Nouriva
Providing college students with customized budget-friendly and time-efficient recipes
TLDR;
Project Highlights and Fundamentals
My Personal Role
UX/UI Designer & Researcher
Skills Incorporated
Branding, Design Thinking, Wireframing, Prototyping, User Testing
Timeline of Project
2 Weeks: Discovery & Research
2 Weeks: Research & Wireframing
3 Weeks: Prototyping & User Testing
Deliverables
Figma Prototypes
FigJam
Adobe Photoshop
Understanding the Problem
Discovering pain points users face through empathy and research
In the digital age, misinformation in the health sphere is common. For young people aged between 18-22 years old, it can be hard to be proactive and stay informed about their dietary health.
Through user interviews, we sought to understand the ways we can inform and hold younger people accountable about eating healthy by providing diet and water intake tips.
Our goals are to inform users and promote healthy eating habits sustainably and delicately in an effort to not promote eating disorders. These interviews worked to educate us on what users truly want in a solution to achieve our goals.
User Interviews
We interviewed a total of 8 students, providing 180+ data points, 3 main themes, and 8 insights. We learned about people’s current relationship with their eating habits, what they are looking to change with these habits, their personal importance placed on nutrition, and more.
“Information from social media about dieting is not reliable, not fact checked, and completely varied”
“It’s challenging to cook for myself... Convenience is a significant factor, it’s hard to build a schedule for cooking”
“I wish I knew more about how to create healthy meals on a college budget”
Affinity Mapping
Following the user interviews, our team shifted to affinity mapping to highlight common themes that our users face. We used FigJam to organize comments, identifying common pain points. This helped to give us a understanding of what our users needed in a solution aimed at nutrition in college students. You can find the key takeaways of our research below. This process allows us to cater to the diverse dimensions of a healthy lifestyle, shaped by the users' perspectives.
Key Takeaways
It’s hard to maintain a healthy lifestyle because it’s hard to schedule cooking time among other commitments.
Users feel they do not have enough time to do a number of things, whether it is to cook, eat, or find a quality meal.
People learn best visually and through practicing/finding patterns.
Social media is often a go-to for nutrition info as it influences purchasing decisions or provides inspiration.
People have a baseline understanding of nutrition but lack nuances; they may quickly believe what they see.
Users often use notes or other apps to keep track of things they need to do, such as nutrition goals.
Users are wanting to know how they can practice healthy eating habits with a college budget and schedule.
Project Redirection
Our user interviews highlighted that our users had different needs than we were anticipating. Our original drafted solution ideas including an app that tracks health behavior did not seem to aid the problems our users were facing. At this point, we decided to pivot.
Informative nutrition app + water tracker
App focused on healthy, budget friendly, & time-efficient recipes
Problem Statement
College students face significant barriers to maintaining a healthy diet due to time constraints and limited budgets. Despite a general awareness of nutrition principles, the lack of accessible, affordable, and time-friendly meal options hinders their ability to make healthier food choices.
Developing a Solution
Using what we had learned to create a customized product fit to our user’s needs
Competitive Analysis
Our team performed an extensive competitive analysis to grasp the present market trends and evaluate other similar products. This involved identifying characteristics and highlighting both strengths and weaknesses. It revealed main features we wanted to include in our solution. These included a thorough onboarding process, the ability to create your own recipe, save recipes, set goals, and a store with a reward system that offered the ability to earn a physical product.
Final Solution
We decided to design a recipe app specifically customized for busy younger adults who struggle to make time for nutrition. It begins with a intuitive onboarding process, gathering insights into users’ eating habits and nutrition goals. Based on this information, Nouriva tailors personalized recipe recommendations to you and your taste and goals. Empowering features like customization, review sharing, and mood board organization enrich the user experience, while the app's convenience shines through suggestions based on available groceries and personalized searches. Fostering community engagement through sharing options and encouraging goal setting, the app not only tackles mealtime obstacles but also nurtures a supportive community and encourages goal attainment through physical incentives.
User Flow
Our team then crafted a user flow that prioritized intuitive navigation and a seamless user experience in Nouriva.
