Zenblen Mobile App
Background
Zenblen is a smoothie vending machine startup that launched in 2020. Their plan was to start out placing the machines in gyms and other fitness-oriented settings.
Business Goals
Zenblen needed to establish itself as a high-tech and trustworthy brand in the health-conscious prepared food arena. Part of this would be figuring out how their mobile app fit into the ordering experience.
Pain Points
Ordering food on mobile apps comes with various problems. Food can be prepared too early, which results in it not being fresh when the customer picks it up. It can also be difficult for restaurants to organize the logistics of there being separate lines for people who have and have not pre-ordered.
Competitive Analysis
At the time of this project, there was only one vending machine that offered healthy meals and utilized a mobile app: Farmer's Fridge. Since their food is already made, pre-ordering didn't make sense for them. For this reason, the analysis had to focus on indirect competition.
Takeaways
The analysis suggested customers would expect rewards in the app as well as a pre-ordering option. It was also helpful in giving us a good average of the value companies were giving their customers back through their rewards programs (~9%).
User Interviews / Affinity Diagram
Zenblen identified their target audience as active professionals who goto a gym or fitness class. So for my user interviews, I sought people out who exercised in a structured setting at least once a week.
Takeaways
The three features that came up the most were: the app being fast and simple, the ability to look up the nutrition information, and rewards.
Initial Concept
Our first UI concept focused on rewards and pre-ordering. We opted to forgo a traditional Home section, thinking that would be most efficient.
Usability Testing Takeaways
Participants liked the feature of viewing Zenblen locations. So for the next iteration, we changed the Rewards section to a Home section that also featured Location information above the fold.
Refined Concept
Usability Testing Takeaways
Participants found the revised structure easier to navigate.
The path shown by the dashed red arrows was a checkout concept that required only three taps, but made it more difficult to order multiple unique smoothies. Most preferred the flexibility of the first path.
Lesson Learned
Only deviate from well-established industry standards when necessary.
Next Steps
Continue user research and usability testing for other settings like workplaces or airports.
