Shitatuzumi redefines the catering experience by focusing on quality over quantity.
Unlike traditional catering, our app brings gourmet meals directly to the user by connecting them with chefs who personalize each dish to the diner's preferences.
LIke many countries, many Japanese turn to food delivery services to address meal preparation problems. We need to find a core user needs for catering that separates the ones in food delivery services and deliver the prototype within a short amount of time.
In a team of three, I led secondary research, prototyping, and usability testing while also managing project execution from Figma design to Flutterflow (non-coding development software).
This project idea came from my client who happened to be a chef in Japan. While spending most of his time cooking in a Chinese restaurant, he explored a potential career development in the culinary industry - a service that connects chefs and users. He began by attending non-coding app development bootcamp while searching for business partners and collaborators who can consult and develop the app from 0 to 1.
Our initial research shows the needs for catering business are increasing for the past 2 years. The use case are mostly for home parties or important events where a mass of meal preparation is required. The service users expect memorable experiences as well as the feeling of satisfaction for being a host for the events. Their main pain points are budgets and wishing for more homemade meals.
To differentiate our competitors, we initially targeted catering for 1 person while focusing on providing meal prep courses to have better price deals.
Persona 1
However, we soon realized the target group for this type of persona is extremely limited and so we also included the next catering service users: People who can’t cook due to injuries and disabilities.
Persona 1
From there, we used value proposition canvas to visualize what kind of services can fit to our persona’s needs.
Value Prposition Canvas
Since our goal is to create an MVP with 2 months, We narrowed our services to 2 features: searching and booking.
The app offers a streamlined search feature that enables users to quickly find their ideal meals. Based on usability testing, we refined this feature to focus on six key categories: cuisine type, guest count, location, date, time, and budget. This approach received positive feedback from beta users, who found it both intuitive and efficient.
Sitatuzumi offers a direct 1 on 1 booking experience with simple options to choose from. Our North Star Metric, the "number of meals booked," drives our focus on optimizing the booking flow. So applying a date picker calendar in the booking page has reduced the booking time by 30% during initial beta testing.
One of our major goals was to complete the first cycle of agile development within 2 months.
We have discussed whether or not we should make high fidelity prototype on Figma, and because
Flutterflow is not flexible in design editing, we decided it was still important to use Figma to test
the user flow.
Wireframe
We also faced design implementation priority issues. Flutterflow has its own built-in widgets such as calendars and input forms. For design convenience, it was preferable to use their provided components. However, Flutterflow’s base design language is Material Design 3, which gives limited customizations for designers. To tackle this issue, I implemented their built-in widgets into developing MVP, but planning to update with datepickers with better customizations that comes close to my original design.
As a project manager, I came up with a way to design on Figma while developing on Flutterflow. My way was focusing on creating one user flow at a time. With each flow, we ideate key features that we need in each page by also considering schema for data management. Pixel perfect was least important, but rather adding the right elements to the screen.
To agile devlop Shitatuzumi, I conducted usability testing early on Figama before implementing on Flutterflow, Since we are settled with our main userflow, I tested with 5 people and concluded with few insights:
Shitatuzumi Homepage Before (left) & After (right)
My previous experiences in development has definitely influenced my working style - with now focusing more on technicality and feasibility rather than just creativity in my design. Due to our time limitation in developing, there are lot of features being taken out of consideration. For example, I would love to add more service options for chefs, specifically meal prep (A service we came up during vale proposition research) because it plays an important role for user to save money.