Saladwale: build a healthy lifestyle with our salad bowls | Designing an MVP for my startup idea | UX Design & Research case study
Eating junk food on a regular basis can lead to an increased risk of obesity and chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and some cancers. For a long time, I am thinking about this complex social problem and try to find out a solution that can be both feasible and profitable.
Let me tell you a story, the story of Mr. Suresh who has to travel 2 hours daily to reach his office. He never gets enough time to cook for himself So, he always has to eat Puri Daal for his breakfast from a stall near his office. After a full tiring day, he doesn’t get enough courage to cook for himself so, he just arranges a quick Paratha and Sabji meal for his dinner and some spring roll for his snacks. I put some courage to observe Mr. Suresh’s behavior try to arrange an interview with him. The results I found are very shocking. This whole case study is dedicated to solving a very specific problem that Mr. Suresh and millions of other people are facing every day.
What is Saladwale?
Consumption of junk food is not less than consuming poisons. Regular intake of junk food can cause some serious health issues like obesity, fatigue, chronic diseases, and many more. Most of the working professionals and students can’t able to eat healthy foods because of their lack of time and unawareness of recipes. What if we can serve super tasty & healthy salad bowls that not only fulfill the tummy but also satisfy the taste buds?
Saladwale is a one-stop hybrid solution to resolve all your needs for healthy food. One can easily buy super tasty salad bowls just within few clicks using our online channels or quickly have a bite from our Saladwale stalls
Sounds healthy & tasty? 😄🥗
Promo Video 📺:
I have made a quick promo video just for fun. Click on the image to watch the video on Youtube.
The big problem:
India is a warehouse of unhealthy food. A huge chunk of our population consumes junk/unhealthy foods every day. A survey by TOI reveals that Nearly 81% of consumers who order food via delivery apps say they do it for convenience. Another statistical data explained that people between the age group of 25–34 are the most frequent users of these online services. Generation Z is not way behind the data. They are the next frequent users of these online food ordering services
Most of the time the ordered foods are prepared by the street-side restaurants in a very unhygienic condition. The research analyzed that how the rapid growth has also raised concerns over food quality, hygiene, and packaging.
A significant portion of our population also relies on fast/junk food stalls because they are convenient and less time-consuming. Working professionals and students mostly rely on these junk foods. Though a significant number of people are conscious about their health still they won't get enough time/willpower to cook something healthy for themselves.
Unhealthy fast/junk foods are slow poisons. According to a study conducted by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle, eating bad quality food is increasing the mortality rate at a higher speed than smoking. Yes, you read that right. Your addiction to junk is actually cutting short your life and compromising your lifestyle and health. According to a study conducted by the Seattle-based Institute titled ‘Global Burden of Disease’, following unhealthy diets and eating bad food lacking in any nutrition causes around 11 million deaths which are easily preventable.
This figure, in comparison, is much higher than deaths caused by excessive tobacco consumption. studies by the World Health Organization (WHO) reiterates the above fact. WHO states that Indian consumers, across all income groups, are consuming less than the recommended quantity of at least 400 gms (or five daily servings with an average serving size of 80 gms) of fruits and vegetables. According to the study, youngsters are resorting to cheap and unhealthy food options that mainly comprise snacks. On average, the Indian diet pattern is skewed towards cereals; and fruits and vegetables account for only 9% of the total calorie intake.
The only way to cut down the consumption of junk food is to increase the availability of healthy foods and make the whole process very convenient just like online food delivery models or Roadside restaurants/stalls. Here I have found the opportunity to scratch my head and came up with a business model which can solve this complex social problem.
My Role & Responsibilities:
I am responsible for market research, product analysis, User research, and UI designing.
