Pioneering Digital Transformation
Custom Crave
Designing a personalized food discovery experience that helps users find meals aligned with their preferences, dietary needs, and cravings.
Client
Concept Project, Dietary Restriction Platform
Date
2024
Role
UX/UI Designer, Full Creator (Branding, Concept, etc...)
Scope
User Research • User Interviews • Product Strategy • Information Architecture • Interaction Design • Wireframing • Prototyping • Visual Design
Project Brief
Custom Crave is a mobile food discovery platform designed to make meal selection more personalized and efficient. The project explored how users navigate overwhelming food options while balancing dietary restrictions, personal preferences, and changing cravings. Through user research and iterative design, the experience was reimagined to help users discover relevant meal options faster while creating a more engaging and tailored food-ordering journey.
Problem & Why It Matters
Food delivery and restaurant discovery platforms often prioritize large catalogs of options, forcing users to spend significant time searching, filtering, and comparing meals before making a decision. For users with dietary restrictions, specific preferences, or changing cravings, this process can become frustrating and mentally taxing. The challenge was to create a more personalized experience that reduces decision fatigue and helps users quickly discover food options that align with their needs. Improving this experience not only benefits users but also increases engagement by making meal discovery feel more relevant and intentional.
Research & Design Decisions
The project began with user interviews and competitive analysis to better understand how people currently discover and select meals. Research revealed recurring themes around information overload, difficulty finding personalized recommendations, and frustration with navigating large food catalogs. Based on these findings, I focused on creating a recommendation-driven experience supported by clear filtering, preference-based customization, and streamlined navigation. Early concepts were validated through feedback sessions and iterative testing, helping refine information architecture and improve discoverability throughout the user journey. The final design prioritized personalization at key decision points, allowing users to quickly identify relevant options while maintaining flexibility to explore additional choices.
Outcome & Key Learnings
The resulting experience transformed food discovery from a search-heavy process into a more personalized and guided journey. By surfacing relevant recommendations and reducing unnecessary decision-making steps, the design created a more intuitive path from exploration to selection. This project reinforced the importance of designing for user context rather than simply increasing functionality. I learned that personalization is most effective when it reduces cognitive effort, and that early research can reveal opportunities to create value beyond the immediate task users are trying to accomplish.
