to find someplace they can all eat.

4. Linda is a working mom with three kids. Outside of work, she spends a lot of time driving her kids to sports and other after school activities. Since she's often traveling, she needs to find nearby places to eat. Her kids are also picky and each have their own preferences. Linda's kids all have their own phones. They each made their own accounts on the app, which Linda uses to find places to eat that match everyone's opinion.

5. George and Jerry run into each other on the street and decide to go for lunch. They can't decide on a restaurant to go to. Jerry tells George about this new app he has that will help them decide. George downloads the app, logs in through Facebook and quickly selects a few of his preferences. Jerry and George select each other as friends in the app and are now able to find restaurants they both like, making their decision easier.

6. Kevin has severe food allergies that limits the types of foods that he can eat. In the app he selects preferences for what he cannot eat. Now when he goes out to eat with his family and friends he knows that the app is suggesting that places that will be safe for him to eat.

7. John and Ali just started dating. They have trouble deciding on where to eat since they don't know each other that well yet. They're also both picky eaters. One of Ali's friends tells her about the app so she downloads it and tells John to do the same. They both setup a profile and select their preferences. They then use the app to find restaurants they can both agree on, saving them from a messy break up.

8. Larry, Jeff, and Susie are planning to go out to eat in LA. They each use the app, select the rest of the group as their friends and then look up restaurants they will all like. While they're trying to make a decision, Larry gets mad at Jeff and Susie over a comment Susie made. He decides that he will not be eating with them and leaves. Jeff and Susie go back to remove Larry from their group and see revised restaurant recommendations for just the two of them.

9. Jim and his friends just finished eating a meal at a restaurant they found using the app. The meal was terrible and the service was slow. Jim goes back into the app, selects the restaurant and writes a review of the restaurant so other people will know not to go there.

10. Kate lives in Connecticut, but she heard about a restaurant in Portland that she really wants to try when she goes on vacation there next month. She searches the name of the restaurant in the app and finds the main page for the restaurant. Here she is able to read reviews, look at the menu, and find contact information to make reservations at the restaurant.

Initial Rough Wireframes

Clickable Wireframes

User Testing with Initial Mockup

User Testing Tasks

1. You are with your friends, Alyssa Molligan, Aaron Page, and Erin Macey. You are trying to decide where to go to eat together. Find restaurants that will meet all of your friends' preferences.

2. Erin decides to leave your group, get updated results that don't include Erin's preferences.

3. You decide that you might want pizza tonight. Add pizza to your preferences list and update your results.

4. Send your friends a suggestion that you want to eat at the Kutztown Tavern tonight.

5. You are now part of another group. The Kutztown Tavern is the top recommendation, but it doesn't meet your friend Samantha's preferences. You know she's just a picky eater, so remove her opinon from the results.

6. Overall, do you think the app was too complicated?

Round 1 Results

Users were typically able to complete the first three tasks without any significant issues. However, they did expect a main nav bar to appear on more screens than just the map.

Users had trouble finding how to suggest a restaurant in task 4. They typically went to the Suggestions button when the intent was for them to go to the main screen for the Kutztown Tavern.

On task 5 users did not realize that the results had a drop down to show who liked or disliked a location.

For question 6, the most common suggestion from users was to have an easier way to navigate back to the main screen.

User Testing with Revised Mockup

Round 2 Results

In the revised mockup, the primary change was adding the main nav bar to the recommendations screens, in addition to the map. The Suggestions button was changed to Discuss and made into a group chat. Users still went to this button more often than the restaurant screen for task 4, but this made more sense with the group chat function.

Some users still did not realize that the restaurant recommendations had drop downs to show the group's preferences. With more time to revise the design, the drop down arrow should be made into an obvious button for users.