Market study of online food delivery services ( India specific ):
I have analyzed different resources to find out quantitative data which can provide me some insights into the growth of the Indian online food delivery market. This will help me to validate my assumptions and also understand the online food delivery ecosystem 👇
- India Online Food Delivery Market will be US$ 21.41 Billion by 2026, from US$ 4.66 Billion in 2020
- India Online Food Delivery Industry will grow at a staggering CAGR of 28.94% during 2020–2026
- The Online Food Delivery segment is expected to show a revenue growth of 25.4% in 2022
- In the Online Food Delivery segment, the number of users is expected to amount to 498.5m users by 2025.
Not only we are going to solve a complex social problem but also create a sustainable business model and MVP. A minimum viable product or MVP is a version of a product with just enough features to be usable by early customers who can then provide feedback for future product development.
A high-level view of the complete process:
This is a complex and large-scale project. So, I have to divide the project into different steps.
Let’s understand why we need Saladwale, what should be the future scope and how it will going be a sustainable business model. To answer this question I use a popular framework called “ The Three Lenses of Innovation ”.
In order to run a successful business, we have to create something that is Desirable (people want it), Feasible (we can actually do it) and it has to be Viable (we don’t go broke).
Do people want such services as Saladwale?
I have talked with numerous numbers of students, fitness freaks, and professionals. The one most common response is most of them want a healthy lifestyle and wanted to eat healthy foods. But available options are very few and not tasty enough to satisfy their needs. Saladwale will go to address all those needs of the niche population.
Is that Saladwale feasible enough?
Online food ordering services are breaking the barriers. The future scope of such services is crystal clear. With more and more people are switching toward the online medium, Saladwale online ordering services can be very feasible. We will adopt a hybrid model where we will also have physical Saladwale stalls. People who can have a quick bite from our stalls or can order online. So, in case of feasibility Sladwale will be very flexible.
Is the market is ready for Saladwale? ( market viability):
The market has a huge need for such a product, with proper Awareness and innovation we make Saladwale a sustainable product in this market. Different government policies also going to help to build such a startup.
Let’s perform a competitive analysis:
I wanted to understand how other Salad restaurants & chains are performing in the Indian market as well as the foreign market. I have got a fair understanding of their positioning.
Now I have enough market data to start building my research and product strategy. This is one of the most vital phases of the whole process. Before building the product strategy I need to set some goals for Saladwale.
Goals 🎯:
- Increase awareness
- Visual engagement
- Concise value proposition
- Clear Call To Actions
- Value-added services
- Transparency and Efficiency
I have used the very famous Design Thinking method to understand the audience, perform research, build a prototype and perform user testing. I have followed Design Thinking as Design Thinking revolves around a deep interest in developing an understanding of the people for whom we’re designing the products or services. It helps us observe and develop empathy with the target user.
Design Process:
Throughout the project, I have used extensive research data and Human-centered-Design principles to design the Saladwale website. Here is a high-level overview of the steps👇
Target Audience:
Our mission is not to replace the traditional Indian foods/meals like Dal, Chwal(rice), Sabji. We wanted to replace the junk foods that people consuming as a snack because they won’t have enough time to spent or they find it very convenient to order something online. Saladwale’s target audience is mainly the Working professionals, Doctors, Engineers, Educator, Fitness trainers, or Students who want a better and healthier lifestyle. The target age group is between 18–45 yrs.
Let’s start the research phase:
I have used different research methods to gather a significant amount of Qualitative and Quantitative data. A went to three different markets of Kolkata and observe more than 70 users and also conducted interviews with 35 users to understand their motivation and feelings.
📝 Goals of the User Research:
- Validate assumptions
- Observe people and learn how they order foods online
- Observe people and learn how they order foods from stalls
- Understand their motivation behind their decisions
- Understand their biases and mental model
Secondary Research:
Different research papers and journals are the biggest sources of qualitative and quantitative data. So, I have analyzed tons of resources to gather insights about the dietary behavior of Indians.
- Many Indians eat salads not as a whole meal like the western world but as an accompaniment to a meal
- Most of the salads contain just onion, tomato, and cucumber with salad leaves. Or just curd-based raita. By the term “Salad” they mostly understand those veggies.
