MealMates
Cooking without conflict
Product Design, Product Innovation
Product Innovation, Product Design
Context
What is MealMates?
MealMates is an intuitive kitchen coordination platform that transforms the chaotic, often frustrating experience of shared cooking spaces into a seamless collaborative rhythm. Through synchronized schedules and real-time availability tracking, I reimagined kitchen conflicts as opportunities for connection, creating an interface where meal planning becomes effortless and communal.
Developed as a capstone project for a class of mine (Technology and Human Interaction) during winter quarter, MealMates represents our vision for technology that doesn't just solve logistical problems, but nurtures community through everyday interactions in shared living spaces. As the lead product designer in my team, I led the design strategy and product vision, designing the end-to-end experience of MealMates.
The Problem
Uncoordinated meal plans and cooking timing spark roommate tensions, stress, and food waste 🗑️
When college juniors transition off-campus, they face a perfect storm of new responsibilities: they must suddenly manage meal planning, grocery shopping, and cooking — all while navigating shared kitchen spaces with multiple roommates. Northwestern's mandatory two-year on-campus housing requirement creates a jarring shift from structured dining hall convenience to kitchen chaos and coordination challenges, adding significant stress to already demanding academic schedules. Through developing MealMates, we aimed to address this critical transition point where limited kitchen access meets newfound food independence.
Process
Following a mix of traditional design methodology with software development processes, we went through the following steps:
Research
To first understand the in-depth thought processes of students living off-campus, I conducted a contextual inquiry. 🔎
I spoke to a 21-year-old junior at Northwestern, living off-campus with three other students in his year. Together, they share responsibilities for chores, groceries, and household purchases, which they manage through a combination of informal agreements and group communication.
The participant’s primary goal is to ensure that tasks are fairly distributed and completed on time, while also maintaining clear communication with his roommates to avoid misunderstandings or conflicts. These activities occur weekly or as needed, depending on the task (e.g., groceries are typically purchased weekly, meals are planned and cooked collaboratively, while miscellaneous chores are assigned and tracked on a rotating basis).
Narrowing our Scope
From our contextual inquiry and subsequent guerrilla interviews about off-campus life, we uncovered the most salient pain point that provided us clear opportunity for a solution.
While our early-stage vision was to create an solution for all things off-campus living (chores, cost splitting, and groceries), conducting a contextual inquiry allowed us to uncover and define the most salient pain point in the participant's living arrangement, primarily relating to cooking and meal preparation.
Pain Point: Meal planning and grocery lists are managed informally, relying on memory and implicit signals rather than an explicit coordination made by the roommates. This leads to inefficiencies such as skipped recipe steps, unlisted ingredient substitutions, and a general lack of communication.
Opportunities: A shared grocery list and meal planning feature to streamline communication about meal preparation. The app could provide reminders for updating the list, notify roommates about planned meals and timing, track ingredient availability to reduce last-minute adjustments, and suggest similar recipes.
Design Philosophy
Through early phases and research, we established our design philosophy to center around three core themes: adulting, cooking, and shared living. 🏡
At the intersection of these three themes is where Northwestern upperclassmen feel the most pressure. Our user research revealed students struggling not with any single aspect, but with the combined weight of these new responsibilities.
Competitive Analysis
To get an understanding of where MealMates could fit in the market, we conducted research on similar applications like Sidechef, Mealime, or even sharing a Google Doc amongst roommates.
Yet, these existing apps don't account for shared living situations. Students have to juggle multiple apps, leading to disorganization and extra effort. We noted additional factors that were unaccounted for among these apps as well:
Kitchen usage conflicts in shared living
Accountability issues
Food waste and overspending
No roommate coordination
The Solution
Positioning MealMates with accounting these factors allowed us to find opportunity.
Empathizing with Users
We created a user persona to help us better understand the needs, goals, and pain points of our target users navigating shared kitchen spaces.
Design Process
With these core points in mind, we started to ideate.
We started with a “Crazy Eights” wireframing process where the four of us took a few minutes to sketch out and brainstorm eight different ideas for our application interface, whether a flow sequence or just potential ideas for the design. After comparing our different wireframe ideas, we narrowed down specific appearances for the prototype and began to transfer those looks into Figma. As lead product designer, I opted for a minimalist style for the app to focus on functionality when we turned to testing with users. I prototyped a short flow of logging a plate to focus on what users found intuitive and challenging.
We started with a “Crazy Eights” wireframing process where the four of us took a few minutes to sketch out and brainstorm eight different ideas for our application interface, whether a flow sequence or just potential ideas for the design. After comparing our different wireframe ideas, we narrowed down specific appearances for the prototype and began to transfer those looks into Figma.
As lead product designer, I opted for a minimalist style for the app to focus on functionality when we turned to testing with users. I prototyped a short flow of logging a plate to focus on what users found intuitive and challenging.
Yet, even this short flow prompted design changes as we drafted a plan for testing and tested with users, asking them to complete a short set of tasks. Amongst that plan were descriptions of the five individuals being tested, all with different living conditions, so that we could understand the efficiency and accessibility of our interface from different perspectives. We also drafted a list of questions we could ask them after interacting with the prototype. We also created a rubric to assess how well users performed on the app, allowing us to compare the results of each user-testing session equitably.
