Digest

📅 Context

In today’s health-conscious world, individuals are increasingly mindful of their diets, especially those navigating gut health issues such as IBS or food intolerances. Having experienced these challenges myself, I identified a gap in the market for a recipe app that truly caters to those with dietary sensitivities.

This project was born from personal frustration and a desire to create a tool that empowers users to discover and plan meals aligned with their dietary needs — without sacrificing ease, enjoyment, or flavour.

Core Skills: UX Research, UX Strategy, Wireframing & Prototyping, Visual/UI Design, Design Systems

Tools: Figma, Miro, UserTesting.com

📈 Objective

Create an app that helps users discover, plan, and prepare meals tailored to their specific food intolerances and dietary preferences.

  • Streamline recipe discovery for those with gut issues
  • Personalise based on user dietary profiles (e.g. intolerance to dairy, gluten)
  • Enable easy filtering, clear cooking steps, and intuitive meal planning

🔍 Research & Insights

User-Centered Business Canvas
Mapped user problems, value propositions, channels, and key goals on a Miro board to guide product strategy.

Provisional Personas
Created early personas (e.g. IBS sufferer, nutrition-conscious parent) based on assumptions to guide early decisions. These were later validated through research.

Competitor Analysis
Assessed recipe and meal-planning apps such as Yummly, Whisk, and Mealime. Identified gaps around intolerance filtering, ingredient substitution, and UI clarity.

User Research
Conducted a survey to understand how people currently plan meals. Key findings:

  • Users want quick, simple recipes with minimal ingredients
  • They prefer apps that help them avoid frequent shopping trips
  • Ability to remove disliked or intolerant ingredients is crucial
  • Users want personalisation, images, clear prep/cook times, and shopping lists
Digest Persona

✏️ Design Process

Sitemap & Information Architecture

Mapped out app structure focusing on intuitive flows for discovery, filtering, and cooking.

Wireframes

Sketched and digitised low-fidelity wireframes covering onboarding, recipe search, recipe detail, and saved collections.

Rapid Prototyping

Created an interactive prototype in InVision and tested with target users. Collected feedback and iterated on confusing flows (e.g. refining how intolerances are set up).

Visual Design

Created a clean, calming aesthetic with light colours and rounded shapes. Typography and icons were selected to aid readability and accessibility. Designed for mobile-first usage.

Style Guide

  • Primary colours: muted greens and neutrals (health + trust)
  • Typeface: Sans-serif for clarity
  • Components: Recipe cards, intolerance tags, toggle filters

👤 User Stories & MVP

Using the research insights, I defined key user stories and MVP features:

Core Stories

  • “As a user, I want to add intolerances/restrictions to my profile so that they are excluded from my searches”
  • “As a user, I want to search recipes by ingredient or keyword”
  • “As a user, I want to follow easy cooking instructions with images”
  • “As a user, I want to save favourite recipes for quick access”
  • “As a user, I want to create a shopping list based on chosen recipes”

MVP Features

  • User onboarding with dietary profile setup
  • Smart recipe filtering by intolerance
  • Recipe pages with images, cooking steps, and ingredients
  • Save to favourites functionality
  • Optional: checklist-style shopping list generator

📊 Outcome

The final prototype demonstrates a focused, user-friendly app that streamlines meal discovery for users with food intolerances. Testing showed strong alignment with user needs:

  • Users found the intolerance setup quick and empowering
  • Recipe cards and images enhanced trust and appeal
  • Navigation was intuitive and visually calming

If you’re looking for design support or think I’d be a great fit for a role I’d love to hear from you.