HomeSheff (Now Plantarion) | iOS Mobile App

The mission for HomeSheff's new iOS app is to make it easy for anyone interested in exploring being plant-based to connect and work with plant-based service providers in their area, who will can them navigate this lifestyle transition.

The team was comprised of 1 Principal Product Manager (also CEO), 1 Marketing/Brand Lead + Illustrator, small team of developers, and eventually 2 designers (an Android lead and iOS lead).

I was the sole Principal Designer for about the first 4-5 months (before we brought on another designer to lead Android side of the project).

My responsibilities included (but are not limited to):

Spearheading our brand with logo and swatch options
Defining project scope with key stakeholders and helping set release milestones (product roadmap)
Leading all designs (and content) for our iOS app from the ground up, our responsive website, and administrative portal

The Problem

Plant based users and users who are interested in exploring a plant-based lifestyle but don’t necessarily know where to start need a platform where they can connect with plant-based service providers who have excellent experience with navigating a plant based life and who can help guide them along their journey.

Through allowing people to connect with plant-based service providers in their community, we can also raise more awareness of the benefits of embracing a plant-based lifestyle (even if it’s a couple meals a week).

Discovery

In order to learn more about the problem space &

Conducted competitive analysis of similar vendors in the market to find out what else was currently out there.

Gathering inspiration from other service based platforms such as babysitting apps, dog walking apps, and the ‘real’ Home Chef.

We discovered that part of what made these services and apps so compelling and successful at their services were (1) the element of trust and (2) convenience (proximity to users).

Define

Worked with our sole PM/CEO on scoping out the initial requirements and user stories to target for our initial v1 release as well as 1.5, and 2 and defined the different experiences we needed to tackle for “MVP” such as sign up, finding chefs and service providers, viewing a service provider’s details, contacting service providers, and user account management flows.

Solution

We started by creating rough wires for the initial v1 flows to focus strictly on the IA/navigation and layout before introducing the look & feel elements. Because this was a true start up we also had other simultaneously running projects such as preparing demo protos for marketing campaigns and videos, as well as launching the v1 for the main website for the brand.

We used the low-fidelity wires as our guide to gather early conceptual feedback from interested plant-based folks and to help scope the first release phase of work with PM and ENG.

Final Designs for v1

After we agreed on the MVP we transitioned these into high-fi mocks and stitched up into a v1 prototype.

Takeaways & For Future Growth

Research - way more research. Because this project was conceptualized and rolled out quicky with rapid turnarounds, we didn’t get to factor as much research during the initial stages of our process. It would have been much more beneficial to have vetted the initial wires with more end users.

Subsequently measuring the results post MVP launch would have also allowed us to gain some metrics and obtain insights as to how folks were using the platform, any pain points, and verifying whether we were actually designing for a market need.

Accessibility was also a big source of heartburn - as we didn’t quite start off with this in mind when identifying the core brand colors (green bg/body text color contrast ratios not up to par), which later caused us to rethink a different primary that we could leverage for our app to be more accessible/inclusive.