Platos Food Ordering Mobile Application
Platos is a mobile app for a new food ordering service that allows users to easily browse and select from a variety of local, hispanic vendors selling plates and tamales.
Product Overview
Upon relocating to New Mexico, I discovered that it was a common practice for individuals in the area to sell homemade plates of food, such as tacos, burritos, and tamales. I frequently heard my acquaintances mention having a "tamale lady" who would prepare and sell large quantities of tamales on special occasions. These transactions were typically arranged through word-of-mouth or social media.
With Platos, my aim is to develop a food ordering app that streamlines the process of buying and selling plates of food. This will provide an opportunity for sellers to expand their food business and for others to earn additional income.
My Role
Ux Designer and Researcher
Duration
December 2022 - January 2023
The Process
Interview
I first decided to interview those around me to get an understanding of what sort of things would bring them to use the app, as both a seller and buyer.
​
Here are the comments I received:
-
"Personally, I would use it because low key places would get known".
-
"Sometimes I'll be wanting like tamales and it's like where do I go? Because they'll be on random streets where I wouldn't go to look".
-
"If I could create a business and sell on an app, as long as it's easy to use, I'd do it".
User Flow Diagram
My next step was to create a user flow diagram to ensure that I fully understood the steps that user's (as both a buyer and seller) would take.
​
This helped me think of screens and steps to take, that I originally had forgotten about.
Understanding the Diagram
-
Purple Diamonds: Different pages on app
-
Orange Squares: List of actions on page
-
Blue Circle: Welcome page
-
Pink Star: Dashoard or home page.
-
Teal Diamond: Ordered page
The next step is to define the brand. I wanted to ensure that the user's of the app would feel comfortable on the app. To retain the cultural aspect and pay homage, I looked at images of Dia De los Muertos celebrations, and used a color picker extension to settle on this color scheme:
# FFFFF5
# FECE44
# FF5A36
# 48BFBF
# 1E1E1E
All of this led to the development of the typography, icons, and logo:
Header 1 - 28 - Montserrat Semibold
Header 2 - 22 - Montserrat Semibold
Header 3 - 18 - Montserrat Semibold
Subheader 1 - 17 - Montserrat Medium
Subheader 2 - 16 - Montserrat Semibold
Body - 14 - Montserrat Semibold
Defining the Brand
Wireframes
At the beginning of my design process, I created digital wireframes to just draw up fast wireframes. The original rendition had a main page listing sellers one row at a time, but this renedition was smaller and felt cumbersome and not very appealing. Usability research showed this to be not as intuitive, as well.
​
I created a second version, with larger listings, however there seemed to be too many differing sizes; which led me to my last iteration.
The new dashboard features a more appealing method of discovering new sellers. This should provide ease of use and a streamlined searching process without as much eye fatigue.
​
​
Wireframe to High-Fidelity Prototype
I then took all of the wireframes and created the high-fidelity prototype for the dashboard,. The dashboard saw one slight change from the wireframe from participants comments: the "quick menu" banner where users can select "tamales", "caldo", "birria", etc., was moved above the featured sellers banner.
Accessibility Considerations
We wanted to ensure that there would be no language barriers between sellers and buyers. To prevent this, the log in page will feature a button labelled, "¿Habla español? ¡Presione aquí!" instructing Spanish-speaking users to translate their entire app into a Spanish translation.
In addition, messages between sellers and buyers will feature a built in translator, along with all product descriptions.
Future Plans
Platos will be going through another round of testing that will feature all of the remaining pages for the mobile application. This will be for both buyers and sellers. We will then move Platos into the development phase once all phases are complete.