Megan Tran's Portfolio Project

After finishing her bachelor’s degree, and with just a marketing internship and part-time job as a brand designer under her belt, Megan enrolled with CareerFoundry.

Read Megan’s career-change story: From Marketing Student To UX Designer: How Taking A Risk Paid Off

During the CareerFoundry UI Design Program, you’ll build out a job-ready portfolio. Here is a breakdown of graduate Megan’s portfolio project, where she was tasked with designing an app based on one of the following themes: location, recipe, or icon/creation.

Megan had just begun her own fitness journey at the time, so she decided to create an app that would serve three main purposes:

• Healthy recipes
• Calorie tracking
• Workouts

CHALLENGE

How can I provide a new user with the best possible experience? Not only do I want them to use the app, but I want them to integrate it into their life as a daily tool. So, as a user, I would like to be assisted in meeting my fitness goals. Where does this start?

• Being educated on a balanced diet: What works for my body? What if I don’t like how this tastes? What if I still want to eat fried chicken?
• Being held accountable for my actions: Tracking your food intake and the amount of calories burned.

POINTS TO CONSIDER:

• Time spent cooking
• Simple recipes, easy steps
• Define categories per taste
• Nutritional facts
• Healthy substitutions? Fail?
• App engagement

PROCESS

STYLE AND VISUAL DIRECTION

I created two mood boards as a guiding principle for my target market. The first moodboard channels a light, simple, minimalistic feel similar to MyFitnessPal. The second channels a welcoming, inspiring feel. Although blue is said to be more relaxing, I decided to choose orange and green to focus on motivation and inspiration, as those colors are intended to represent. I’m a big fan of user psychology, so any chance I get to test my hypothesis on color choices, I’m there. After conducting A/B testing for mood boards:

• 54% of applicants surveyed said the second color scheme is more encouraging and that they would use the app more if it were colorful.
• 63% of applicants said green and orange felt more personal.

GOAL

Design an app to educate users on having a balanced, healthy diet and give them the tools they need to achieve their fitness goals. Understand that these tools work cohesively and motivate them to take action to be held accountable.

USER FLOW

PERSONAS

A total of 5 interviews were conducted where participants had to answer questions regarding their fitness activity, dietary habits, and adaptability. Three of the participants were college students looking to implement lifestyle changes. Two were not necessarily looking to make a lifestyle change, but were interested in the app nonetheless.

NEEDS AND MOTIVATIONS

• All participants wanted easy to cook meals
• All participants have new fitness goals they want to achieve
• All participants wanted an app to help them
• All participants have an interest in nutrition/food intake
• 3 out of 5 participants consider themselves “health conscious”
• 2 out of 5 participants have tracked their calories but stopped due to convenience

Throughout the interviews, I noticed that the majority of participants had an interest in adopting a healthy lifestyle but don’t stay motivated enough to commit to one app. I asked how they would feel if an app was created which gave personalized options and also had a calorie tracker as one of its features, and all participants said they would be willing to use it. One participant also said they would be more engaged with it if it had a “personal coach” or “trainer.” After analyzing their answers, I started to combine different workout elements from apps on the market. I also created three personas for the app to help navigate my design process and understand their needs. Below is one of them.

ONBOARDING

HOMEPAGE

FEATURE 1 – (FEATURED) RECIPES

FEATURE 2 – TRACK YOUR CALORIES

FEATURE 3 – SAVED

FEATURE 4 – WORKOUT