Key:
Designing & Iterating
Developing Nouriva as a brand and incorporating user feedback as we develop high-fidelity wireframes
Brand Identity
The name Nouriva comes from the two words “Nourish” and “Viva.” Nourished is how we always wanted our users to feel during and after interacting with our product. Viva is latin for lively and alive, more attributes of how we wanted our solution to feel.
Low Fidelity Wireframes
Mid Fidelity Wireframes
Incorporating User Feedback
Dietary Restrictions & Nutrition:
Screening for Dietary Restrictions: Allow users to input their dietary restrictions or preferences during onboarding
Plate Percentages: Offer suggested plate percentages for nutrition beginners. Consider preset options like "The Muscle Builder" or "The Veggie Plate."
"Create Your Own" Recipe Option: Make the "create your own" recipe feature more easily accessible.
Nutritional Information: Enable an option to display nutritional facts and calories for recipes or meals.
Personalization & Preferences:
Representative "What Matters Most" Options: Enhance the diversity and representation of options that users can select based on what matters most to them.
Personalized Questions: Incorporate personalized questions during onboarding such as preferred flavors, cooking time availability, budget for groceries, and available appliances.
Recipe Recommendations: Provide suggested recipes based on user preferences and lifestyle, such as common college student recipes, allowing users to select favorites to tailor profiles.
App Functionality & Organization:
Community & Social Features: Explore the potential for community aspects within the app, such as shared boards and saved features.
Filtering & Sorting Options: Implement filters based on cuisines, pantry ingredients, cooking time, meal types, and cost for easier navigation and recipe discovery.
Section Organization: Simplify and streamline the MyPantry section to make it less overwhelming for users.
MyRecipes Section: Consider a MyRecipes section adjacent to MyPantry for easier recipe management.
Additional Features & Incentives:
Digital Rewards: Introduce digital rewards as incentives for engagement or achievement milestones within the app.
High Fidelity Wireframes
Prototypes
Completing the design phase by incorporating insights from user research and seamlessly integrating them into the finalized designs.
Onboarding
Customize how you want to view your app:
Adjust time and money spent
Specify recipe preferences and dietary profiles
Fine-tune macronutrient settings
Home, Filtering, & Recipes
*These screens include my specific contributions*
Access your recommended recipes based on customized onboarding information
Filter & browse detailed recipes learning the ingredients, the process, reviews, and more
Reviews
*These screens include my specific contributions*
Share your reviews with others and learn from other people’s reviews as well
Store
By logging in on the app consistently, gain Nouriva currency
Use currency to shop FREE Nouriva merchandise
Saved
View all saved recipes, boards, personal recipes
Create a new board to house new ideas
Share boards with friends and family!
My Pantry
Track the ingredients you have in your kitchen
Upload ingredients manually, by scanning receipt or taking photos
Get recommended recipes based on what you already have
Create Your Own
Create your own recipe with open ended customizations, adding the ingredients you want, from either your pantry or search
Blog-Entry for simple steps and preparation notes including ability to upload an image of your work!
Goals
Set reasonable nutrition goals and complete them at your own pace
Receive coins by completing the goals you set
Physical Product
Be rewarded for free by earning Nouriva currency by achieving your nutrition goals and consistently using the app.
Water bottle
T-shirt
Journal
Snacks (My Work)
Final Takeaways
Reflecting on Nouriva as a project
Nouriva was an extremely rewarding project, filled with both ups and downs. As the nutrition space is one that is extremely popular and has been tackled a lot in the past, we struggled to narrow down our topic but we used our user research to guide the way of our project and solution. Wanting to incorporate some sort of physical product design aspect, we had to shift focus from simple nutrition and health lifestyle tracking to a recipe app, something that aligned more closely with the wants and needs of our user base. Without these challenges, however, Nouriva would not be what it is today. Through our struggles, we learned the importance of collaboration and flexibility as a team and how crucial data-driven design decisions are. The pivot we faced with our project redirection allowed Nouriva to level-up into something that helps college students incorporate a healthy lifestyle on their own terms.
Encore? Reach out!
anjaliverma0726@gmail.com
