Project description:
The Dietary Restrictions for Google Maps were designed to:
(1) Reduce the time taken to find acceptable restaurants for users
(2) Reduce stress in the restaurant finding process for those with dietary restrictions
(3) Further personalize Google Maps for users
12 weeks
UX Designer and Researcher -
Group Project
Research and Design
Mobile Application
The Problem :
Dietary-restricted people deal with uncertain and time-consuming restaurant search processes.
People with allergies and dietary restrictions from celiac to kosher resort to the time-consuming process of combing through menus or going off of untrustworthy reviews to find restaurants that meet their needs. This process is especially stressful in group settings and causes many with severe restrictions to be unable/unwilling to eat a meal socially.
The Solution :
Dietary Restriction Filters and Icons for Google Maps
Research :
Users with dietary restrictions were severely limited in their ability to find restaurants.
Ethnographic Interviews
By interviewing users with dietary restrictions, my team and I discovered that users resorted to combing through menus to find restaurants that met their dietary needs. Additionally, users expressed that the restaurant search was most stressful when going out for a meal with others. Finally, all users interviewed did not know that Google Maps had dietary restriction filters.
Other Research
Based on our research on dietary restrictions, our group discovered the nine most common dietary restrictions. Additionally, we learned more about how Google Maps can filter restaurants using the data on their app. Finally, we looked at how apps like "Find Me Gluten Free" reliably sort restaurants with allergens in mind,.
Link to research and ideation documents
Ideation:
Filters, Badges, and Restaurant Boards
These wireframes of the filters and "badges" on the restaurant previews were designed to fit into the existing design language of google maps.
These mid-fidelity wireframes of the Dietary Restriction Boards were built to be sharable lists of restaurants that accommodate dietary restrictions.
Iteration and User Testing:
3 Main Changes
We discovered that the concept of the dietary restriction boards was confusing for users and decided to remove the feature.
To target doubt on the effectiveness of the filters we added a description of how they work and an option for users to learn more.
In the restaurant overview and filters tabs we included the ability to filter by reviews for dietary restrictions as well as images of what was reviewed as meeting dietary criteria.
Final Design:
Figma Prototype
Design System Preview
Reflection:
Main Challenges, Lessons Learned and Next Steps
Lessons Learned: My team and I worked on improving the dietary accessibility of dietary restriction features in Google Maps, which helped me learn how to design using existing components. Our group discovered that the simplest and most familiar designs were the designs that users could use best as opposed to the dietary restriction boards. I faced the challenge of designing a solution to dietary restriction problems while not over-cluttering the already cluttered Google Maps interface. I targeted this by utilizing the existing Google Maps design language.
Next Steps: An analysis of the legal liability of the filters as well as a viability analysis of these filters (ex. How accurate can they be with existing google maps data, and how many restaurants can be confirmed to have dietary restriction options). Additionally, the web experience should be considered perhaps with more information about the filters and more features for the restaurant information screen.
Check out more case studies below or reach out to me at willeingersoll@gmail.com. Thanks for reading :)
More of my work:
Pigee Application Portal
A portal built to help Pigee expand its sales force and streamline the application process.
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