The pandemic and subsequent shifts in lifestyle accelerated the need for hyperlocal delivery services. Our target audience which are students and remote workers often struggled with unreliable delivery services, poor user experiences, and inconsistent communication between vendors, riders, and customers. Expressbites was created to solve this.

I led the entire design process from start to finish. This included;

Defining the product direction

Conducting research and competitive analysis

Creating wireframes and prototypes

Designing the UI for all platforms

Overseeing the branding process

Liaising with stakeholders and developers

Ensuring development stayed aligned with design

While I did not create the brand identity myself, I worked closely with the branding team to ensure visual consistency across all platforms.

1. Stakeholder Interviews: I started by interviewing founders, potential users, and developers to understand the goals, pain points, and expectations. This helped align the team around a user-centric vision.

2. User Surveys & Personas: I created surveys targeted at students and remote workers to understand ordering habits, frustrations with current apps, and wishlist features. I didn’t just come about these Personas through surveys alone. I had virtual interviews with 5 participants, and their stories led to the development of two primary personas: Tobi the Remote Developer and Ada the University Student.

3. Competitive Analysis: I analyzed apps like Jumia Food, Glovo, and Chowdeck to identify UX gaps and differentiation opportunities. I carefully went through each app's reviews on the Google Playstore. The insights, together with the surveys and User Interviews, which led to the Personas, guided our feature prioritization.

Using Figma, I created low-fidelity wireframes for all five products. These were reviewed with the stakeholders and used to collect early feedback from target users.

I mapped out the entire ecosystem of interactions between customers, vendors, riders, and admins. I created flowcharts and task flows to ensure that each user journey was optimized for efficiency.

After validating the wireframes, I moved on to Brand Direction and High-fidelity UI design. While I didn’t work on the branding alone, I pretty much oversaw everything in order to make sure the brand’s identity is well represented. The visual identity of Expressbites was carefully crafted to feel vibrant, youthful, and trustworthy making it resonate with our core users: students and remote workers in fast-paced, high-demand environments.

Primary Colors: Light Orange (#FF6600) & Pakistan Green (#023E02)

These two contrasting yet complementary colors were selected to deliver both energy and trust:

Light Orange (#FF6600) evokes excitement, appetite, and friendliness. It aligns perfectly with the food delivery context — stimulating and energetic without being overwhelming. It acts as the attention-grabbing color for primary buttons, alerts, and promotions.

Pakistan Green (#023E02) adds depth, reliability, and freshness. As a grounding shade, it’s used to reinforce structure across layouts and create a sense of trust. Green also hints at our grocery angle which echoes freshness, sustainability, and organic association.

Together, this palette creates a high-contrast, accessible, and memorable identity that differentiates Expressbites from generic delivery apps. Why it works: Orange gets attention. Green builds trust. Together, they visually represent speed, quality, and care.

Typeface: Coolvetica We chose Coolvetica as the primary typeface because of its rounded, friendly curves and bold structure. It strikes a balance between retro charm and modern simplicity, which mirrors our goal of blending familiarity (street food culture) with a sleek, digital-first experience. The soft, geometric forms make the interface approachable and readable across devices, while the boldness gives it enough presence to stand out in CTA buttons, headers, and app icons. Why it works: It communicates speed and ease while remaining fun and informal which is perfect for a lifestyle-oriented service like Expressbites.

Designing Expressbites wasn’t just about building individual apps. It was about crafting a synchronized ecosystem where customers, vendors, riders, and admins operate seamlessly within a shared workflow.

Each platform was intentionally designed to serve a specific role in the ecosystem while remaining visually and functionally consistent. This ensured a unified user experience, real-time communication across roles, and fewer friction points during transactions. I designed the entire ecosystem in Figma:

Customer App: Simple, fast checkout, location-based vendor browsing, real-time order tracking.

Vendor App: Order management, live updates, inventory tools.

Rider App: Optimized delivery routing, task queue, and GPS tracking.

Admin Dashboard: User management, analytics, app content updates.

Website: Marketing site with vendor onboarding CTA.

