Kulcha App
Snack, socialise and stop Googling:
A guide to effortless restaurant exploration
This work predates my current AI-augmented practice. It’s from 2023, pre-Claude era. I’ve kept the project here as a record of how I worked then.
Who’s the client?
Kulcha is a social networking app designed to help users find the best outing places, including restaurants, cafes, bars, hotels and activities worldwide.
The app allows users to follow others and build lists of recommendations that they can share with their followers.
Main Challenge
The initial challenge was finding trustworthy recommendations.
However in our discovery workshop with the client, we further broke it down to:
- Navigation issues
- Selling the social aspect of Kulcha
- Simplifying the onboarding and app’s ease of use
Research Goal
To understand peoples’ behaviours and motivations when searching for or recommending places to go/things to do.
Research
To achieve our goal, we dived into a 3-week intensive research sprint involving:
- Market Research
- Competitor Research
- 10 Existing User Interviews
- 50+ Behavioural Interviews
- 61 Survey Respondents
Market Research
With such an over-saturated market space, we first had to pinpoint exactly where Kulcha was sitting: at the intersection of travel/leisure apps and social media networking apps.
After some intensive research within those spaces, I found that the travel & leisure app market currently has 1.5 billion users worldwide with an expected growth of 10.6% from 2019 to 2026 & the social media app market has 4 billion users with an expected growth of 26.2% from 2023 to 2030.
These stats ultimately presented a great opportunity for Kulcha to step in.
Market Forecast:
10.6%
Travel & Leisure App Market
growth from 2019 to 2026.
26.2%
Social Networking App
growth from 2023 to 2030.
Competitor Analysis
From our competitor analysis, we found that some apps such as Out of Office & Tabelog used in Japan, are currently meeting all customer needs of uploading photos, adding friends, viewing details, adding recommendations & saving to your wishlist, with Kulcha currently only meeting 3 out of those 5 categories.
This provided some initial insight into the features that users require for social media & travel apps.
User Research
We then dived into user interviews, starting with 10 existing Kulcha users.
We found that most people were currently:
- Looking for places to eat above anything else
- Using Kulcha purely for recommending places they’ve been
- Relying on word of mouth and Google searches to discover new places
- Keeping track of recommendations using the Notes or Maps app on their phones
- Researching using other platforms before deciding which place to visit
Kulcha’s Existing Users
What they’re doing
- Only using Kulcha for recommending
- Relying on word of mouth and Google searches to discover new places
- Keeping track of recommendations using Notes or Maps app on their phones
- When searching for places to go, searches on other platforms before deciding.
- Usually looking for places to eat above anything else
What they’re saying
- “New users wouldn’t find value in a recommendations app on a page with no recommendations”
- “Kulcha funnels you to do certain things, but it takes too long to get you there”
- “Too many buttons to push”
- “I love Kulcha, but I don’t use it that frequently, I only add data after visiting a place”
- “Multiple buttons to do the same thing”
Behavioural Interviews
We then interviewed 50+ people from various countries and backgrounds, aged 16 to 45, who had never used Kulcha before.
This was important to understand and gather user feedback, without the initial bias or use of the app.
Key Insights:
Survey Data
We also conducted a general survey to further validate and gather quantitative data.
The following results are based on 61 respondents:
Key Insights:
35% of people save recommendations in a social media app or messages
87.5% of people look at photos when choosing a local restaurant/cafe
Food for thought: Audit of Kulcha’s current state
We decided it was essential to conduct contextual inquiry and watch users navigate the current state of Kulcha, prior to working on the solution.
Through this testing, we found that:
- It took some users 10 minutes to find recommendations
- 4/5 users experienced icon confusion: people were confused by what was ‘save’ and what was ‘sharing recommendations’
- 3/5 users experienced confusion on how to search
- Users felt that The Restaurant Overview screen was incomplete and they wanted to see more information
From all of this user research, the key insight from user interviews (that was similar across all testing results) was that users were looking for places to eat above anything else.
Key Insights:
Overwhelmed with all the insights…
After all of that user research and testing, we then needed to make sense of our notes and began grouping them into categories to understand the key insights and priorities.
The key insights then led us to create…
In an effort to truly understand the user’s perspective, we created ‘Nina’ as the key user of Kulcha.
Encompassing all of the qualities of the main users we had encountered during research, this persona allowed us to empathise with the users of Kulcha and finally target the problems they’re facing with the app.
Understanding Nina
We then began to analyse her actions and emotions, to assess how they could be met through the app.
This exercise allowed us to empathise with the user on a deeper level, enhancing our understanding of Nina’s needs and wants.
We then concluded…
The Delicious Truth: AKA The Problem Statement
Nina needs to consolidate her restaurant research so that she can make an informed decision about which restaurant to visit.
The User Journey
We found that this is current path that Nina takes when searching for a restaurant to visit:
Asking friends for recommendations
Asks friends for recommendations through word of mouth, messages or chat.
