Freshly Dropped
App Redesign
Overview
Freshly Dropped is a food service that delivers freshly picked meal boxes to be prepared at home. The company was looking to expand and upgrade their app which currently only offers recipes to now provide a food delivery service.
While the app helps people cook at home on their own terms, the goal was to add a feature that allows users to also order ingredients to their doorstep. The feature should include a way for the user to search for ingredients as well as dishes. The app should still allow users to make grocery lists in the case that they choose not to order ingredients through the app.
In a group of three other UX designers, we used the five stages of design thinking to make informed decisions on how to best expand the app. The app was upgraded to add the food delivery service and reorganized to meet the needs of the user by offering them a meal planner function.
Type of project
Student project for Concordia University as part of the UX Certificate program led by instructor Will Balladares.
Contributions
User Experience
Timeline
5 week project
Team
Maeve Doyle, Jeremy Antoine, Zeynep Gunel, Siqi Wang
Problem
The Freshly Dropped app provides curated recipes for its users but is currently struggling with getting users to return to the app after checking and bookmarking a recipe.
Possible Solution
Freshly Dropped believes users are not coming back to the app because once they obtain the recipe’s ingredients, they no longer need to access the app. By adding an ingredient delivery service, users will be more encouraged to return to the app.
The plan and our goals
After looking at the brief, we determined the goals of the project.
1. Add a delivery service
2. Reorganize the App
3. Improve User Retention
Introduce and implement the new feature to existing users and ensure users needs as well as stakeholders expectations are met.
Introduce new features while creating an intuitive user experience and following the brand-guidelines.
Add a feature that will motivate users to regularly use the app. This will encourage users to develop routines and habits to help them plan and cook through the app. This can be done by emphasizing the app's most important features.
What is the current data and what do these numbers mean?
In February 2022, the click rate decreased when the bookmarks became highlighted by banners. To fix this issue, the use of banners to highlight the bookmark feature should be modified.
In December 2021, the click rate of the comments decreased when the app developed user growth. Users did however mention that the quality had reduced at this point. So, in order for users to better discover new recipes, the comment feature should be modified.
Let’s look at the projects KPI’s
Retention rates
The app’s current return users is only 23%. By maintaining and increasing the customer retention rates the retention needs to be brought up by 16.8% to reach 40%.
Increasing Revenue
With the added delivery feature, we expect the revenue to increase and the conversion rates will be improved.
So, what was our process for making this happen?
We approached the project by using the five stages of design thinking.
1. Empathize
We built proto personas, conducted user interviews and created a competitive analysis of the competitors.
3. Ideate
Then, we brainstormed and came up with our How Might We questions which lead us to building the users task flows.
2. Define
Using the insight from the interviews we built an affinity map which allowed us to create our persona. We built a user journey for our persona and then defined our problem statement.
4. Prototype
We sketched and built our wireframes and from there created our medium fidelity wireframes.
5. Test
We conducted user testing and from there made some alterations to the prototype.
Let’s breakdown our process
Empathize
First, we started by researching the competitor. We identified who these were and analyzed their strengths and weaknesses. This helped us understand what might be missing from the current Freshly Dropped app and helped us identify what the app's strong points were.
Competitive Analysis
User Interviews
Proto Persona
By building a proto persona we were able to align as a team to build our assumptions of who the user is. We used the proto persona as a tool to determine the screener questions for the user interviews.
Assumptions
The assumptions we built were that the user has no time to cook, but when she does cook, she cooks in batches and that she prefers organic foods.
Interviews
We conducted 6 semi structured interviews which allowed us to get to know the user and their cooking habits, how they grocery shop, how they create grocery lists and what their interactions are with other apps related to cooking.
Define
Affinity Mapping
To dissect our findings from the user interviews, we build an affinity map. We were able to determine what the recurring trends were and understand what the users pain points and motivators were.
Pain points
User lacks motivation to cook
It is a challenge to decide what to cook
Quality of food is not always reliable
Motivators
Affordable foods
Users valued convenience when it came to grocery shopping
Users prioritized eating healthy
So, were our assumptions correct?
Yes, users do prefer healthy and organic foods. But, no users do not lack time to cook but instead they lack motivation to cook. And no, the user does not cook in batches but instead cooks several times per week.
Our research shows that users lack motivation when it comes to cooking because they find it difficult to decide what to cook.
Lacks motivation
Keeping groceries affordable for the user is important but they find it challenging to compare prices online.
Affordability
Users also find that when they grocery shop online, it’s hard to be sure they will receive produce that is good quality.
