People with food allergies could have difficult time eating out due to fear of contacting allergens. This makes the process of deciding where and what to eat a frustrating experience. How can we navigate young adults to live independently with food allergy?
🙋Role
Product Designer
✍️Skills
Product Thinking
Competitive Analysis
Market Research
Interface Design
Prototype
👥Team
4 Product Designers
1 Mentor
🔧Tool
Powerpoint
Figma
FigmaJam
Illustrator
This project is in response to the Whitespace Challenge annually held by the Northwestern University. The competition lasted for four months. The competition aims to build a new product that focused on identifying unclaimed whites space in the market and creating a viable solution to solve customers’ needs.
Our team researched four allergy related apps Chipotle, Spokin, UIUC Dining app and Allergy Eat. Furthermore, we concluded their general problems:
"Just downloaded (the app) and was disappointed. It’s outdated and most of the reviews are from years ago."
With ALLY, Customers can...
With ALLY, Restaurants can...
I then worked closely with another teammate on designing the interface. We worked closely and used Illustrator to create the wireframe. Later on with a growing interest in the UI field, I revisit the wireframe and polished the design in Figma.
Moreover, we focused the design on creating an innovated and user-centric solution, resolving the issues from current existing designs.
By providing the platform ALLY for restaurant owners to share specific information about potential allergens in their dishes, consumers are more likely to make safe and informed decisions. A communication platform that connects consumers to a representative knowledgeable of the menu builds trust between customers and the brand, thus allows restaurants an opportunity to build customer loyalty, and allows ALLY's users to feel safe about what they want to eat.
We believe that the user should be able to easily identify their available options at every given restaurant to reduce the stress of deciding where to eat. ALLY also have the option of changing the menu to fit what they want it to show:
In existing apps, we noticed that the reviews were often unstructured and irrelevant to the experience of someone with allergies. In ALLY, reviews are related to aspects related to how well the restaurant responds to allergy-prone customers
The goal of introducing the Reputation Point System is to encourage restaurant owners to:
Restaurant points are based on staff helpfulness, allergy accommodation, and responsiveness (on ALLY and through other media or ways of communication) Number of points for each category is based on the percentage.
Also, premium option is available for the restaurants, allowing them to access user statistics, post ads, customized their own page, and attract diners through spin-to-win rewards. We only provide the premium feature for restaurants because we believe that every diner should have equal access to allergy-related information.
Key Findings👀: Food allergies can develop anytime and can be from a variety of sources. Traditional menus often lack the information that people with allergies need to make informed decisions about what to eat. This uncertainty discourages them to try new restaurants and dishes because users don’t feel safe. Food allergies can be stressful and frustrating experiences for individuals when trying new restaurants.
Question: When did you find out about your allergies?
"I was likely always allergic to tree nuts, but not severe until my senior year of high school. I also developed all my other allergies at this time and got them diagnosed during my first semester of college. "
--Participant 2
Question: When eating out, how do you findout about the ingredients?
"Don't ask and hope for the best."
--Participant 4
"Avoid eating out"
--Participant 6
"I realized I was intolerant to food dyes during puberty because I kept getting sick from drinking Slurpees."
--Participant 1
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Although this interview only covered a small sample group of people, the data shows a wide variety of foods that cause allergic reactions and intolerant reactions.
In order to understand our user experience with the prototype, we create a user flow chart showing our hypothesis of user interaction with the screen.
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It includes updating the icon and tabs to a more modern and user-friendly design
Users prefer universal structure that they are more familiar with (ex. Google Map). We also learned that users did not click on profile icon on the bottom navigation bar and thus we decide to hide the information. Instead, we placed a "add to favorite" icon as many users reflect on their preference of saving lists for future use.
