Vegan Life

The process of creating an app for healthy eating, community engagement, and vegan products

View the project on Behance

What is Vegan Life?

Vegan Life is a project that began in the UX Design course at Digital House in 2021. Using Stanford's Design Thinking methodology, we investigated the challenges faced by the Argentine vegan community today.

The team consisted of Julia Barri, Melina Galli, Andrés Grandi, Márgrith Márquez, and Mariana Suárez Rossi.

Situation
More and more people are transitioning to a vegan lifestyle in Argentina each day, but there are few platforms that accompany them throughout their process.

Problem
People starting out in veganism don't know what to eat and go through a crisis that negatively impacts their health.

My role
The roles rotated through different stages of the project. In my case, I mainly worked in the areas of UX Research and UI Design.

We gathered quantitative data

We conducted surveys

We surveyed 17 vegan individuals and obtained the following results:

• 8 people are unaware of nearby vegan restaurants
• 11 people dine at exclusively vegan restaurants 2 to 3 times a month
• 14 people use social media as a source of information

From the research, we concluded that there is a lack of information and/or insufficient options for vegan restaurants or bars. We identified a problem that we delved into further with each stage of the research.

In depth interviews: How does it feel to be Vegan in Argentina?

We interviewed 5 vegan individuals, both beginners and experienced, to understand their context and the daily issues they face. This allowed us to learn about their transition to veganism and the evolution they experienced.

We sorted and mapped our main findings: Empathy map

Two user profiles: beginners and experienced

We developed scenarios based on these situations, one for each persona:

1. How could we assist “beginner vegans” to know what steps to take when starting veganism?
2. How could we help “experienced vegans” feel included in their environment?

Based on their pain points and the search for the most relevant solutions for each scenario, we realized that we could offer more tools to beginner vegans to make their journey smoother.

We defined our Persona: Meet Mora

But… which ideas did we prioritize?

In this ideation process, we filtered a series of ideas and prioritized the following three:

1. That Mora can be advised by a nutritionist to follow a proper process.
2. That Mora knows which products she can consume.
3. That Mora has a guide for her first steps.

The idea is to support and guide beginners in every step of this new lifestyle. We want to provide guidance and support in all aspects, including nutrition, recipes, testimonials, products, and businesses, to address their needs through our ideas.

Time to define: her health as our priority

The options devised were valuable, but we concluded that eating in a healthy and balanced way is essential.

The Minimum Viable Product

The ideas developed were of great value, but we believe it's essential to have a healthy and balanced diet at the beginning of this process. Thus, we reached our Minimum Viable Product (MVP)


Once we defined our MVP, we considered the most appropriate technology.

Why did we choose a Progressive Web App?

A day in the life of Mora: User Journey

1. Mora decides to transition to veganism, feeling a mix of joy, excitement, and uncertainty.
2. She searches for guidance online, but faces challenges with outdated and inaccurate apps.
3. Discovering our platform 'VeganLife' through targeted keywords, she finds all the resources needed to prepare a nutritious meal, including recipes and nutritionists. With newfound knowledge, she creates her first vegan dish.

Voice, Tone & Moodboard

We want to transmit tranquility, security and confidence in this new stage, so we speak in a warm, confident and positive way, with a neutral voice that is easy to understand.

UI Kit

Palette and typography

User flow

While the platform is designed to provide information about food, community, and products, we only prototyped the meal plate-building flow.

We listened to our users: Usability tests

On Boarding

Upon entering the platform, users are presented with images associated with healthy food preparation, community, products, and nature, accompanied by the following phrases:

• We support you on your journey to veganism.
• Share your experience with the vegan community.
• We are here to help you maintain a healthy diet.

Home

After onboarding, users enter the main menu, divided into three sections:

1. Healthy Eating: Everything about nutrition, meal assembly, recipes, tips, substitutes, and nutritionist contacts.
2. Community: A forum where users can connect with other vegans, news, and recommendations.
3. Products: Cosmetics, accessories, clothing, fashion, and personal hygiene.
   
   

Plate assembly

The idea is for Mora to complete the necessary portions to achieve her ideal plate.

Before starting the plate assembly, we provide guidelines for a ‘healthy or balanced plate’ and recommend consulting a nutritionist for personalized advice. She begins with carbohydrates, then proteins, and finishes with fruits and vegetables. The session ends with a reminder to seek further guidance from a nutritionist.

Nutritional value

Regarding nutritional value, we found that during prototype testing, users said: “Well, I assemble my plate, but if I’m just starting, how do I know what each food has and what it provides me?”

For this reason, we designed the interface so that Mora can press the food she wants to add to her plate and see the nutritional information it provides.

Recipes & basic preparations

During testing, users asked if we provided basic preparations and recipes for more elaborate dishes. We found this crucial for helping Mora combine ingredients she has with other foods, plan her week, and know what to buy. After finalizing the plate, users can save or share it.

Your plate is ready!

Once the dish is finished, you can save it or share it. In VeganLife, you can eat according to your style, learn about preparations and recipes, and access nutritional information in a unified and user-friendly way.

Takeaways

The vegan community is continually growing. Today, we can affirm that it is not a fad but a lasting lifestyle. Through our research, we understood their challenges and worked to provide the best possible solution.

Our goal is for the platform to reach as many people as possible, fostering a community that can provide mutual support: the VeganLife community, dedicated to guiding everyone on their journey to veganism.