• User Research—Competitive Analysis, User Interviews, Journey Mapping, Survey, Card Sorting, Usability Testing, A/B Preference Testing.
• UX Design— Sketches, Wireframing, Prototyping.
• UX Writing—Call-to-Actions (CTAs).
My Roles
• Solo student project for CareerFoundry’s
UX Design Bootcamp.
• April 2022~March 2023 (11 months).
• Created using Figma.
Project Context
PROBLEM
New plant-based/focused individuals do not know how to balance their diet and lifestyle.
As a frustrated, new vegetarian myself, who contemplated quitting my diet and plant-focused lifestyle many times, I came to the realization that one of the main problems plant-based/focused “newbies” face when first switching to their new diets or lifestyles is the following–New vegans and vegetarians do not know how to balance their diet and lifestyle to maintain a nutrient-sufficient, healthy, plant-based/focused diet. This results in frustration, which leads to the desire to abandon the diet. So...
SOLUTIONS
Customization is key.
WHITE PAPER RESEARCH
84% of vegans and vegetarians abandon their diet.
To better understand why I, and so many other new plant-based/focused people, feel discouraged when reducing or removing animal products from our diets, I turned to a 2014 study conducted by a leading animal rights non-profit organization called Faunalytics. The purpose of the study was to “examine potential factors in people’s decisions to either adopt or give up a vegetarian or vegan diet” (Faunalytics.org).
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
A noticeable lack of health/nutrition apps for plant-based/focused individuals.
Before I started designing my own app, I decided to take a look at other successful health and nutrition apps on the market and perform a competitor analysis. However, when selecting apps to analyze, I discovered only 2 health/nutrition apps specifically for plant-based/focused individuals. Of those 2 apps, both lacked a sense of community and meal options/ideas—these aspects would become our primary opportunities to capitalize.
USER SURVEYS
I turned to the only source that could give me an accurate understanding of what our potential users want and need–I went to the people!
I created a Google Forms survey and posted it to 3 vegan and vegetarian groups on Facebook with member counts of over 20,000. I also made sure to share the survey with plant-based/focused individuals in my network.
After posting the survey to Facebook, I was fortunate enough to receive 44 responses (of which 67.4% were vegans, 9.3% were vegetarians, 9.3% were flexitarian, and 14% other). From this survey, I was able to gain the following insights:
USER INTERVIEWS & AFFINITY MAPPING
100% of my interviewees expressed a lack of support, community, and overall dissatisfaction with vegan food options.
Before conducting user interviews, I carefully selected and recruited 3 interviewees from my personal network who matched Kale’s target audience (2 vegetarians and 1 pescatarian–all between the ages of 26-28). 1 of the interviews was conducted in person, and the other 2 were conducted remotely via Zoom.
I asked them the questions below to find trends on what discouraged and encouraged them in terms of their plant-based/focused diets and health/nutrition apps in general:
How would you describe your diet? (Do you eat some meat or animal products? Are you primarily plant-based or plant-focused?).
What was your primary motivation for switching to a plant-based/focused diet?
What did you find most frustrating about the process of switching to a plant-based/focused diet? Did you ever overcome that hurdle? If so, what helped you overcome it?
Tell me about an obstacle (or obstacles) that held you back from accomplishing your health, fitness, and/or nutrition goals. What helped you overcome said obstacle(s)?
Have you ever used a health, nutrition, and/or fitness app before? If so, which one? Which in-app features did you find most annoying and most helpful?
Following the user interviews, I organized my data onto an affinity map, which I used to pinpoint trends of encouragement and discouragement. Based on the trends in my affinity map, I noticed 100% of my interviewees expressed a lack of support and community, as well as some dissatisfaction with vegan food options.
SETBACKS & SOLUTIONS
Keeping Kale accessible.
One of the major setbacks I faced in Kale’s design process was choosing a suitable color palette. After 2 weeks of deliberation, I settled on using a dark green (to represent the color of kale as well as veganism and vegetarianism) as my primary color and pastel shades of red, purple, and orange (colors found in common fruits and vegetables) as my complementary colors. However, I soon realized that my green and red-heavy color palette might pose a problem to users with red/green color blindness.
To improve Kale’s accessibility I…
MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS
3 major improvements to Kale’s design.
Based on the results of 5 remote-moderated usability tests + 1 in-person-moderated usability test, A/B preference tests, and feedback from 3 of my peers + my tutor and mentor, I continually iterated my design for 1 month, making 3 major improvements:
FINAL SCREENS
The final product.
REFLECTIONS & NEXT STEPS
Lessons learned & what I would do differently next time.
This was my very first UX/UI project! I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to complete this project under the guidance of actual UX/UI professionals to see what the process is actually like. Here’s what I learned from this experience that might help me on my next project:
• Experience the problem first-hand (when possible)–Being a vegetarian, I was able to empathize with and experience the pain points many of Kale’s potential users experience first-hand. Though it’s unlikely I will always be a part of the communities I design for, I understand that immersing myself in these communities (when possible) truly is the best way to empathize, conduct research, and develop solutions.
• Design for diversity—When designing Kale, I spent around 2 weeks researching and becoming familiar with WC3 and Material Design’s accessibility guidelines. In growing my knowledge of accessibility guidelines, I found I was able to empathize with a more diverse audience and celebrate making Kale accessible to as many people as possible!
• Done is better than perfect—While it’s essential to release a high-quality, functioning product, it is also important not to get too caught up in “perfection.” Not only did I waste time worrying about making small, trivial details perfect, but I realized I undermined the iterative process of UX design. Designs can, and will, always be tested/iterated on. Instead of worrying about whether my project was “perfect,” I found it more productive to focus on whether it solved the problem my users needed it to solve.