Melted Food Delivery
Ever run out of ice cream at the most inconvenient time, leaving your spoon feeling lonely?
Melted is a food delivery app focused on getting that cold nectar of the gods into mouths faster. From a to z, Melted allows users to customize their ice cream orders from the comfort of their rom-com watching couch to the back of the line that no one wants to wait in. It’s an honest day's work, but someone needs to do it.
Problem
Many problems come up when people think of ice cream; it melts too quickly, it falls onto the ground by accident or the most cited issue, there isn’t enough to eat. This feeling of ice cream deprivation always comes at the worst times, too, usually when you are stuck at home, sitting in traffic, up in a hot air balloon, or standing in line for that darn awesomeness. No one specializes in delivering ice cream directly to consumers; that is just wrong. Sure there are other food delivery apps like Grubhub, DoorDash, UberEats, and the list goes on, but they deliver all types of food. They don’t give ice cream the special care it deserves, so there is no telling what shape your ice cream will be in when it arrives or how it will smell. Thanks, Doug, and your fish fry.
Solution
From their modern ice cream storefront that feels like it was ripped out of the 90s, Melted comes to you with a solution. Taking a page out of Insomnia Cookies’ book with their cookies, Melted’s delivery app allows customers to order ice cream straight to their doors like they were Richie Rich with their ice cream truck. No matter what time of night that craving hits, Melted has it covered, with their refrigerated trucks optimized to keep the precious cold. And for those who visit the store and can’t wait in line, there is an option. They access the app, place their order, and Melted. We’ll let them know when it’s ready.
Process
Throughout developing Melted’s brand, I researched how to create a unique and marketable app that people would use and enjoy.
Competitive Analysis
I audited the top three delivery apps that my users used based on the user surveys I performed, GrubHub, DoorDash, and UberEats. These apps would be the main competitors to my app, so I examined how they performed and what weaknesses I could build off.
User Survey
I deployed a survey to determine if an ice cream delivery app would solve a need worldwide. With this, I was able to find out that there was a need and more. People didn’t just want delivery but to skip lines altogether.
User Personas
I created user personas based on the information gathered through an internet-deployed survey targeting people who love ice cream. This gave me insight into who my users would be.
My primary users tended to be 18-34 females that are good with technology. They are either still in school or working at their first jobs. They are usually busy trying to make it that they sometimes forget to eat and go shopping, so they would prefer for food to be delivered to them. This information leads me to make the personas of Amanda, a 20-year-old female college student, and Penny, a 27-year-old female account executive.
My secondary users tended to be a bit older, 26-40, and skewed male. These men are in the thick of their jobs, probably have a family, and are overall busy with life. These men also tend not to be that great technologically but would do anything to skip long lines and get back to their crazy schedules. This information leads me to make the persona of Jeff, a 34-year-old male manager, and father.
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Amanda Goode
FEMALE • 20 • STUDENT
Amanda has been around the Internet all of her life. It was something that has always been there so she knows how to use it and is familiar with most social media. She loves to hang out with her friends and post pictures of their times together. Her favorite times are when they skip the dinning hall and go on spontaneous trips to go and get other food, especially something sweet.
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Jeff Marsh
MALE • 34 • MANAGER
Jeff finds technology to be a reluctant necessity. For his job he most use his stores computer to schedule and train his staff but when he comes to his phone that he swears his children know how to work it better than he does. Some things confuse him about it but overall he just thinks doing things the old way isn’t that bad. He doesn’t really care for food delivery apps but if it allows him to skip the long lines he’s all game.
User Stories
With these user personas in mind, I then thought about the different types of users ordering from Melted. I broke them down into three categories: new users, returning users, and all users. Each has specific needs and wants when it comes to its orders.
User Flows
User flows were created to understand how users would interact with the website. This helped gauge what screens and buttons were necessary for the user to complete the objective of ordering and to receive ice cream based on the developed user stories and needs of those I surveyed.
Wireframe Sketches
Thanks to the user flow giving insight into which pages were needed, I began to roughly sketch out multiple wireframe ideas to understand how the app should be laid out and how it would work for my intended users.
Lo-fi Mockups
Looking over the rough sketches I created, I picked the ideas I thought would work best for my users and brought them into the design interface tool, Figma. This is where I refined my initial sketches as low-fi mockups and then built off of them, creating multiple variations to ensure I was working toward the best solution.
Branding
With my low-fi mockups looking pretty bare, I began thinking about what the brand for an ice cream shop and corresponding should be. With that in mind, I went through entire exercises of brainstorming names, finding imagery, and more until everything seemed to melt together.
Melted is a brand for its millennial users that are nostalgic for a time that seemed more simple. A time when they watched Nickelodeon with its wide rounded font of a logo and wild shapes of bold colors. It’s when they would chase ice cream trucks with their allowance money and have fun being who they are. Melted is supposed to embody the feeling of the 90s while still feeling modern and new because ice cream never goes out of style.
Hi-fi Mockups
During my initial user tests, I witnessed what was and wasn’t working with my mockups. This knowledge helped me identify what my pain points were and allowed me to fix them. I could overlay the 90’s inspired branding with my more advanced mockups. This resulted in me creating high-fidelity mockups ready to be tested as a clickable prototype through Figma.
Usability Testing
Nothing is ever truly perfect; that is why I continued to run my mockups through a gambit of user tests. I wanted to iron out any issues or errors that could and would pop up with what I had created. This resulted in me redesigning my add ice cream icon, retooling my tracking map, and adding additional screens for my menu. Some of these issues could be considered small, but to me, it didn’t matter because, in the long run, big or small, any resolved issue or error would result in a better overall product.
Conclusion
Interestingly, my simple idea of creating an ice cream app morphed and changed into what it is today. Even though it wasn’t what I first envisioned, I’m happy with how it turned out. It was great listening to user feedback and hearing that my prototype was hitting the mark; they thought it was solid. It was especially lovely hearing that it made them feel like they were being transported back to the 90s or that they could see an ice cream truck coming. They were fun comments but ones that made me think that I indeed created a product intended for the audience based on the research and user personas that were developed.
However, as I said within my user testing results, nothing is ever truly perfect, and my app could constantly be improved. I believe if I conducted additional user tests, I could find even more errors that need to be refined, mainly if I targeted different demographics. I asked individuals who somewhat fell under my intended users for the tests I ran. This gave me almost biased results because they inherently understood what I intended with my designs and thought processes. So, I am curious if what I created would work for those that are not my intended audience. Would they give it praise still, or would it turn them away, because yes, you design for specific users in mind, but you hope at the end of the day that anyone could enjoy what you made?