The patent-pending technology and digital platform are built with an AI-based search and recommendation engine with fun voting and game-like actions that function within iOS and Android messaging applications.

The Rondavu mobile app and messaging plugin are designed to recommend the best options for people (more than two) to interact in a fun and engaging way, all within the user’s text messaging application.

This project is in the testing phase. If you would like to participate in usability testing to check it out and provide feedback, please let me know.

Sketching Board, Photoshop, Figma, FigJam

Market analysis has been crucial in understanding the food industry by revealing consumer preferences, emerging trends, and shifting dining habits. It helped to shape cultural influences, economic conditions, and regional tastes, guiding menu adjustments and service offerings, and insights into health-conscious choices. Ultimately, market analysis allowed us to cater to the ever-changing food culture and dining habits of consumers.

First step was to understand the premise of the product's vision. It started off by one of Rondavu's founders having a white boarding session when planning lunch with colleagues, and an idea was born. Our team got together to brainstorm the goals of the project and measures of success of the project.

Motivate people to keep track of their diet and healthy choices when going out to eat.

Test features that integrate health applications with Rondavu to help users track their diet progress and lifestyle when going out to eat.

Make decisions easier when going out to eat with a group of friends, colleagues, or family while tracking one's healthy habits when out. Providing search engines for groups with different preferences and lifestyles to provide the most compatible options.

Do groups feel like their decision-making has been made easier when going out to eat? Do they get the right recommendations based on what is up and coming and what fits their needs? Does each group member feel like they've been heard? Does each member feel like they are offered the best experience for their preferences, but also the preferences of the whole group? In order to measure this, we participated in a series of group outings and interviewed groups of people on how they manage decision-making when they go out to eat with friends, family, or colleagues.

I explored multiple user personas to understand how group dynamics impact decision-making when eating out. From the health-conscious friend to the budget-restricted diner to the indecisive planner, each persona brought unique challenges — especially when navigating diverse preferences, dietary needs, and time constraints. By mapping their pain points, I identified common friction zones and designed solutions that ease coordination and reduce the mental load of group dining.

Our team brainstormed some of the most common user stories to set a context for the Rondavu application and the pain points we wanted to address. Here are some user stories we brainstormed and solutions we came up with:

Sketching and ideation played a crucial role in visualizing the core features of the app early in the design process. These quick, low-fidelity sketches helped translate abstract ideas into tangible layouts, making it easier to identify key user interactions and refine the app's structure. By iterating on paper, I could explore design options that gave me confidence when traslating to hi-fi mockups. The bigest piece was the messaging application and how voting was constructed along with AI functionality to list the options, and information about each place in review. It is still being refined and I keep coming back to pencil and paper throughout the process.

After the user journey mapping, a messaging functionality and in-app experiences displayed in a user flow diagram was helpful in understanding the flow of the experience when users want to take actions. They start with the messaging app and talk about going out to eat. Rondavu icon in the tray menu can bring up AI search tool to suggest the best places to go to in accordance to everyone's preferences.They can view information, menu options, and discounts before ordering Uber to pick them up. They also get to vote on which option they prefer.

For branding guidelines we brainstormed and ideated on several options for logo, typography, aesthetic patterns, and brand story and language.

Rondavu's story is nested in gathering, health, and fun. Rondavu's mission is to provide an easy and interactive fun way of seeing loved ones while out to eat and taking their food and entertainment preferences into account as well as their health in a collaborative way while staying on top of new developments in the food industry that would be a good choice for the group.

Rondavu's two main functionalities are to be able to schedule outings that are compatible with individual needs, while still in a group setting, and to monitor healthy eating while going out to eat.

Brand colors have been picked to represent a connection to nature and health. Both salmon and more subtle hues of green are the choices to communicate this.

Type font's purpose was to represent playfulness, fun, and diversity. The eccentricity of the font choice represents those.

The logo stands for three key ideas - health, gathering, and location. Rondavu does just that. It develops a solution to make gathering in a group easily manageable with the individual needs of participants when it comes to their food choices and health and finding the right places to check out that would be a good choice for everyone. The shape of the logo originates from the location icon, with layers of colors to represent layers of choices and preferences for places to eat, with a figure being excited or in good spirits.

Images are to be of social gatherings and a good time, or groups of people on the phone. They are to always project diversity and inclusion.

Pattern is to be used across designs using the brand colors and complimenting image choices.

We presented our solutions while exploring eating-out habits to get an idea of the feedback on our solution. The test that was run was on two different experiences - the in-app experience of setting up preferences and in messaging experience with the voting functionality. We brainstormed questions to ask before, during, and after the testing to get insights on the experience and also other options for a tool.

Defined UX strategy and built a high-fidelity prototype that clarified the product’s value proposition, aligning stakeholders and guiding next development phases.

Received positive validation from potential users who described the interface as intuitive and visually engaging.

Facilitated design discussions that helped align product, branding, and tech strategy, leading to a clearer roadmap for future development.

People can be very picky when it comes to food, but avoid voicing it when out eating with a group.

Since COVID, people have become more mindful about where they go eat and how healthy their choices are, as well as whom they eat with.

Simplicity, personalization, and scheduling are important to people who are out to eat with a group.

Eating out assistants would help to keep track of user's diets and make the most of understanding their friend's eating preferences.