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food-app-userresearch

Food Social Media User Research

Conducted UX research for DineOneOne, conducting interviews, surveys, and competitive analysis, aligning more closely with users' needs

Overview

Originally envisioned as a food delivery price-comparison platform, this project evolved into DineOneOne, a personalized foodie app that blends dining with social interaction. Through deep user research—including over 25 interviews and 400+ survey responses—we discovered that users cared more about community-based food discovery than pricing tools. This key insight led to a strategic pivot that redefined the product’s core value.

✅ Result

After the designer joined, key influences included establishing a consistent design system and implementing user-friendly error correction prompts. Following the launch, we continuously gathered user feedback through usability testing and SUS questionnaires, resulting in an SUS improvement from 47.27 to 83.25 in the final outcome.

Successfully launched on Google Play, DineOneOne now serves as a dynamic food community. It supports user sharing, friend-based recommendations, and social interaction, offering a more engaging experience than traditional delivery apps.

🎯 Objective

To identify core user needs and preferences around food delivery and community sharing, and build a platform that aligns with these needs using UX research, usability testing, and design thinking.

⚠️ Challenge

To shift away from a utility-driven price comparison model and reimagine the platform as a socially engaging food-sharing community — while ensuring usability, discoverability, and sustained user engagement.

💭 Picture this: in the vast landscape of food delivery platforms, visitors embarked on a quest, pondering questions such as "How do you navigate the multitude of choices on a food delivery platform?" and "Which platform steals your heart, and why?" The journey unfolded as users explored their food delivery needs, each decision a story waiting to be told.

Research & Discovery 🔍

To create an experience that truly resonates with users, the team conducted an in-depth exploration of their gastronomic habits and preferences. This involved:

  • Conducting over 25 in-depth interviews

  • Distributing more than 400 surveys

Interview

First, we began with 25+ in-depth interviews with Taiwanese users across different age groups and lifestyles. Early assumptions pointed toward users prioritizing discounts and delivery speeds—but qualitative conversations revealed something deeper: social motivation and emotional fulfillment.

Many users viewed food delivery as a social extension—sharing what they eat, seeing what others recommend, and using food as a conversational spark. This insight shifted the foundation of our product. Through affinity diagramming, we identified themes like:

  • "I want my friends’ opinions, not strangers."

  • "I keep a photo record of what I eat."

  • "Even bad meals are fun to talk about."

These insights led to the design of a friend-powered recommendation model, moving beyond public reviews and toward tight social circles and shared stories.

Survey

With 400+ survey responses, we mapped the quantitative scale of our qualitative findings. Using trait analysis and persona mapping, we segmented users into seven personas, focusing on two dominant types:

  • The Social Foodie (age 25–34, shares frequently, values novelty and friend opinions)

  • The Practical Planner (age 35–44, prefers efficiency, orders for family)

Key behavioral stats:

  • Users aged 25–34 share the most (avg. 2–3 times bi-weekly)

  • Motivation to share wasn’t only based on good food, but also "venting" bad experiences

  • Name preference: 40% preferred nicknames, 35% real names, 25% anonymous

We also tested the question: “How do users decide where to eat?” The top three influences were:

  • Friend recommendations

  • Visual appeal (photos)

  • Mood & convenience

Competitive Analysis 🔍

We conducted a deep-dive competitive audit, dissecting platforms like Yelp, Uber Eats, HungryBear, and iFoodie. We categorized them into three models:

  • Price-first (e.g., Uber Eats)

  • Review-first (e.g., Yelp)

  • Community-first (e.g., HungryBear)

Our key finding: None fully integrated social circles as the main UX driver. And we broke the food discovery journey into six steps (from browse → choose → checkout → share), and identified experience gaps where DineOneOne could innovate:

  • Lack of real-time social feedback

  • Limited friend filtering or recommendations

  • Poor motivation to keep track of past meals

  • These gaps led to concepts like:

