Yum Finder
The easiest way to find food trucks near you.
Platform
Mobile
My Role
UX Designer
Duration
May 2022-December 23, 2022
Introduction
Yum Finder is a Chicago-based food truck locator startup that not only provides users easy access to local food trucks in their vicinity, but also to place orders with ease.
Problems & Challenges
Users cannot locate food truck vendors efficiently in their neighborhoods on one organized platform.
Users would like the option to preorder food before arriving to the food truck.
Users would like live updates on location of food trucks as well as current hours of operation.
Users would like more photos included of menu items to help make decisions.
Goals
To create an app that allows users to locate food trucks in their vicinity.
User Research Summary
Concerning research for development, many avenues were explored including: user interviews, competitive audits, competitive audit reports, etc. Initially I believed that locating the trucks was the most important feature. However after conducting the user interviews I realized that users valued many other things just as much. Such as, prepay options, ability to track current location, sorting by various options (popularity, proximity, etc), and photographs of various menu offerings.
Personas
Yum Finder has two primary types of users: “the social media foodie” and “the late night snack searcher”. To understand their goals and challenges, we created a detailed user persona for each.
User Journey
Mapping Carl Young’s journey revealed how helpful it would be for users to have access to a dedicated Yum Finder app.
Paper Wireframes
Taking time to draft iterations of each screen of the app on paper ensured that the elements that made it to digital wireframes would be well suited to address user pain points.
Digital Wireframes
As the initial design phase continued, I made sure to base screen designs on feedback and findings from the user research.
Easy navigation was a key user need to address in the design in addition to equipping the app to work with assistive technologies.
Low Fidelity Prototypes
The low-fidelity prototype connected primary user flow of searching for and ordering from a food truck vendor so that the prototype could be used in a usability study with users.
https://www.figma.com/proto/zmtQpwSxMRMHSjae7GFl1c/FoodTruckWireframes_Johnson?page-id=0%3A1&node-id=27%3A48&viewport=377%2C157%2C0.16&scaling=scale-down&starting-point-node-id=27%3A48&show-proto-sidebar=1
Usability Study
I conducted two rounds of usability studies. Findings from the first study helped guide the designs from wireframes to mockups. The second study used a high-fidelity prototype and revealed what aspects of the mockups needed refining.
Round 1 Findings
People want to navigate easily.
People want to check out quickly.
People want a sense of familiarity.
Round 2 Findings
Familiarity accomplished by altering navigation.
. People want access to the full app.
High Fidelity Mockups
Early designs integrated both the map and list for users to choose from. Usability study concludes that the map was easier to digest with the list of vendors coming after the initial search.
High Fidelity Prototypes
The final high- fidelity prototype presented cleaner user flows for locating and ordering from local food vendors.
https://www.figma.com/proto/zmtQpwSxMRMHSjae7GFl1c/FoodTruckWireframes_Johnson?page-id=132%3A188&node-id=215%3A129&viewport=138%2C312%2C0.15&scaling=scale-down&starting-point-node-id=134%3A575
Accessibility Considerations
Provide access to users who are visually impaired though adding alt text to images for screen readers.
Used icons to help make navigation easier.
used detail imagery for food vendors to help all users better understand the designs.
Takeaways & Next Steps
The app makes users feel like Yum Finder will easily help them locate local food truck vendors and place orders with ease.
Conduct another round of usability studies to validate whether the pain point users experienced have been effectively addressed.
Conduct more user research to determine any new areas of need.
Thank you for your time reviewing my work on the Yum Finder locator app! If you would like to keep in touch, my contact information is provided below