Testing and Iteration
Synthesizing our testing results, we began to iterate based on usability issues.
Our initial prototype included language that created unintended ambiguity. The meal logging screen’s prompt “What’s on your plate” with an accompanying plus icon, while thematically fitting, was identified by both users and instructors as unnecessarily ambiguous. Through collaborative design brainstorming sessions, we explored alternative approaches that maintained our conversational, approachable tone while improving clarity for users. This led to opting for a direct, action-oriented cue (“Log a Meal”), erasing hesitation and ambiguity during critical user journeys.
User testing also revealed two additional desired functionalities that we prioritized to implement. Participants expressed strong interest in grocery and ingredient coordination capabilities, leading us to develop a grocery sharing system. This feature allows users to flag upcoming ingredient needs for meals that are visible for the entire household. Housemates can resolve needs by indicating available items, directly addressing the pain points of duplicate purchases and food waste that our research identified as major frustrations for off-campus students.
Testing also revealed a strong interest in more social dimensions beyond mere coordination. Students expressed a desire for MealMates to facilitate shared cooking experiences, not just kitchen scheduling – directly referencing apps like Beli or Yelp. In response, we developed the “Collaborate” screen with dual functionality: a system for posting cooking invites alongside a social feed where users can showcase their completed meals. This added social layer allowed us to shape MealMates from a pure utility tool into a platform that further nurtures household communities through shared culinary experiences, addressing the isolation that students may feel when transitioning from communal dining halls to independent cooking.
Final Prototype
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Reflections
Application of HCI concepts from class
Throughout our design process for MealMates, we incorporated class concepts to ensure our interface was efficient, user-friendly, and accessible. A guiding framework was Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics, particularly:
Match between system and the real world
User control and freedom
Visibility of system status
Aesthetic and minimalist design
To align with real-world expectations, we used familiar language like "Got it" to advance steps and included a clear, underlined "Back" button to enhance navigation and give users an easy exit. We prioritized feedback; for example, sending a roommate invite triggers a confirmation pop-up, and kitchen bookings persist visibly in the interface to reassure users.
Given the app’s multiple components such as meal logging, grocery planning, scheduling, and coordination, we kept the interface clean with a limited color palette and streamlined interactions to reduce cognitive load.
Throughout our design process for MealMates, we incorporated class concepts to ensure our interface was efficient, user-friendly, and accessible. A guiding framework was Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics, particularly:
Match between system and the real world
User control and freedom
Visibility of system status
Aesthetic and minimalist design
To align with real-world expectations, we used familiar language like "Got it" to advance steps and included a clear, underlined "Back" button to enhance navigation and give users an easy exit. We prioritized feedback; for example, sending a roommate invite triggers a confirmation pop-up, and kitchen bookings persist visibly in the interface to reassure users.
Given the app’s multiple components such as meal logging, grocery planning, scheduling, and coordination, we kept the interface clean with a limited color palette and streamlined interactions to reduce cognitive load.
Challenges We Faced
Our biggest challenge was narrowing the scope of the project. Initially, we aimed to address multiple aspects of off-campus living, including finances and meal prep. Realizing this was too ambitious for a single quarter, we focused on one core issue: coordinating shared kitchen use.
We also struggled to land on the right layout and feature set. Should we use a calendar? A chore wheel? A multi-pane interface? To answer these questions, we ran several design sprints, rapidly prototyping different flows and testing them. This iterative process helped us refine our ideas and uncover features we hadn’t initially considered, leading to a more focused and effective final design.
Personal Lessons
As lead product designer, one of the most challenging and valuable lessons I personally learned was how to balance ambition with feasibility. I entered this project with a big vision: a single app that could tackle multiple aspects of off-campus living, from groceries to chores to shared finances. But as we moved through ideation, prototyping, and user feedback, it became clear that we needed to focus. Time constraints and the complexity of each individual feature forced me to make difficult decisions about what to prioritize.
At first, it was hard to let go of some ideas I was really excited about. But ultimately, narrowing our scope to kitchen coordination and meal planning allowed us to design with more intention and detail. Instead of building a wide-reaching but shallow tool, we created something focused, usable, and directly impactful.
I realized that good design isn’t about cramming in every feature, but rather about solving one problem really well. This experience has taught me the value of clarity, simplicity, and adaptability, and it’s a mindset I’ll carry with me into future projects!
Personal Lessons
As lead product designer, one of the most challenging and valuable lessons I personally learned was how to balance ambition with feasibility. I entered this project with a big vision: a single app that could tackle multiple aspects of off-campus living, from groceries to chores to shared finances. But as we moved through ideation, prototyping, and user feedback, it became clear that we needed to focus. Time constraints and the complexity of each individual feature forced me to make difficult decisions about what to prioritize.
At first, it was hard to let go of some ideas I was really excited about. But ultimately, narrowing our scope to kitchen coordination and meal planning allowed us to design with more intention and detail. Instead of building a wide-reaching but shallow tool, we created something focused, usable, and directly impactful.
I realized that good design isn’t about cramming in every feature, but rather about solving one problem really well. This experience has taught me the value of clarity, simplicity, and adaptability, and it’s a mindset I’ll carry with me into future projects!
