CORA

Community

Outreach and

Research for

Allergy and Dietary Needs

Project Overview

Design a new mobile app to help improve a user’s experience when searching for restaurants that provide information regarding allergy and dietary needs.

Solution

Design a new app that helps users find local dining recommendations based on their dietary needs.
Create a sense of community and increase confidence in dining choices.
Define a unique brand identity that will become a "go-to" resource for those with
restrictive diets.

Role

UX/UI Designer

User Researcher

Graphic Designer

Tools

Figma, InVision, Miro

Empathize

Over 10% of Americans have food related allergies. This does not include individuals who have other dietary restrictions that are not allergy related. We believe there should be an easier way for users to locate food & dining options that will meet their needs.

Goals

Understanding how people with certain needs go about finding or identifying restaurants or prepared food.
Identify pain points in the current process of finding restaurants & food that will meet users dietary needs.

Our research has shown that there is not an easily accessible source of information on allergy friendly restaurants or products.

Users rely heavily on others’ personal experiences & have to use multiple sources of information which are frequently inaccurate.

Key Frustrations:

Feeling unsafe or like an inconvenience when dining out
Spending time researching
Unreliable information on Yelp or Google
Only trusting others who understand the severity of some allergy situations

Define

During our interview process, we discovered that users rely heavily on others personal experiences, thus needing to use multiple sources of information which are frequently inaccurate.

Therefore, we believe users need an accessible source of information and that we might be able to help if we provide a collaborative space for the dietary restricted community.

We might do this by creating an inclusive and efficient platform to professional knowledge and personal experiences. Doing this will allow our users to feel more at ease with their dining options and spend less time conducting personal research.

Defining Key Features

Interaction with local community
Creation of multiple allergy profiles
Search results filterable by profiles

Ideate

The User Scenario

Geoff is planning a friends trip to Snake River, Wyoming to go whitewater rafting. His group wants to dine out for at least one night but multiple group members have different dietary concerns.