  • Friend categorization systems

  • Shared food timelines

  • Meal memory logs with social flair

Competitive Analysis 🔍

We conducted a deep-dive competitive audit, dissecting platforms like Yelp, Uber Eats, HungryBear, and iFoodie. We categorized them into three models:

  • Price-first (e.g., Uber Eats)

  • Review-first (e.g., Yelp)

  • Community-first (e.g., HungryBear)

Our key finding: None fully integrated social circles as the main UX driver. And we broke the food discovery journey into six steps (from browse → choose → checkout → share), and identified experience gaps where DineOneOne could innovate:

  • Lack of real-time social feedback

  • Limited friend filtering or recommendations

  • Poor motivation to keep track of past meals

  • These gaps led to concepts like:

  • Friend categorization systems

  • Shared food timelines

  • Meal memory logs with social flair

Competitive Analysis 🔍

We conducted a deep-dive competitive audit, dissecting platforms like Yelp, Uber Eats, HungryBear, and iFoodie. We categorized them into three models:

  • Price-first (e.g., Uber Eats)

  • Review-first (e.g., Yelp)

  • Community-first (e.g., HungryBear)

Our key finding: None fully integrated social circles as the main UX driver. And we broke the food discovery journey into six steps (from browse → choose → checkout → share), and identified experience gaps where DineOneOne could innovate:

  • Lack of real-time social feedback

  • Limited friend filtering or recommendations

  • Poor motivation to keep track of past meals

  • These gaps led to concepts like:

  • Friend categorization systems

  • Shared food timelines

  • Meal memory logs with social flair

Our research led to a bold shift in direction:

🔄 Pivot & Product Strategy

❌ Original Idea:

A utility-focused food delivery price comparison tool.

✅ New Vision:

A social dining app that builds food communities around friends and shared experiences.

Key Transformations:

  • From pricing to people-powered discovery

  • Emphasis on friend recommendations over public reviews

  • Introduced friend categorization to improve social organization

  • Focused on moments, memories, and meals—not just logistics

Information Architecture

Heuristic Evaluation

As DineOneOne entered the mid-to-high fidelity prototyping stage, we knew we needed a systematic, expert-led method to evaluate usability before involving end users. While user testing reveals real-world behavior, heuristic evaluation allows for rapid, low-cost identification of usability flaws that may not emerge until later stages. It also helps validate whether our design decisions—particularly those inspired by competitor audits—held up under foundational UX principles.

Our motivation assessment delves into the "demand side" and the "technical side," extracting insights from user interviews and competitive product analysis. The goal is clear - to enhance ease of use based on aspects users prioritize.

We adopted Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Revised Heuristic Evaluation principles to ensure the app’s interface was, and some high-severity issues included:

  • Lack of feedback when searches returned no results

  • Missing filter state visibility

  • Delivery fees not displayed clearly in comparison mode

  • No progress indicator during data fetching/loading

We prioritized issues using severity scores and mapped them across the five primary user journeys:

  1. Browsing food

  2. Searching and filtering

  3. Comparing delivery options

  4. Adding reviews

  5. Exploring friend recommendations

This heuristic framework allowed us to take a holistic view of usability it allowed us to generate a prioritized backlog for UX improvements before usability testing.

Heuristic Evaluation

As DineOneOne entered the mid-to-high fidelity prototyping stage, we knew we needed a systematic, expert-led method to evaluate usability before involving end users. While user testing reveals real-world behavior, heuristic evaluation allows for rapid, low-cost identification of usability flaws that may not emerge until later stages. It also helps validate whether our design decisions—particularly those inspired by competitor audits—held up under foundational UX principles.

Our motivation assessment delves into the "demand side" and the "technical side," extracting insights from user interviews and competitive product analysis. The goal is clear - to enhance ease of use based on aspects users prioritize.

