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Purpose-Driven Innovation For Plant-Based People
Bloom App helps plant-based people stay motivated in a predominantly meat & dairy-consuming community. I worked on this project during my time as a UX designer at Philadelphia University.
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UX research and behavioral design
Led the whole product design from scratch
Worked closely with cross-functional teams
My Role
Lead UX Designer
Business strategy and launch
Visual direction and UI design
Prototyping and usability testing
Duration: 9 Months
Philadelphia University had students with plant-based meal plans during their freshmen year move to non-plant-based meal plans later.
Business Challenge
How do we ensure that plant-based people are satisfied and motivated throughout their plant-based journey?
93%
Plant-based students felt demotivated due to lack of representation and inclusivity
84%
Plant-based students faced "relapses" in their plant-based diet during their time at PhilaU
Said that being plant-based as a student at PhilaU requires much more work
11 out of 12
Information Gathering
A detailed research team was set in motion for the duration of 4 months
Canteens/meal services were also thoroughly studied
We spoke to 53 students who had atypical diet preferences out of which 12 students were specifically plant-based and agreed to give an interview
Only participant with no relapse
"....it was not my choice or anything, I cried the whole night.." "..it took a big mental toll on me, and I was more so disappointed in myself."
-Participant 6, on having a non-plant-based protein bar by mistake, bought at the school canteen near checkout counter
"I don't tell people that I am vegan. I just say that I don't consume dairy sometimes. It is easier to bang our heads on the wall rather than make someone understand why we went vegan. I just don't want the tag for this society. And if I am going to a party, I will make up my mind beforehand. I will choose something that has the least amount of dairy in it."
-Participant 8, on peer pressure that he faces for being plant-based
"It was very awkward, like, should I tell them beforehand that I am a vegan? And then what?".... "I wanted to leave a good first impression"
-Participant 1, on her experience with relapses
We asked students about the relapses and some of the excerpts from the interview held so much weight that they steered the study in a different direction
- Participant 11, no relapse
"...when I told my friends that I was going plant-based, they all were fine with it. In fact, they were influenced and started having vegan products too."
Problem areas and Implications
Defining the Problem
After coming across some of the emotional aspects associated with diet, we realized that changing the meal services alone at PhilaU would not solve it.
We also understood that changing one's diet requires a lot of motivation that when failed, affects the student's sense of self and accomplishment.
It becomes our responsibility to provide a conducive environment for people of different backgrounds and preferences.
01
Peer Pressure/
Influence
Getting influenced or peer pressured by non-plant-based groups around turned out to be the major reason for lack of representation
02
Lack of Availability
Placement of non-plant-based foods were more sale-based in canteens. There was also a need of carefully designed meal plans
How might we reduce plant-based relapses and motivate them? (positive reinforcement)
UX Challenge
1. Design needs to be habit-forming to cater to different lifestyle changes.
2. Design needs to bring convenience and accessibility to people from different cultures and backgrounds.
3. Design needs to be cognizant of the sensitivities of each of its users.
Introducing Bloom
Final Product Design
Bloom's Mission
Brand Identity
Bloom under the umbrella of Philadelphia University, is designed to be the very first plant-based helper. Its main goal is to help people sustain and improve their plant-based lifestyle and provide them with the necessary motivation.
Ideation
Features and Scoping
In continuation to the research, this storyboard became the perfect synthesis of how the character Rick who faces frequent relapses, changes his course and behavior. Bloom is a blend of gamification, cognitive psychology, and shopping. We used Kano Cards and MVP scoping to finalize the app framework.
MVP Scoping
Simplified yet complex structure
Approach
Bloom had to be a habit-forming app that follows the four tiers: Trigger, Action, Investment, and Reward.
Four tiers for a habit-forming product explained:
The product should be able to call the user in (trigger), let them perform the desired task (action), give the user something in return for performing that task (rewards), and finally something that makes the user invest and come back to your product (investment).
- Nir Eyal, Hooked Model
Wireframes
Constantly mapping & validating iterations
I wanted Bloom to be cognizant of helping plant-based people bring a positive change in behavior with time - this required me to validate it with the user group constantly. I keep my wireframes simple and easy to understand so that it is easily tweakable.
The brand new purpose-driven experience
Final Prototype
Consistent brand visuals and styleguide
The mood board for Bloom was chosen to be calming and comforting as per the common consensus.
Created a detailed UI component styleguide on Figma for consistency and future expansion of the product
Usability Testing
Risky Assumption Matrix
The riskiest assumptions depended on the user interaction with my app.
Features such as tracking and positive reinforcement were the biggest risky assumptions.
There was a need to validate the same, especially where they were having bad series of relapses
Key Takeaways
As I led this project from start to finish, I empathized deeply with users who found their mental well-being deteriorated by being plant-based at PhilaU. This drove me to keep iterating on my strategies and design continuously. I also realized how habit-forming models can be easily violated which is why there's a need for it to be used ethically, to reinforce the users and their habits positively. This was a huge takeaway.
Ethics vs Business
“The best products are born from a deep empathy with the people who use them.”
Bill Buxton, Partner Researcher at Microsoft
Market share and pricing strategy
Due to NDA guidelines, I am unable to share the revenue models I worked on for Bloom publicly. I understood that market validation and revenue generation for effective database management is a crucial part of any product design. I had the opportunity to work closely with the marketing and VPs who helped me formulate a consequential business strategy for Bloom.
Business Models
Strategizing Business Models
Thoroughly tested on users
Retailer Model kickstarted by PhilaU canteens
Subscription Model pre-registered by 20+ students
Impact
Positive Outcomes
40%
Increase in daily sales of plant-based items at canteens due to better placement
35
Premium subscriptions and pre-registrations
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NCPTS
Redesign
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NGAP Website Redesign
Newly plant-based
Effective Validation from Users
For the duration of 14 days, we enacted Bloom with 5 targeted users to monitor their behavior change with their diet (positive reinforcement)
And to validate that the user is not triggered in a bad way while putting meal information, even if they are relapsing.
We started seeing increased regularity in their diet choices by the end of 2 weeks, they felt more self-aware and motivated. Overall improved mental well-being!
Positive changes and much more!
Insights were gathered from the data in Meal Wheels daily for 5 different users, color-coded for plant-based vs non-plant-based. Users were given the report (personal pie-charts) every day at night.
Pro-plant-based
Target users and their motivations
Personas
I designed characters to better understand the target users that we were designing for. Every person going plant-based had some previously set ideals which we used to empathize with them better.
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