Quality Assurance
Online Grocery Shopping for Convenience
Users prefer to do their grocery shopping online because it is convenient and an efficient way to save time.
Who is the User?
Now that we have defined the user's needs, we can go ahead and build our persona.
Meet Tina
Goals
Maintain a healthy lifestyle
Effectively meal plan
Grocery shop on a budget
Frustrations
Deciding what to cook
Cooking is repetitive
Lacks motivation to cook
Problem Statment
To help Tina reach her goal of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, we chose to focus on her frustrations. We prioritized Tina's challenge of deciding what to cook and built our statement to solve this problem.
“Tina is a yoga instructor who needs to plan her meals in order to maintain a healthy and diverse diet.”
How Might We assist our user in the process of deciding what to cook.
How Might We
With that problem statement in mind, it was time to brainstorm and come up with our How Might We questions to solve this problem.
Storyboard
With Tina and her needs in mind, we visualized a happy path scenario. Here, Tina gets inspired and then orders a meal kit and gets it delivered.
Ideate
So, what can we do to help Tina with her frustrations?
We categorized our ideas into three categories.
The rate and share function within the recipes will be enhanced to keep Tina engaged while using the app.
Interaction
Familiarity
Integrating features that Tina is familiar with will help her in deciding what to cook. By making the bookmark feature easily accessible and adding a weekly food planning feature will help her stay motivated and will be a resource she can refer to for inspiration.
Discovery
On the main page, Tina will be able to discover new recipes. Her favourite recipes will be highlighted and she will be able to easily access them.
What will change within the app and what will we be adding?
Changes
The bookmark feature will no longer be highlighted by banners to increase the click rate. The comment section will be moved to the recipe page so users can easily navigate through the reviews. This too will help increase the click rate.
Added Features
The delivery service of recipe ingredients will be added and can be customized to suit Tina’s needs.
Meal planner: This will help Tina plan her meals ahead of time. This feature will encourage Tina to keep checking the app for her personal scheduler. The meal planner will help with the app's user retention.
Building the Task Flows and Wireframes
Task Flow
In this flow, Tina browses the app, discovers a meal she would like to order then adds it to her cart. She proceeds to order the meal and adds the recipe to her meal planner.
Prototype
Wireframes
We took that task flow and built our low-fidelity wireframes as a starting point to visualize that flow.
Prototype
We worked from the original Freshly Dropped app and implemented specific changes.
Bottom Navigation Bar
The home, bookmark and planner buttons are placed to the left of the bottom navigation bar. We decided the size and placement of the icons by researching user’s habits and how a user would typically hold their device. Based on a user study conducted by Steven Hoober, we understood that the pages of priority should be placed to the left side of the bar.
Changes
Based on our user research we made these changes
Plus icon was removed since its purpose was unclear.
The navigation bar was enlarged.
The bar icons were given titles to clarify their purpose.
Before
Our proposed design
Test
Iterative Testing
First Round of testing
The prototype was ready for testing after adding these changes. We tested the low-fidelity prototype in our first round of testing.
Two users were interviewed using Discord. The users were asked to share their screen while they navigated through the prototype. In this round of testing, we wanted to test our new meal planner feature.
We explained the purpose of the interview and asked them to follow the task flow of adding a meal to their meal planner from the bookmark page.
Users Feedback
The users had difficulties when adding a recipe to the meal planner. One of the interviewees wanted to see an order tracking feature. We asked them to give a satisfaction score and they rated the app as a 7/10, and an 8/10.
Reflections on designs
Based on our user test results we improved the call to action buttons for adding recipes to the meal planner.
Second Round of testing
After the first round of testing, we altered the low-fidelity prototype. We implemented changes and turned it into a mid-fidelity prototype.
A user was asked to complete 3 different tasks using the mid-fi wireframes face-to-face using an iPhone. They were asked to order a “spicy chicken” for delivery on Monday, to add the recipe to the meal planner and to add the recipe to the bookmark and then find it.
Users Feedback
The user was interested in using the social features of the app. In considering this, we improved the comment section of the app. The scheduled delivery was greatly appreciated since the user felt they had more control.
Outcome and Conclusion
Using the design process, we empathized to better understand the user and defined what their needs and frustrations were. With that insight, we ideated and came up with solutions to help the user.

The meal planner we propose will help the user in the process of deciding what to cook and will be a tool the user can continuously refer back to. These changes aim to solve the current issue Freshly Dropped has with user retention.
While the app has been updated, it now also includes the recipe delivery service. This feature has the capability to help users cook on their own terms and offers the user flexibility.
Let’s Work Together
Get in touch so we can start working together.
