My Roles

• Art Direction, Branding, & UI

• Content Strategy

• Researcher

• Wireframe & Prototype Designer

• Information Architect

• Testing Moderator
  

Overview 

During the COVID global pandemic, many beloved businesses closed their doors forever. Customers have become especially aware that without these mom-and-pop shops, the unique flavor of communities disappears. The Local Food Love takeout and delivery platform was created to feature and celebrate local small businesses. During testing, I wanted to see if friendly branding and messaging could help break barriers for audiences who are distrustful or uncomfortable with online ordering. The purchase choices and options of the site were modeled after industry-standard well-known takeout/delivery apps.

Conclusion

Food app skeptics were universally won over by the friendly and approachable style, reminding them that local businesses are part of their community. The unexpected twist was that the joyful style created greater interest to learn more. A platform with the potential to create community can be more than just a simple and quick app for ordering food. The next phase would clearly showcase how site usage supports local businesses and also provide new features to get to know them as well.

Rationale

Local Food Love: an online food delivery/takeout platform was created to:

• Celebrate and support small businesses as vital members of communities

• Be an alternative to 3rd party delivery apps that take up to 30% of each sale away from the small business owner.

• Solely feature small local businesses so people can put love into local.

• Allow businesses to receive all the profit from each sale on the site with no additional fees.

Research: Directed Storytelling

Directed storytelling sessions were done with users, to learn from their experiences with online food ordering. These insights guided a friendly platform design style that celebrates and supports local small businesses.

Questions asked:

• Do you use online food takeout or delivery?

• Can you tell me about a time when you used an online takeout/delivery site?

Follow-up questions were open-ended for additional details and exploration.

• What stood out to you about that?

• Can you tell me more?

Design: Information Architecture

Information Architecture and a User Flow were utilized to work through a structure for the platform.

Design: Wireframes

Both rough sketched and high-fidelity digital wireframes were utilized. The style would play a key role in creating an engaging, friendly, celebration of community, that would welcome people who might hesitate to order online. Digital wireframes were high fidelity. They included style, tone, and joyful messaging to create a sense of fun to keep users engaged.

Interactive Prototyping

An interactive prototype was created to test on selected participants. Participants would finish a working Happy Path to completion. Clickable features allowed users to explore the site.

Evaluation

UX Designers provided feedback about the platform. Strategic changes were made on the interactive working prototype that incorporated feedback before testing on selected audience participants.

Research: Think-Aloud Testing

Four participants were given usability tests and asked to continuously 
think out loud as they navigated through the Local Food Love website. 
The participants are the potential audience for the platform. They are family-oriented, diverse cultures and ages, with a love of local businesses, and a strong desire to celebrate diversity and LGBTQ-friendly food venues.

Participants were asked about:

• Initial impressions of the site

• The purpose of the platform

• The intended audience

Then asked to complete 2 tasks:

1. Create an account

2. Order from and Indian restaurant (Happy Path)

Outcomes & Lessons

The Local Food Love website has an undeniably engaging style and tone that celebrates small businesses as vital community members. Participants navigated through the site with ease. However… even though visitors to the site were eager to engage, they universally wanted visible incentives spelled out to join Local Food Love with an account. Participants repeatedly stated that the platform needed to clearly show HOW their participation supports small business vendors.

• Audiences wanted a stronger sense 
of purpose and a feeling that they were making a difference.

• Community-minded audiences have a strong social conscience. Potentially sensitive topics including: culture, race, and other social justice issues need to be conscientiously researched so the audience remains invested.

• Participants wanted more from the Local Food Love platform. They want an even deeper connection, more involvement, more information about the business, and more menu details as well. They want to get to know and understand these small local businesses.