PickEasy

Make searching and saving your favorite restaurants quick and easy

Brief

Product Design Practicum • Jun - Aug 2021

I designed the "Search" and "Curated List" features of PickEasy's mobile app to enhance user experience in discovering and bookmarking their favorite dining spots.

I joined PickEasy as a Product Designer during the summer through my university's practicum program. Revamping the restaurant discovery experience was one of my favorite projects at PickEasy, as I got to rethink how the company could showcase its restaurant network with special deals.

I also took part in the UX & UI design of a conceptual collaboration platform between social influencers and restaurants.

A/B Testing

Feature Building

Mobile

Project Overview

Role

Designed UI and created prototypes. Conducted UX research and industry benchmarking.

Teams

UX Design, Engineering, Operations

Duration

2 Weeks

Mobile App (iOS)

Tools

Sketch, Zeplin

PickEasy is a social app that helps people find their next dining spot using AI. Positioned as "Tinder for Food", the platform lets users swipe on restaurants they are interested in.

In the past, users could only discover restaurants by swiping options nearby based on geo-location. Similarly, they could browse deals that were close to their physical locations. This project aims to design a solution that enables users to dynamically discover restaurants and deals beyond geographical distance.

Problem

👉

Users have limited options in identifying relevant restaurants and deals because PickEasy makes recommendations based on geo-locations.

We found the major user pain points below:

The existing mobile app does not support searching, in turn limiting customers' ability to dynamically discover specific restaurants and related discounts that they are interested in.
It is challenging for users to revisit the saved result based on their personal needs as the current app displayed all saved restaurants on a single canvas without room for customization.

Solution

We designed the "Search" and "Curated List" features of PickEasy's mobile app to enhance the searchability and personalization of the restaurant discovery process. We delivered the 2 sets of wireframes for A/B Testings and high-fidelity mockups before handing them over to engineers.

Internal Content Audits

To understand the expected outcome of the redesign, I conducted an internal content audit with the co-founders to learn about major user feedback and how it collides with PickEasy's business needs.

Some of the key questions are:

1. How do the users discover restaurants and deals today?

2. What adjectives do they use to describe their experience?

3. What is missing from their experience today?

4. How do users retrieve restaurants and deals that they are interested in?

Key Findings

The content audit pointed to the need for the ability to:

Discover multiple restaurants and deals flexibly
Look for restaurants and deals with specific keywords
Save restaurants and deals in personalized ways

Wireframing - A / B Testing

To meet the above design needs, we decided to develop a search system for users to discover offerings according to their personal needs.

I created two sets of wireframes to understand which searching mechanism matches users' behaviors better.

Version A: Search Bar Before "Restaurants" and "Deals"

The participants liked how they could easily switch between restaurants and deals related to their search target (e.g. pizza).

However, they could not view all available deals across multiple search targets on the same page. To browse all available options, they had to go back to the Deal page by clicking the "Deal" icon before the search bar, which interrupted the overall searching flow.

Version B: "Restaurants" and "Deals" Before Search Bar

The participants liked how they could easily view both popular restaurants and deals by switching between tabs. It was important for the search target to be carried forward between the two tabs to deliver a smooth experience.

Findings

We adopted Version B as our final design because the participants concluded:

It was easier to explore all restaurants and deals available by switching between the tabs above the search bar with Version B.
There was minimal difference between showing the search bar first (Version A) and category first (Version B) in terms of friction, so they preferred Version B which featured fewer clicks.

Participants also talked about their desires to flexibly categorize and manage saved restaurants during the discovery phase.

Design Highlights

Customized Lists

To complement the expanded search capability, we also designed the "Curated List" that enabled users to create their own restaurant lists. Users can now create lists that fit their personal needs, such as by cuisine types or location.

Enhanced Discoverability

Users can easily explore all restaurants and deals through flexible searching instead of relying on geo-location-based swiping only. They can search by specific keywords including the restaurant names or cuisine types.