EatSimply is a web service in which generates simple and inexpensive meal plans, helping users set and maintain sustainable and healthy nutritional goals.
I joined the EatSimply team as a UX designer in January of '16 after coming across the developer and his idea on a skill-sharing website. Our small remote team is in the process of fully designing and developing an end-to-end solution for dieting and meal planning. When starting work at EatSimply, I had no previous experience in UX design outside of courses, and I will forever be grateful for the opportunity to learn and grow with such great people!
Upon joining EatSimply, I was immediately curious as to whether anyone else had already launched a similar service. If there were already viable alternatives, how could we differentiate our service and excel?
After jotting down my thoughts about each service in evernote, I started creating a set of user personas based on the market we wanted to reach (which is basically everyone). The personas then helped inform a set of goals and objectives to consider and strive towards during the rest of our design and development process. With these goals in mind, I thought it'd probably be helpful to myself and the other designers to generate a basic user flow in order to determine where we could best focus our energy to create a solid UX out of the gate.
After research and planning seemed to be sufficiently completed, I began working on wireframes to discuss with the rest of the team. Each one seemed to lack in anything that would significantly differentiate from the competition. While they seemed to struggle with focus and vision, their lists seemed to be the best way to display the recipes for each week. It wasn't until taking a test for a class that I had the idea of cutting out lists, instead moving towards big cards.
The concept behind this was to show all of the recipes in a similar style to Trello, but opting for a stack of cards for navigating. Each card is meant to represent one day, with three stacks of 7 cards to represent the previous, current, and next weeks. Keeping cards peaking out of the bottom and side gives spatial context, allowing them to quickly scroll or swipe through the days and weeks without getting lost. The design is both web and mobile friendly, incorporating large imagery and typography for accessiblity and aesthetic.
The resulting dashboard design that we've currently decided on is easy to navigate, equipped with large and easy to read information. We decided that it would be more logical to refrain from listing every meal as "equal", instead allowing one to take center stage, downgrading the others to a scrollable row at the bottom. The reason for this, aside from allowing for a cleaner design, is that many of our current competitors require far too much preparation. By effectively listing all of the foods on an equal footing, it becomes too complicated to follow. With our design, we can keep it simple by suggesting one "complex" dish, and a ton of simple ones that require little or no preparation.
I've had a great time working on EatSimply. I've learned an incredible amount throughout the design process, and I'm so happy that I was given the opportunity to work on the project! While there is still work to be done on the design, I do think the current version is already superior in many ways to our competitors. I'm so grateful to have been given the opportunity to be a part of the team!
Thanks for reading!
