Research | Wireframe | Prototype | Interaction Design | Visual Design | Program Management
It’s a question we ask ourselves multiple times every day. We interact with menus, web sites, mobile apps, waiters, and friends to make these decisions. To cook, or to go out? Read a whole menu and still unsure, everything looks equally good or unappealing. There's got to be a better way.
Delish appeals primarily to the right brain using a visual content that engages vicerally. Left brain decisions including price, nutrition, and proximity are satiated with filters to satiate the logical side. The results shown from user testing were quicker decisions with higher quality experiences.
In the mall food court, Taco Time and Anthony’s Fish Bar are right next to each other. A patron can get a fish taco from either, but most choose restaurant first, dish second. However, the result is the same.
Menus at Taco Time are much more visual while the overall design of Anthony's is more upscale, yet arguably less usable without the pictures. Patrons are using the branding to guide them on nutrition, value, and taste. The menu item is the afterthought.
Patrons were interviewed about how they choose their next dish using TAP (Think Aloud Protocol). Considerations for choosing food, preferred places, and apps they already use were recorded and used to generate insights.
Resulting ideas were sketched and prototypes were built and tested on five users. Testing was quick and dirty and involved moving the pieces of paper manually.
The design grew to incorporate more features and an Axure prototype facilitated tappable testing on mobile. Another round of iterative testing was performed using 7 participants.
Our users...
Dine at the same places frequently
Use mobile apps when something new or different is desired
Have specific criteria for dining experiences
Trust crowd-sourced data with filterable reviews
Love deals and rewards
Care about diverse and creative outlet
Look for recipes based on ingredients already available at home
Make choices according to their cooking skills, equipment, time
Our app should...
Foster diversity and creativity of choices
Have more filters than less
Let users upload their food pictures
Incorporate deals, rewards, and happy hours
Add recipes to support cooking at home
Filter dishes by ingredients for allergies
List cooking instructions of specific dishes
During research I found several useful apps for dining but many of these apps lacked features that would help users choose more quickly and effectively.
Urbanspoon is very quick to help users find a restaurant but most people want to decide for themselves before letting the app randomly pick for them. The slot machine style is novel but the cutesy game aspect wears off when actually needing to settle on a choice.
Foodspotting starts off well using pictures of food but does not finish off well. The app misses out on the rest of the menu, ambiance of the restaurant, the ingredients as pertaining to allergies or cooking, or when a restaurant is open. Also the app shows one picture at a time, which is just not efficient and useful enough. It is missing a more sophisticated filtering system to be more useful.
Yelp features reviewers as their main strength. Here's the problem: Reading reviews can be immersive and off-putting. It forces the reader to use their logical left brain to make a decision about something they want to be using their craving, impulsive right brain to make. That being said, it is the most comprehensive app with some extensive filters, though it's organization of filters and content can be overwhelming.
As Delish's main competition, I "yelped" about Yelp to think critically about the app’s strengths and weaknesses. Take a look for a detailed analysis.
http://aubiabramowitz.blogspot.com/
Instead of processing written menus and reviews with your left brain, your right brain sees how tasty the food looks, how refreshing the drinks are, how nice the ambiance of the restaurant is.
Swipe from the edge to prompt the filters menu. The content can be filtered by location, cost, deals, allergy, and more.
Tap the menu icon in the top right to search the map, add pictures, find places by activity, or view friends favorites.
Find recipes for dishes or find a restaurant to cook it.
Map favorite dishes, find restaurants, reserve tables, or order take out.
View community favorites, comments, and tips for food and places.
American household spending on food
Avg US household expenditure on food away from home
Number of restaurant locations in the US
Annual US restaurant industry sales
Annual advertising spending in food industry
American adults using smartphones
Percent of adults who said they would be likely to utilize a smartphone app if it was offered by a restaurant.
Monetization
Free app download Monetize from restaurant & grocery store commissions
>
Get personal by hitting up your friends for their likes, comments, tips, and photos of food and places. Show pictures of food only liked by your friends. After all, these are the people you can trust.
Voting on specials
Referral
Take out orders
Gifting dishes
Frequent diner rewards
Secret VIP menu
Trends
Aggregate spending trends by market
Popular dish insights
Go to market
Partner with top restaurants
Co-branded online & mobile advertising with top restaurants to piggyback off recognition of established brands
Create partnerships for VIP menu & loyalty rewards
In-restaurant and word-of-mouth advertising
Recognition stickers at top-rated restaurants
Word-of-mouth promotion through like, sharing & gifting dishes
Free app download & no end-user signup
No signup needed to search for dishes