- Salad as a meal is only consumed by health and fitness enthusiasts and most of them invent their recipes or get inspired from the internet recipes or buy ready-made Salads.
- Salad is considered diet food in India and often people think that they won’t get enough nutrition by just eating Salad.
- Salads in general nowadays have more of a health focus rather than a purely culinary one.
Shadowing:
I went two 8 different markets and observed more than 70 people while they were ordering something from the restaurants or ordering foods using different online services.47 out of them are males and 23 of them are females. There are groups is in between 20–35 yrs
User Interview:
I have interviewed 35(S=35) people from different backgrounds. My samples contain people who are working in different private sectors, Fitness enthusiasts, and college students. 30 of them are males and 5 of them are females. Their age group is between 18–40 yrs.
Analyze the Insights 🔎:
I have gathered a significant amount of qualitative and quantitative data from my user research.
Qualitative Data:
In this phase, I have analyzed the behavioral data which I got from my user research.
- Most of my samples are always in a hurry. They don’t have enough time to spend on the stalls. If they found some stall is busy then they will hop to a different stall.
- Most of them do not spend enough time on the food delivery apps scrolling through tons of menus. In most cases, they have already made up their choices on what they wanted to eat.
- Some samples don’t like to eat in a hurry because they follow a religion where they can’t eat anything and everything. They have to be very conscious about the ingredients.
- Fitness enthusiasts samples always measure their caloric intake and calculate the Micro & Macro Nutrients.
- Most of the samples wanted to eat healthy food but they don’t have enough choices.
- Most of the samples don’t want to replace their daily traditional meals with salads. They wanted to replace their snacks with salads or take salad as a complimentary meal.
- Some samples do eat fruit salads from the available stalls and they consume them on a regular basis.
Quantitative Data:
- 92 % of the samples consume junk foods daily
- 45 % of the samples fo take Onion, Tomato, Carrot and Card as a salad in their lunch.
- 95% of the samples nerve find any healthy alternative to their snacks.
- 70 % of them have already tasted salad once from a salad restaurant.
- 98 % of them wanted to eat something healthy ( & tasty) daily
“Torture the data and it will confess to anything.”
Now we have a fair insight on our users and have a significant amount of data to proceed to the next step.
Persona :
To understand the target audience I have created my user personas which actually reflect very small samples from the user population. The personas are created according to the data that I have gathered from the user research.
Ideation Phase:
To start out the ideation phase, I have conducted an affinity diagramming exercise to examine emerging patterns and groupings of objects, materials, and activities around offline and online food buying.
Affinity Diagram:
Based on the affinity diagrams and my previous research insights, I have realized that the ideas around healthy food buying like Salad Bowl differ by the awareness and intent of building a healthy lifestyle.
Mind Mapping:
I have created a mind map to provide a logical structure and blueprint to the design. I have used that to do a cognitive walkthrough with the logical flows and also test different parts of the upcoming MVP.
Let’s create an Information Architecture for MVP:
We all attached every necessary piece together. Now it's time to apply all our data and insights and create a wireframe for our web application.
Wireframing:
Style Guide:
A great idea needs a great look and feel. So, I have created multiple illustrations, Icons, logos and a cool style guide for the Saladwale website. The style guide will provide a unique identity to our product and also connect with the target audience with visual engagements.
I have used Green (#50CB93) as a primary color throughout the project. Most of the prominent elements are filled with shades of green. Green signifies freshness and energy. As a salad brand, our main focus is to deliver fresh and healthy bowls which can boost someone's energy as well as satisfy the tummy. That’s why I have used green as the primary color.
I have also designed a unique logo for Saldwale. ‘ Saladwale’ means someone who sells salads. You can find similar analogies on different Hindi words i.e ‘Sabjiwale’, “Gariwale”. So, I wanted to create a logo that also signifies good health and also personifies the brand.
