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SERVICE DESIGN・EXPERIENCE DESIGN・PRODUCT DESIGN
Optimized menu to choose from to alter the stress of making decisions
OVERVIEW
People experience the phenomenon of ‘paralysis-analysis’ while deciding what to order at a restaurant from long exhaustive menus. The product’s aim is to reduce the cognitive load of options and empower people to make quicker decisions and make the frustrating process of chosing & ordering food more seamless.
My Role
Ideator, Design strategist, User flow, Visual Design
Team
Akshat Prasad
Vignesh SanathKumar
Duration
2 Weeks
Advisors
Danielle Morimoto (Adobe)
Chris Do (The Futur)
Ben Burns (The Futur)
Adobe’s Challenge
The challenge was to create a perfect pitch that has a clear goal, value proposition and to envision the impact of the concept.
I was able to bring my fellow-team mates on board with an idea that had been sitting in my back-burner for a while and together we crafted the (almost) perfect pitch.
‘Minu’ is designed to reduce the existing menu to optimised options exclusive to every individual. The solution focuses on distilling the options to a minimum of 3 options to help make quicker choices. Other features also include a ‘surprise me’ which brings one picked-out choice.
SOLUTION
OPTIMIZATION
AI generated reducted food options from the menu
Through personalised onboarding and learning behavior and choices over time, Minu is trained to optimise distilled down food options for a person to make more decisive choices and skip the frustrating process of decision making from long exhausting menus.
CONTROL
Flexibility to filter-in the results
Not making it a very prominent feature, Minu allows the person to have control over how the platform distills the option - on parameters of dietary restriction and price range! The control is also given to set the number of options that’ll appear.
DISCOVERY
Focused on making the ultimate pick
A ‘surprise me’ feature pulls up one single item from the menu.
This feature skips all the process of skimming the menu altogether and acts as an SOS button.
PROCESS
In the initial brainstorming sessions of ideation, I proposed the gap I had identified in the food ordering process which most of us encounter most of the time we order food.
The three of us found a common ground of ‘indecisiveness’ and ‘perplexity’ when it comes to ‘too many choices/options to choose from’.
Team ‘Make-shifters’ in action a few days before the final Adobe Creative Jam submission.
Design Framework
We found that more people find it challenging to make decisions about what to eat. Especially people who do not cook and rely on food deliveries and takeouts.
A pattern of skipping meals and ordering wrong was identified. Another useful insight came up was that ordering as a group or couple is another layer to the process which can be integrated in the plausible future of Minu.
User Research
Brainstorming physical & digital user experience of ordering food driving the decision making for the flows of Minu
Sketching the initial user flow of the platform. (Left : Me ; Right : Akshat)
Information Architecture
Low-fidelity wireframes
Branding
Elevator Pitch
Next Steps
The project currently is in its stealth mode and the next step would be -
Test with potential end actors
To register the project on Kickstarter to gain some funding.
To create an MVP and find potential investors and launch the platform after user testing and iterating the product.
The investment will also focus on developing Minu’s AI to help generate the customised food choices that are exclusive to the specific person using the platform.
The investment will also go towards identifying key players in the hospitality and setting up the platform across multiple continents and scaling up globally.
Participating in Adobe Creative Jam and bringing my idea to life was a truly meaningful experience for me. The reflections and learnings I take away from this project are -
My learnings and key takeaways
Let's conquer that indecisiveness together with Minu!
Judges Feedback (Ben Burns, Danielle, Chris Do)
Winning announcement
Easy Sign in
Onboarding - Adding Dietary restrictions
Onboarding - Training the AI for effective optimization
Home Screen
AI generated Optimized menu
Popular options
Problem Statement
How might we reduce the cognitive load of food options to make the process of ordering food less stressful?
Optimise the choices per individual by distilling down the number of items on the menu.
Solution
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