My role:
Product Designer and Co-founder
My responsibilities:
UX; Logic, Research, Writing, Persona, (Testing after the launch)
Branding; Custom Illustrations, Logo, Color Palette
Project timeline:
3 months before launch
About Project:
Tie Aprons is a company and self-titled homemade dish-selling platform that I co-founded in 2020. At Tie Aprons, our mission is to bring together food enthusiasts who love homemade cuisine, discover delightful recipes, and create opportunities for selling their culinary creations.
What was the problem?
Tie Aprons identified a significant opportunity to address the challenges faced by unemployed women, home cooks, and chefs during the pandemic. Despite their culinary skills and the demand for homemade food, there was no centralized platform where they could showcase and sell their dishes. This absence of a dedicated marketplace prevented these talented individuals from leveraging their skills and generating income from their homemade creations.
User Research
Behind each meticulously designed Tie Aprons lies a captivating UX journey. We embarked on a quest to understand the unique needs, pain points, and aspirations of our users. Through in-depth user research and interviews with chefs, baristas, artisans, and creatives, we gained valuable insights that guided our design process.
After surveying people and analyzing their responses, I discovered that users definitely would prefer to order homemade (cheap) food, as well as sell their own food.
How might we...
...create a centralized platform that empowers unemployed women, home cooks, and chefs to showcase and sell their homemade dishes, providing them with a sustainable source of income and enabling customers to access a wide variety of delicious homemade food options in one place?"
User Persona
Low fidelity wireframes
Branding and Logo
Created by using Illustrator
Goal:
The goal was to develop a compelling branding strategy that resonated with the target audience. This included creating a logo that visually represented the concept of homemade food, instilled trust, and showcased the unique selling proposition of Tie Aprons. The aim was to establish a strong brand presence that left a lasting impression and fostered a sense of community among food lovers.
Sketches
Final Version
Color Palette
Goal:
The goal is to create a visually appealing and inviting food selling app that resonates with users, evokes a sense of warmth and freshness, and encourages engagement and transactions.
Fact:
Yellow is the most appetizing color. Contemplating the color yellow increases the production of gastric juice and improves digestion.
Custom Illustrations
Created by using Illustrator
Goal:
The goal was to create custom illustrations that reflected the warmth, creativity, and homemade essence of the dishes being sold on the platform. These illustrations would add personality and visual interest to various sections of the website, such as the homepage, recipe pages, seller profiles, and search results.
Reflections
As a designer and co-founder of Tie Aprons, the UX aspect of this project has been incredibly rewarding. We prioritized creating a seamless and engaging user experience by understanding our target audience's needs and desires through extensive research. Custom illustrations, branding, typography, and UX writing played key roles in enhancing the platform's appeal and guiding users effectively. Through A/B testing, we continuously optimized interactions and conversions. Witnessing the positive impact on our users, empowering them to showcase their culinary skills and generate income, has been truly fulfilling. This project reaffirmed the importance of user-centered design and its ability to create meaningful experiences.
Next Steps
The next steps for Tie Aprons involve prioritizing accessibility. This includes integrating voice command functionalities like Siri, adding audio descriptions for visual elements, implementing text-to-speech features, optimizing keyboard navigation, enhancing color contrast and font accessibility, regularly testing with various accessibility tools, collecting user feedback, providing team training on accessibility best practices, creating documentation outlining accessibility features, and ensuring compliance with relevant standards such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These efforts aim to make Tie Aprons more inclusive, user-friendly, and accessible to a diverse audience.