We adopted Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Revised Heuristic Evaluation principles to ensure the app’s interface was, and some high-severity issues included:

  • Lack of feedback when searches returned no results

  • Missing filter state visibility

  • Delivery fees not displayed clearly in comparison mode

  • No progress indicator during data fetching/loading

We prioritized issues using severity scores and mapped them across the five primary user journeys:

  1. Browsing food

  2. Searching and filtering

  3. Comparing delivery options

  4. Adding reviews

  5. Exploring friend recommendations

This heuristic framework allowed us to take a holistic view of usability it allowed us to generate a prioritized backlog for UX improvements before usability testing.

Heuristic Evaluation

As DineOneOne entered the mid-to-high fidelity prototyping stage, we knew we needed a systematic, expert-led method to evaluate usability before involving end users. While user testing reveals real-world behavior, heuristic evaluation allows for rapid, low-cost identification of usability flaws that may not emerge until later stages. It also helps validate whether our design decisions—particularly those inspired by competitor audits—held up under foundational UX principles.

Our motivation assessment delves into the "demand side" and the "technical side," extracting insights from user interviews and competitive product analysis. The goal is clear - to enhance ease of use based on aspects users prioritize.

We adopted Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Revised Heuristic Evaluation principles to ensure the app’s interface was, and some high-severity issues included:

  • Lack of feedback when searches returned no results

  • Missing filter state visibility

  • Delivery fees not displayed clearly in comparison mode

  • No progress indicator during data fetching/loading

We prioritized issues using severity scores and mapped them across the five primary user journeys:

  1. Browsing food

  2. Searching and filtering

  3. Comparing delivery options

  4. Adding reviews

  5. Exploring friend recommendations

This heuristic framework allowed us to take a holistic view of usability it allowed us to generate a prioritized backlog for UX improvements before usability testing.

Usability Testing

As DineOneOne entered the mid-to-high fidelity prototyping stage, we knew we needed a systematic, expert-led method to evaluate usability before involving end users. While user testing reveals real-world behavior, heuristic evaluation allows for rapid, low-cost identification of usability flaws that may not emerge until later stages. It also helps validate whether our design decisions—particularly those inspired by competitor audits—held up under foundational UX principles.

Usability Testing

As DineOneOne entered the mid-to-high fidelity prototyping stage, we knew we needed a systematic, expert-led method to evaluate usability before involving end users. While user testing reveals real-world behavior, heuristic evaluation allows for rapid, low-cost identification of usability flaws that may not emerge until later stages. It also helps validate whether our design decisions—particularly those inspired by competitor audits—held up under foundational UX principles.

Usability Testing

As DineOneOne entered the mid-to-high fidelity prototyping stage, we knew we needed a systematic, expert-led method to evaluate usability before involving end users. While user testing reveals real-world behavior, heuristic evaluation allows for rapid, low-cost identification of usability flaws that may not emerge until later stages. It also helps validate whether our design decisions—particularly those inspired by competitor audits—held up under foundational UX principles.

Outcomes

As DineOneOne entered the mid-to-high fidelity prototyping stage, we knew we needed a systematic, expert-led method to evaluate usability before involving end users. While user testing reveals real-world behavior, heuristic evaluation allows for rapid, low-cost identification of usability flaws that may not emerge until later stages. It also helps validate whether our design decisions—particularly those inspired by competitor audits—held up under foundational UX principles.

The UX work directly influenced tangible outcomes, both in design improvements and business positioning:

  • Reframed Product Value Proposition: DineOneOne’s core value shifted from price-focused to friend-centric food sharing, enhancing emotional relevance.

  • Feature Redesigns Based on Real Pain Points:

    • Clear separation of address and search modules.

    • Visual filter tags and reset buttons for better control.

    • Review prompts tailored to different identity preferences.

  • Persona-Driven Feature Prioritization: Insights led to designing for “The Social Foodie” persona, the most emotionally engaged and active sharer.