Takes notes or copies data from chats and social media replies to save it.
Feeling: Excited
Searching for restaurants
Searches name of place and address to find websites/or articles.
Checks google maps to see distance and reads reviews, but not entirely sure she can trust them.
Feeling: Overwhelmed & Unsure
Cross-checking sources
Looks at social media accounts or hashtags of the venue to look at images of food and interior.
Reads in-depth listicles/blogs.
Feeling: Doubtful & Apprehensive
Deciding & saving restaurant
Discards any options that don’t meet her expectations or look low quality.
Saves/pins the good venues and data to a list.
Takes screenshots of the place.
Feeling: Relieved & Excited
Visiting the restaurant
Refers back to notes to access map info.
Uses map directions to get there.
Goes to venue and has a meal.
Takes photos and shares.
Feeling: Apprehensive, Relieved & Content
The pain point of this current journey is that Nina currently goes to multiple sources to find information and verify that the restaurant meets her expectations.
This is where we saw an opportunity.
Idea Generation
We then began to brainstorm and generate concepts based on the following prompts:
How might we….
- Provide relevant information about the restaurant?
- Consolidate restaurant data?
- Help Nina form accurate expectations of restaurants?
- Make it fun to organise restaurant information?
The Winning Dish: Key Areas We Chose to Solve
Based on our Feature Prioritisation Map, these were the main contenders:
- Simplification of search screen with updated UX writing & prompts
- Updating the displayed information in the restaurant list
- Updated usage of icons for buttons and interactions
- But most importantly: A new expanded restaurant overview screen
Prototypes, Usability Testing & User Feedback
Before testing users, we mocked up our paper prototype and task flow based on the concept of a collated Restaurant Overview screen.
The design considers all aspects of what our users felt was most important when searching for restaurants, organised in hierarchy from most important information to least important as you scroll further down.
Usability Testing Results: First Paper Prototype
Based on the User Testing Results, the following flaws were identified.
Usability Testing Results: Mid-fidelity Prototype
After making some modifications based on user feedback, we conducted another round of usability testing for our Mid-fidelity prototype and the following flaws were identified.
Updating Buttons/Icons
After making various changes to improve the App’s ease of use, it was time to finally update the buttons that were confusing most users.
I conducted another short survey based entirely on the riddle of the icons to understand what users thought the different buttons meant.
Although I had looked at industry standards and best practice around information architecture, I felt that it was important to validate our findings and avoid further complications around what icon to use for the ‘recommend’ button.
Existing:
New button/icon language:
Creating Micro Interactions
In addition to updating buttons/icons, our usability testing results showed that 3/5 users didn’t feel like they completed the task and felt unsure.
To remove this uncertainty, we included micro interactions to highlight immediate feedback to the user based on actions they’ve taken.
The result guides the user through Kulcha in a more fluid, intuitive way.
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How to Order: Hierarchy of Content
The final Restaurant Overview screen is summarised into 4 key features that we focused on and found were most relevant to users like Nina.
From Hungry to Happy: The Final Solution
Prototype Walkthrough
Watch the final prototype in action:
Outcome
- 100% of users completed the tasks of searching for a restaurant
- Users felt confident and comfortable to potentially visit the restaurant based on the Restaurant Overview screen
- Users easily and clearly completed the recommendation task without confusion
- Users successfully saved a restaurant to their list, with the micro-interaction feedback buttons reassuring them that it had been saved
Measuring Success
Our MVP is the consolidated information provided on the Restaurant Overview screen.
By consolidating the most relevant details based on our research, the Restaurant Overview screen now provides a comprehensive & consolidated view of the key details required by users - in a single screen, enabling users to make informed decisions about their preferred dining destination in a quick & easy way.
The key metrics to measure this would be:
- User attrition
- Number of recommendations
- Number of ‘saves’ to list
Value for Kulcha
- An all in one solution where people don’t have to rely on various other apps for information which will give them a reason to migrate straight to Kulcha
- It will capture users organically through word of mouth from other users
- It will provide content that users want to see and share
- It increases user engagement by recommending restaurants in an easy and quick way to generate user content for Kulcha
Next steps
- Review the Activity Feed/Home page and implement the icon changes
- Add a user content upload feature for photos & reviews in the recommendation flow
- Include third party integrations for reserving a table such as The Fork & Open Table
- Simplify the “Explore” screen or integrate it as filtering on the regular “Search” screen
- Update the “List” screen
Key Learning
As the UX project lead, it’s important to have faith in the process and make decisions even when experiencing self-doubt. While certain stages like Research and Ideation can be revisited, it’s crucial to maintain a holistic perspective and consider the project timeline rather than solely focusing on individual parts of the process.
The end-to-end design process does not necessarily need to follow a strict A to Z format, as the key lies in bringing all elements together cohesively.