Customer App The journey starts here. Users browse nearby vendors, add meals or groceries to their cart, and place orders. Once an order is confirmed:

Vendor App Vendors receive orders in real-time, manage their menu/inventory, and update order statuses (e.g., "preparing", "ready"). Key design decisions focused on speed and clarity:

Rider App Once a vendor marks an order as ready, it becomes visible in the assigned rider’s queue. The rider app:

Admin Dashboard The backbone of the operation, this tool allows admins to:

Real-time Status Sync: Every stage of the order (from placement to delivery) is reflected across all platforms. This ensures transparency and reduces confusion.

Notifications System: Time-sensitive alerts keep users informed (e.g., “Order confirmed”, “Rider nearby”, “Item unavailable”).

Data Flow: The admin dashboard collects real-time analytics from all apps, allowing business teams to make data-informed decisions on vendor performance, delivery times, and user engagement.

Designing this interconnected system allowed us to reduce delays, improve communication, and create a scalable architecture that mimics real-world food delivery logic. The design system used across all platforms ensured visual harmony, which helped users switch contexts (e.g., vendors doubling as customers) without a learning curve.

In short, each platform wasn't just designed—it was orchestrated to work in harmony with the others.

After completing high-fidelity designs for each platform, I built interactive prototypes in Figma to simulate end-to-end experiences. From placing an order as a customer to fulfilling it as a rider or vendor. The goal was to validate usability, identify friction points, and ensure clarity of interactions before handoff to developers.

I recruited 10 users who fit our primary personas (remote workers and students) and asked them to complete core tasks on the Customer, Vendor, and Rider prototypes. Each session was observed and recorded remotely using Zoom and Maze for behavioral heatmaps and click tracking.

For customers: Signing up, searching for a vendor, placing an order, and tracking delivery.

For vendors: Accepting an order, updating its status, and managing inventory.

For riders: Viewing assigned tasks, navigating routes, and marking deliveries as complete.

Customer Flow: Users loved the clean UI but struggled slightly with understanding delivery estimates. We added clearer time indicators during checkout and emphasized live tracking earlier in the flow.

Vendor Flow: Vendors wanted quicker access to frequent actions. We redesigned the home screen to surface pending orders and added bulk inventory editing.

Rider Flow: Riders appreciated the task queue system, but GPS routing wasn’t immediately intuitive in the prototype. We refined the routing experience with clearer visuals and simplified UI during transit.

Like most fast-moving product builds, Expressbites faced several real-world challenges, which are both strategic and executional during the design and handoff process.

Challenge: The development team faced delays due to the complexity of handling five interconnected platforms. Misalignments in handoff files and backlog prioritization slowed progress.

Solution: I initiated weekly sync meetings with both frontend and backend developers to walk through flows and component logic. I also created clickable prototypes and Loom walkthroughs for complex interactions, which drastically reduced back-and-forth and ambiguity. This alignment helped re-establish momentum.

Challenge: Midway through design, new ideas (e.g., vendor promo banners, wallet top-up features) were proposed. While valuable, they risked derailing the MVP timeline.

Solution: I introduced a feature prioritization matrix with the stakeholders to classify features as Must-Have, Nice-to-Have, and Future Scope. This gave everyone clarity and buy-in on what could realistically be launched first and what could wait.

Challenge: Designing five platforms with distinct use cases (e.g., mobile for riders vs desktop for admin) made it hard to maintain brand consistency.

Solution: I created a central design system with reusable components, typography styles, color tokens, and layout rules. This not only saved time but ensured visual harmony across platforms and reduced confusion for users who might use more than one role-based app.

All five products were designed and handed off within the one-month deadline. Development was able to commence swiftly with clean, component-based files and clear documentation. Early user feedback praised the visual simplicity and ease of use.

Multi-app ecosystems require a holistic view of user flows and dependencies.

AI can significantly streamline ideation and early structuring phases.

Communication is the designer’s secret weapon when timelines are tight.

Expressbites pushed me to design beyond screens, to architect an ecosystem where customers, vendors, riders, and admins all connect seamlessly. It was a test of systems thinking, communication, and adaptability. Leading this project not only sharpened my product thinking but also reaffirmed the impact of good design on everyday problems.

The experience showed me how thoughtful UX, strong collaboration, and iterative validation can turn complexity into clarity, and that’s a principle I carry into every new challenge.