Project Goal

The 4-1 App brings cuisines from 4 countries into a single app making it easy for busy working individuals to order healthy foods.

The 4-1 apps also makes considerable considerations to make the app user-friendly and accessible for non-native speakers.

How can we encourage young families to order healthy takeaways?

What is stopping them from ordering healthy food options?

Mobile prototype

Target audience

The main target of the 4-1 Restaurant app is young families who order takeaways atleast 3 times a week. Ordering takeaways is not only expensive but it alsocoms with the guilt of feeding your family unhealthy foods. The 4-1 app combines the cusines of 4 countries, families can order delicious foods that are not only healthy but also cheap.

An image of the 4-1 app

Key challenges or constraints

The key challenge of designing an app that catered to a multicultural Britain. We wanted people whose first language was not English and were put off from ordering by phone to be comfortable ordering online. The app is very careful in its selection of imagery as well as language that is non-native friendly.

The key challenge in designing this app was bringing bringing the cuisines of 4 counries into a single app. This is a difficult task and alot of thought has to go into the information architicture of the app. Decisions have to be made as to what dishes to include in the app and what dishes to ditch.

In user reseach phase we became aware that that many non-native English speakers found it difficult to pick up the phone and place an order, the language barrier result in them panicking before a call. We have tried to make it easier for non-native English speakers to order within this app, the language used has been thought about, descriptive images have been uses to make it easier for them to place an order.

Research study details

We optimised for iOS11+ and most modern Android smartphones, in line with 4-1 restaurant app demographic. Our personas showed us at the very start of the project that many non-native speakers were driven away by the restaurant ordering experince. We made sure the online experience was the opposite of this, with clear, descriptive imagery and text for non-native speakers and also make the experience better for native speakers.

Research study details

Initial design concepts

To allow the user to easily compare choose a healhy dish, we experimented with have a list of countries on the homepage of the app. Choosing a country would then take a user to a list of dishes that country.

This was the solution we went with at the end as it was the most streamlined solution, after clicking on a dish, you can read a description of the app and then place your order. We would have liked to spend more time testing button placement as the feedback we’d received on all previous iterations was mixed, but for now went with the current iteration and will continue to make changes to the design for future iteration.

Evolution of the hide makeup interaction

The low fedility protototype for this application was created using the design tool Figma. This was my first time using Figma and like everyone I struggled at the start but I feel by the end of project I was comfortable using the tool.

The 4-1 Restaurant App Low-Fi Prototype

Conclusion

An app is not difficult to design, what is difficult Is to consider all your users and cater to their usability Needs, which is not always possible.

This was the first app I had designed as part of the Google UX Certificate, I'm happy with the outcome and what I learned. In the future I would spend more time looking for inspiration on site like Behance before stating a project.