Sweet Dough
UX/ UI Mobile App Design
Sweet Dough is an e-commerce App design project for a local Bakery located in North Florida.
Sweet Dough's target customers are busy people that would like to try a variety of high-quality sweets or have special events and want to preorder custom bakery items.
Project Overview
Product: App Design
Project Duration: February 2022- April 2022
My Role: UX Researcher, UX Designer
The Problem: Busy people are not able to stop by the bakery early and may not have a chance to order their favorite or new pastry items before they sell out. Also, the traditional ordering process of custom cakes takes lots of time and energy.
The Goal: Design a menu and payment app for a local Bakery (Sweet Dough) that enables users to easily customize and submit their orders in advance and pick them up at their convenience.
Design Process Steps:
Understanding the User
User Research
I conducted interviews and created empathy maps to understand the bakery’s users and their needs.
Pain Points:
• Time and skill: Working adults are busy to spend time for baking while baking perfect pastry items is difficult
• Sold-out items: Some users could not stop by early and their favorite items might be sold out
• Not able to customize order: Some users have special diets and they need to review the ingredients and nutrition info and customize their cake
• IA: Text-heavy menus in apps are often difficult to read and order from
Persona
“Fresh, unique, and tasty cakes for parties that everyone enjoys and has sweet memories”
Age: 25
Education: Community College
Hometown: Perry, FL
Family: Live with her boyfriend and her dog
Occupations: Photographer
User Story: Chloe As a party planner, who designs events with different themes, I want to preorder, place the orders easily and quickly, and be able to customize the cake based on my family’s diet and party theme. themes.
Problem Statement: Chloe is the party planner of her family who needs to customize her order because she and some of her guests have special diets and their parties and cakes have special themes.
User Journey Map
Mapping Chloe’s user journey revealed how helpful it would be for users to have access to a dedicated Sweet Dough Bakery app.
Chloe's Goal: Preorder a custom cake for her boyfriend’s graduation party from a local bakery
UX Design Storyboard
Scenario: An app for party planners to customize their order quickly and easily.
Big Picture Storyboard
Close-up Storyboard
Starting the Design
Wireframes and Low-Fidelity Prototype
I worked on different iterations of each screen of the app on paper to ensure that the selected elements are well-suited to address user pain points. As the initial design phase continued, I made sure to base screen designs on feedback and findings from user research.
Paper Wireframes of the Sweet Dough
Digital Wireframe of the Sweet Dough
Usability Study
Using the completed set of digital wireframes, I created a low-fidelity prototype and I conducted two rounds of usability studies. Findings from the first study helped guide the designs from wireframes to mockups. The second study used a high-fidelity prototype and revealed what aspects of the mockups needed refining.
Methodology:
Description:
Unmoderated Usability study
• Location: The United States, remote
• The session took place on March 25 and 26
• Each session lasted 20-30 minutes
• Five participants ordered a pastry item and a custom cake through the app. Then, each participant completed a questionnaire on their experience.
Round 1 Findings
1- Users want to be able to find the menu quickly
2- Some labels and buttons need to be more clear and reconsider
3- Users want to find buttons and the next easy
2- Some labels and buttons need to be more clear and reconsider
3- Users want to find buttons and the next easy
Round 2 Findings
1- Users want to be able to find the menu quickly
2- Some labels and buttons need to be more clear and reconsider
2- Some labels and buttons need to be more clear and reconsider
Refining the Design
After the usability studies, I found out that users need better cues for how to initiate the order process and find the menu. In addition, The second usability study revealed frustration with the number of added items to the card without going through the checkout process.
Before - After the usability study 1
I added the menu's major categories to the homepage for easier access. Also, I improved labels and buttons, as better labels and UX writing was needed to communicate related functions more easily.
Before - After the usability study
Users want to be able to see how many items have been added to the cart before proceeding to the checkout process. So, I added the number of ordered items to the cart for more visibility.
Mockups and High-Fidelity Prototype
After all of the previous phases, I added imagery, icons, and text in order to create mockups and high-fidelity prototypes.
Final Mockups of the Sweet Dough App
Hi-Fidelity Prototype of the Sweet Dough App
The final high-fidelity prototype presented the user flows for reviewing the menu, initiating and submitting the order, checkout, and tracking the order. It also met users' needs to see the number of items in the cart, before overview and checkout.
The sweet Dough App Final Design
Accessibility
When designing, I made sure to include accessibility factors in the design process.
• I checked color contrast with WebAIM to make sure I used adequate contrast between t text and background.
• Used icons as well as text to make navigation easier.
• Consider enough touch target and placement. The tapping targets within the app are big enough for people to interact with precision and confidence. Placed buttons where they are easy to access and can be reached easily.
• Used icons as well as text to make navigation easier.
• Consider enough touch target and placement. The tapping targets within the app are big enough for people to interact with precision and confidence. Placed buttons where they are easy to access and can be reached easily.
Going Forward
Takeaways
Impact: Target users enjoyed interacting with the product and were excited to use that. It enables users to easily and quickly review the menu, find out about new flavors or events, and submit their orders.
What I learned: A takeaway was that I realized the importance of conducting usability research and getting feedback from users. Potential users can bring up real or possible pain points, which are crucial to be addressed to provide a good user experience.
Next Steps
• Conduct another round of usability studies to validate whether the pain points users experienced have been effectively addressed.
• Talk to bakery owners about their business future and possible additions to the product.
• Conduct more user research to determine any new areas of need.
