UI Design Project for Food Delivery App: Nielsen's Heuristics

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This project focuses on designing a user-friendly food application interface.

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Abstract
The objective of this assignment is to design an interface for a food application. For the purpose
of designing a creative application for food, we have followed and used the UI design principles
of Nielson’s Heuristics which allowed us to design an interactive, dynamic, creative and fully
functional application. We have followed a specific set of steps to design the food app. First, we
have designed a navigation map that depicts how the complete application works and how each
page or screen is linked to another. With the use of this navigation map we designed our food
app. After designing the interface for the app, most of the app worked as expected but some
issues evolved as a result of which improvements are required to be made like search icon on
“Dessert” screen is not linked to any other screen, alignment on “Main Course” screen is not
proper.
Introduction
To serve the purpose of this assignment, we have designed a creative user interface for a food
application. The application is designed keeping in mind and following the Nielson’s Heuristics
usability principles to make it highly interactive, creative, user friendly, consistent, flexible and
efficient. All the required features have been added to the application such as user registration
page, login page, home page, along with proper navigation. For designing a dynamic and
customized user interface for the food app, several usability principles have to be ensured. This
user interface designing focuses on the looks of the food app for the restaurant. All the screens
are linked and mapped to the perticular screen up next. The app also includes search bar for
every foods item screen. The separate screen is added to search for discounted items and offerrs.
One of the best features is the map based search for the delivery location included with the
support and integration of google maps. Although, there is still room for many improvements
like selecting some restaurants and favourites and accessing the favourite list, review and ratings
screen for the restaurants, food items and customer services, see the list of past orders, display
restaurant’s overall speciality or today’s special, etc.

Reflection of the Interface Designs
a. User interface design
The complete interface design for food app is designed keeping in mind the 10 Nielsen’s
Heuristics principles which provides user control, consistency, error prevention, flexibility to the
interface which makes this interface design a best solution for this particular problem. The
interface design completely adheres to the usability principles of Nielsen’s Heuristics. The
interface design has a screen showing the live status of the ordered food and following the first
principle of visibility of system status. The design uses commonly used user understandable
terms and phrases that matches the system with real world. The design includes alert prompts
and undo options that allows the user to cancel the selection if selected accidently and thus
follows the principle of user control and freedom. The alert boxes are also used to prevent any
unwanted errors in the application. The app provides help and details for the discounted items.
Every dialog and prompt displays only the necessary information and thus follow the principle of
aesthetic and minimalist design.
b. Users requirements and enhanced experience
Some of the must-have requirements are mentioned below:-
1. User registration and login screen with google or
Facebook,
2. Create a new user account,
3. Restaurant, dish or discounted item search feature,
4. Proper navigation,
5. User help and query features,
6. User location,
7. Features like place, modify, or cancel order.
The food app interface design has all the above mentioned must-have features and other
required features. The app allows user to either create a new account or directly login with
their google or Facebook account. The app has separate screen to search for offers. The app
allow user to search and enter the location for order delivery. App also provides the feature
of add a new order, update the current order, and cancel it as well. The live status of the order
make the application more feature rich. User can track its order with order number and

estimated time of order delivery and can cancel the order at any time. With the help of all
these features the app provides a user with an enhanced feature rich experience.

c. Factors influencing the design
The interface design of the food app is influenced by many factors such as user requirements,
Nielson’s Heuristics or design principles, competitor’s designs and features, and business
requirements. Any mobile app must have a login screen, a user registration screen, help and
query page and search screen, which all are added in the interface design of the food app. This
interface design fulfills all the requirements of users and system. The food app as a whole
follows all the 10 design principles mentioned by Jakob Nielsen. To gain the competitive edge
over the other food apps, we have added search for discounted items and offers on a separate
screen. It is a good practice to allow the users to track their orders so that they have full control
over their order and check the status at any point of time. So this feature is also added in the
application which displays the order status summary, estimated delivery time, and even allow the
user to cancel the order at any time before delivery. To improve the business of the company we
have included screen in the food app which describes about the company's background. This app
also includes help and query button. In addition to this the application allows user to enter the
delivery location using map based search. Mainly this app is influenced by the fact that people
are more driven to smartphones and smartphone applications which gave us the idea to design an
interface for a food application.
d. Similar interfaces
In this section we have provided a comparison of our interface with the interface of other
competitor’s sites or apps. While comparing our application with competitor’s food app
(UberEats) we found that most of the features similar but our application included features like
map based search. Our app was designed according to navigation map which helped design
navigation and task sequence. The graphics included in the app are of high quality. It is planned
an implementation bootstrapping will be used to provide a layout which fits on every type of
screen. The app include alert prompts which provide control to the user and prevents error. Like
The Other similar apps we also provide the user the ability to track the order status and check the
estimated time of delivery. Although there are some issues with the application like the main
course screen represent the content in improper manner. The basket of main course 2 screen is
not linked. At some places the reduced interface usability caused by failure of some components.

Proper alignments are to be made at the registration page. Also at some places the app fails to
follow the usability principles
Conclusion
To conclude this assignment I would say that my application has been designed using the
usability principles of Neilson’s Heuristics which provides 10 principles to make an application
more interactive, creative, user friendly, consistent, flexible and efficient. The application
follows all the user and system requirements. All the features have been used properly like
navigation and linking. Although, there are some improvements to be made to make my
application more dynamic and interactive. Several issues in the designed user interface of the
food app have been evolved and solutions to these issues along with proper navigation of each
screen are discussed. By focusing on the 10 heuristic principles and the way of using Balsamiq
app. These interfaces have been modified for in future implementation of this food app by the
restaurants.
References
Nielsen, J. (1995). 10 usability heuristics for user interface design. Nielsen Norman Group, 1(1).
9 Common Usability Mistakes In Web Design. (2019). Retrieved from
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/02/9-common-usability-blunders/
(2019). Retrieved from https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-must-have-feature-of-a-food-ordering-
app
FoodoTech. (2019). Retrieved from http://foodo.tech/food-delivery-system.html
How to Develop an Amazing Food Ordering App? (Complete Guide). (2019). Retrieved from
https://www.engineerbabu.com/blog/build-food-ordering-app/
(2019). Retrieved from http:// www.designprinciplesftw.com/collections/
shneidermanseightgoldenrulesofinterfacedesign

Tognazzini, B. (2019). First Principles of Interaction Design (Revised & Expanded). Retrieved
from https://asktog.com/atc/principles-of-interaction-design/
Ten Principles of Simplicity | Design Principles FTW. (2019). Retrieved from
https://www.designprinciplesftw.com/collections/ten-principles-of-simplicity