Let’s see the result of extensive research and brainstorming:
I have created a prototype of the MVP using the Style guide. This prototype is a result of extensive user research and data analysis. I have tried to maintain all the UX laws & heuristics.
Landing Page:
The landing page is one of the most important parts of our website. Previously, I thought to make the whole website illustration based. But when I perform a couple of user research on the home screen I found out that a fully illustration-based page is distracting the user in a different direction and destroying the purpose. So, I choose images that users can connect with their life and also retain the purpose of the MVP.
The landing page designs according to the existing UX laws.
Jakob's Law: Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know. Design for patterns for which users are accustomed.
Clear CTA: The main purpose of this page is to hook users to perform different actions which further leads them to consecutive pages. All the CTAs are clearly visible, designed according to Fitt’s law.
Search Option: The search option is designed to provide users full control. User can search their location or use the find me button to automatically fetch the location. If we are not available in a location then the search option notifies the user with a pop-up message.
The background banner is interactive. When the user hovers over the banner it will automatically change the background pictures. I will use this interaction to showcase food banners according to the user's interest. This home page is filled with micro-interactions like the Hover effect, elevation to aware the user about his interaction.
Login/Signup:
I have put together the signup and login option on a single screen. It will help the user to find the options very quickly and restrict the user from moving back and forth to perform a natural interaction.
A user can signup using the phone number or email. From my user research, I have found out that sometimes users don’t have access to the exact number. Though calling the customer to ask for the exact address is a very important task but with the help of proper instructions and exact address, a delivery executive can deliver the bowl. So, we have also put the option to just signup using the email and OTP.
Bowl Page:
The bowl page is full-time different options. A search can which can be used to search for any bowls, menus using keywords. One can use different categories to search different bowls. Fitness freaks can use the small form to fill up their caloric requirement to get the Bowl suggestions.
Data Points:
- A number of people had brought this salad in the past weeks.
- Calorie count of the food.
- Overall ratings by the users.
The point is to build trust in the user’s mind.
Food cards have hover effects and different features. One can get the details about the nutritional information of the bowl.
Add to cart/Customize page:
This page is full of information on different ingredients, testimonials, suggested bowls, names, prices, ratings. By default, the cart will be empty. The main focus is to represent important information and provide transparency.
Add to cart customization:
At the very beginning, I had just created an option to select the quantities in the metric units but after a round of user testing I found out that users are not able to properly understand the quantity with the help of just metric units. So, I came up with a different measuring unit which is on the basis of Bowl size.
While choosing the dressings users were feeling very overwhelmed because most of them never use something like that in their food. So, I have color-coded different dressing bottles which will actually explain to them what kind of taste they can expect from the dressings. One can get more information about that by hovering on the bottles. If someone is not able to choose any particular dressing then I have provided a specific option “confuse?” which will automatically select the best possible dressing for the Salad Bowl.
Reiteration:
Different bowl sizes and dressings cost differently. So, if a user chooses a large bowl then the price will differ from a small bowl, the price of the cream dressing will differ from the price of card dressings. In the previous design, the user has to travel back and forth to see the price hike which was actually very annoying. In the reiteration, I have added a price counter in the customization screen itself 👇
Customize Bowl:
In the time of user research, I found out that most Salad lovers do like to customize their bowls according to their preferences. Why not provide them an option to do that??
One can add their desired vegetables and fruits on top of the existing bowl to make their own customized bowls. They even can monitor the extra charges from that screen itself.
Hovering over the ingredients will popup information regarding the exact ingredient and their nutritional counts in the Bowl.
Cart:
The cart option is incorporated with the Customization page. One can easily see the subtotal price, increase or decrease bowls, or apply coupon codes just from the one page itself. This will improve user satisfaction also decrease the overall interaction time
🎁 Checkout:
The checkout page is one of the most crucial pages of the website. One has to perform a couple of actions like login/Signup ( if not performed already), Add address, and add payment details. On the right-hand side, one can find the Billing information. More bowls can be added or removed from this page also. This page also has the option to add delivery instructions.