  • Community Mechanism Implementation: Introduced friend categorization, review identity flexibility, and a social meal timeline, all rooted in research.

Outcomes

As DineOneOne entered the mid-to-high fidelity prototyping stage, we knew we needed a systematic, expert-led method to evaluate usability before involving end users. While user testing reveals real-world behavior, heuristic evaluation allows for rapid, low-cost identification of usability flaws that may not emerge until later stages. It also helps validate whether our design decisions—particularly those inspired by competitor audits—held up under foundational UX principles.

The UX work directly influenced tangible outcomes, both in design improvements and business positioning:

  • Reframed Product Value Proposition: DineOneOne’s core value shifted from price-focused to friend-centric food sharing, enhancing emotional relevance.

  • Feature Redesigns Based on Real Pain Points:

    • Clear separation of address and search modules.

    • Visual filter tags and reset buttons for better control.

    • Review prompts tailored to different identity preferences.

  • Persona-Driven Feature Prioritization: Insights led to designing for “The Social Foodie” persona, the most emotionally engaged and active sharer.

  • Community Mechanism Implementation: Introduced friend categorization, review identity flexibility, and a social meal timeline, all rooted in research.

Outcomes

As DineOneOne entered the mid-to-high fidelity prototyping stage, we knew we needed a systematic, expert-led method to evaluate usability before involving end users. While user testing reveals real-world behavior, heuristic evaluation allows for rapid, low-cost identification of usability flaws that may not emerge until later stages. It also helps validate whether our design decisions—particularly those inspired by competitor audits—held up under foundational UX principles.

The UX work directly influenced tangible outcomes, both in design improvements and business positioning:

  • Reframed Product Value Proposition: DineOneOne’s core value shifted from price-focused to friend-centric food sharing, enhancing emotional relevance.

  • Feature Redesigns Based on Real Pain Points:

    • Clear separation of address and search modules.

    • Visual filter tags and reset buttons for better control.

    • Review prompts tailored to different identity preferences.

  • Persona-Driven Feature Prioritization: Insights led to designing for “The Social Foodie” persona, the most emotionally engaged and active sharer.

  • Community Mechanism Implementation: Introduced friend categorization, review identity flexibility, and a social meal timeline, all rooted in research.

Key Takeaways

  • User-Centric Evolution: Transitioning from a price-focused tool to a socially immersive platform underscored the importance of aligning with users' deeper desires for connection and shared experiences.​

  • Strategic Research Integration: Conducting user research at pivotal moments during the development cycle ensured that insights were actionable and impactful, preventing unnecessary rework and enhancing team efficiency.​

  • Community Building: By emphasizing friend-driven recommendations and social interactions, DineOneOne differentiated itself in a crowded market, offering users a unique and engaging culinary community.

Key Takeaways

  • User-Centric Evolution: Transitioning from a price-focused tool to a socially immersive platform underscored the importance of aligning with users' deeper desires for connection and shared experiences.​

  • Strategic Research Integration: Conducting user research at pivotal moments during the development cycle ensured that insights were actionable and impactful, preventing unnecessary rework and enhancing team efficiency.​

  • Community Building: By emphasizing friend-driven recommendations and social interactions, DineOneOne differentiated itself in a crowded market, offering users a unique and engaging culinary community.

Key Takeaways

  • User-Centric Evolution: Transitioning from a price-focused tool to a socially immersive platform underscored the importance of aligning with users' deeper desires for connection and shared experiences.​

  • Strategic Research Integration: Conducting user research at pivotal moments during the development cycle ensured that insights were actionable and impactful, preventing unnecessary rework and enhancing team efficiency.​

  • Community Building: By emphasizing friend-driven recommendations and social interactions, DineOneOne differentiated itself in a crowded market, offering users a unique and engaging culinary community.

Let's talk

Let's talk

jenchuhsu@gmail.com

jenchuhsu@gmail.com