It’s been quiet for a while….. Because of a Pivot.
A functioning prototype of the app has been working since about the 15th of December 2017. After trying it on multiple people it soon became clear that we had gotten a few assumptions wrong, that the overall strategy was flawed and that the app wouldn’t deliver on the goals that had been set.
We went back to the drawing board… The three main features: Search, filter and the feed of dishes were evaluated, improved on and prioritised in terms of importance. The filter functionality ended up being the main feature to focus on going forward.
I’ve worked intensely with five different UX-designers over the last month to come to the state we are in right now:
X – There is a new design that works as a whole.
X – The design has been divided into stages in preparation for development
X – The developers are working on reaching the first stage of the new idea
The idea after the pivot is about registering your preferences in an container / ID called a “meal card”. Different meal cards will be relevant for different occasions such as: “cheap vegetarian lunches” and “Mexican fish dinners”. Multiple meal cards can be combined in order to plan a meal together with other people. One meal card will match a certain number of dishes. When meal cards are combined it’s possible to see what restaurants contain dishes that fit multiple cards. The app will therefore make it much easier for people to eat together in a restaurant or after having had the food delivered.
It may sound a bit complicated. It’s certainly felt like it quite a few times during the last 6-7 weeks. Now that we are working on the new app everything feels very clear and the goals feel attainable.
I think that the app will be ready for beta testing during the end of March. We are simultaneously working on expanding the area of restaurant coverage. This means that the app should be usable for interested “early adopters” in East London during April.
/ The Founder – Jacob Notlov
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobnotlov/
P.s. The focus on design work on the version of the app has made me very slow at responding to job-applications and getting back to people. I am sorry for this. It’s just been very hard to focus on anything else than developing a solution that’s usable.