I have divided the page into different modules. One has to complete the tasks one by one. At first, one has to log in then add the address. Only after adding the address he/she can add payment details. This logical structure will help the users to perform fewer errors and improve the interaction time.
If someone is already signed in then he/she doesn’t have to complete the login step. A profile will be automatically shown in the login option.
After Login/Creating an account, the next step is to add or select an address. If someone wanted to add a new address then a popup window will open from where he/she have to add the address using the map and search option.
If someone wanted to pick the food packet by themselves then they can use the “pick up’ option which can be found in the address section. If someone had already selected an address then the pickup option will show them the nearest Saladwell stalls.
Reiteration:
At the very first iteration, I haven't mentioned the approx distance in the address window itself but at the time of the user interview I found out that the users feel very anxious about the distance. They wanted to know the distance beforehand. So, in the next iteration, I have shown the approx distance in the address option itself and also added an option to navigate the address in google Maps directly.
The last step is to select and add payment details and complete the payment from the respective bank/wallet’s page.
I am not done yet. Interaction and UX are not just all about websites and applications. So, I even tried to add some functionality to the product packaging also. A user always has to interact with the product package so, I thought to make the packing smart. One can get the information of his bowl just from the package itself. The food package always has a unique QR associated with it which will contain Information such as Calorie count, Micro, Macro, and freshness dates. 👇
Smart Packaging Design:
Any QR scanner that can decode the QR code can showcase the underlying information. Stay updated for my Case Study on Saladwale mobile application to know more about what you can do with the QR. Let me tell you a piece of secret information 😁. You can even add the scanned details in your profile and track your food consumption, nutrition, calorie, and get recommendations.
Design Showcase :
Usability Testing with Prototype:
I have designed an interactive prototype from my design for user testing. A mix of two different usability testing methods was used (Quantitative Analysis and Qualitative Analysis) to evaluate my design and prototype. The interview was done with 10 users where I asked them to perform 7 different tasks😀.
The goal of the research was to — (a) Evaluate the design(b) validate my assumptions and review insights (c ) Find out any new usability issues (d) measure the customer satisfaction
Click here to access the usability testing report.
Conclusion:
The users had great importance and role in this case study. I have to analyze the market, user’s behavior and thought about the product. Building a startup is not an overnight process. It takes a significant amount of time and rigorous research. The whole case study revolves around I have found out a major problem, market needs, and unique value proposition to design an MVP. The whole design, testing, and evaluation are based on data-driven strategies. This was one of my most anticipated projects and I worked passionately to unblock the issues. My love for User research and designing has grown exponentially from this case study. This project was by far my best learning experience because this helped me to-
Observation: Observation is a very underrated skill. While working on the case study I have become better at observing people and find out problems.
Learn market analysis: While designing a product one has to make crucial business decisions. I have learned how to analyze market growth, profitability, and failure probability.
Understand the users: This is the most important takeaway for me from this case study. I find the proper explanation of why WE! = USER.
Learn from data | Design from data: Data is the ultimate fuel. Data has the answer for everything. In the process of building this case study, I have learned how to gather data, how to analyze the data, and how to find insights from them.
(Fun fact: I also have eaten 10 spring rolls through the research phase😁)
Future Scopes:
I have just designed the MVP. Nothing ends here. A large chunk of my audience is mobile users. So, In the next case study, I will be going to design a mobile application for them.
Salad as a meal is a very new concept in Indian Society. I have to regularly perform research to get more insights into consumer behavior, underlying psychology, and rational decision-making. I have to understand that what kind of salads, spices, and dressings can connect our bowls with Indian traditional meals.
&…. Now it’s time to wrap up the case study
I hope you guys found the case study useful, informative, and innovative. Feel free to hit me up on any social media platform if you have any questions, suggestions, or opportunities for me. I would be more than happy to have a conversation with You 🦸
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