Are There Cookies?
This is a side project that is currently being developed. How would you know if the restaurant, food trailer, or bakery you're going to hasn't already sold out of what you want? If only there were an app that could tell you. After not being able to buy Big John chocolate chip cookies at Whole Foods several times, due to them being sold out, I decided this was a problem that needed to be solved. I also began to think about how inventory affected the customer experience, not just with Whole Foods and cookies, but with a variety of consumables. An idea took form: a mobile app where customers, business owners, or both could list what a business has and how much of it they have left.
Skills Used
Mobile, UX Design, UI Design, Visual Design, Kanban, Product Management
My Role
My role on this project is that of both product manager and designer. These roles include user research, concepting the feature list, and creating the UI and visual design. My partner in this project handles the development of both the front and back end.
Project Goals
Produce a minimum viable product, put it out into the world, and get feedback. This app is geared towards a younger consumer audience. Product should allow users to:- Browse / search a list of food items based on their location
- View details about those food items, mainly the amount left at a specific place
- Update the amount left
- Browse / search a list of places nearby that have food items that the user is interested in
- View details about those places, such as address and food items available there
Research
My initial thought was that this could be useful for food trucks and their customers. Food trucks often deal with a very limited supply of what they serve, and they frequently sell out before their official closing time. I ran this idea by three food truck owners and got valuable feedback, mainly that they didn't think an app like this would be very useful. The owners themselves didn't think they would have time to update the quantities of their goods in an app and didn't necessarily trust their customers to update the quantities either. But given that this is a side project, I decided to move forward anyway. We decided on building an Android version of the app first, due to Android's sizable install base, and that fact that the developer and I are both Android users.
Sketches
Using graph paper, I sketched out my initial ideas of what the product would be.
Wireframes
I had started working with Adobe XD to create wireframes and design comps in my day job, so I also used that tool to create the wireframes for this project. I also looked into using other tools, such as Sketch and Invision with Craft, and Proto.io. Shown here are my initial wireframes that I used to communicate my ideas to the developer I'm working with.
Finished Mock-ups
Working with Adobe Illustrator, I came up with a basic color scheme and logo for the app. I further refined the interface during visual design phase using Adobe XD, incorporating feedback from the developer about technical limitations and edge cases. This app was developed using React Native, meaning one code base for both iOS and Android, which also meant the design would also be shared across platforms. I designed the app using UI patterns that were common to both Google's Material UI guidlines and Apple's interface guidelines for iOS, along with patterns that were agnostic.
