Viva Tacos
Creating a seamless mobile experience for a food truck
Overview
Viva Tacos is a fictional taco truck business located in the suburbs of a metropolitan area. Their goal is to bring authentic Mexican flavors and foods with healthy alternatives to their community, targeting customers looking for quick, on-the-go meals.
The design challenge: How might we help Viva Tacos customers quickly customize and place orders in advance?
To explore this, I conducted simulated user research and iterated through multiple rounds of wireframing, prototyping, and usability testing. The result was a high-fidelity prototype and full design system designed to simplify ordering while supporting accessibility and healthy choices. This project was completed for the Google UX Certificate.
Timeline
Sept 2022 - Jan 2023
(4 months)
Role
UX Designer & Researcher
Team
Individual
01 RESEARCH
User insights
To understand who I was designing for, I ran simulated interviews using provided user bios to approximate real-world feedback. While I initially assumed most customers would be younger, the research revealed a primary group of busy working professionals who valued quick, healthy meals and wanted to spend their free time on personal interests.
Key pain points:
02 SYNTHESIZE
Creating personas
From my findings, I created two personas to guide design decisions:
Ishaan, a working professional who needs fast, healthy food options so he can focus his free time on hobbies.
Sofia, a recent graduate who needs an accessible ordering solution to overcome language barriers.
Ishaan’s story
Mapping Ishaan’s user journey revealed how helpful it would be for users to have access to a dedicated Viva Tacos app.
03 IDEATE
Sketching wireframes
Iterating on each screen of the app ensured that the elements that made it to the final version were best-suited to address user needs. For the item window, I chose to organize information to be easy to skim from the top down.
04 PROTOTYPE & TEST
Low-fidelity prototype
I connected the primary user flow of customizing and placing an order to test in usability studies. I added secondary flows of logging in and viewing settings to make the overall experience more seamless.
Usability study findings
I conducted two rounds of usability studies with 8 participants from my personal network, including both working adults and students. I used affinity mapping techniques to organize the data and identify problem areas.
Findings from the first study guided designs from wireframes to mockups. The second study used a high-fidelity prototype and revealed aspects of the mockup that needed refining.
Key design iterations
1. Removing Unnecessary Complexities
Initial designs had a horizontal navigation bar for menu categories, but I revised this because the feature was unnecessarily complex for the limited menu options.
Users also wanted quick access to popular items and the option to edit pickup and delivery before ordering.
2. Simplified Cart
Users wanted the ability to change item quantities on the cart page. I also restructured item cards so all cost amounts would be right-aligned for better readability.
Lastly, I simplified the content on this page to avoid overwhelming users. The promotion code and discount fields were integrated into the checkout flow to better match users’ mental models.
3. Improved Checkout Flow
The first usability study revealed confusion with navigating the checkout flow. To make the process more linear, I removed the top navigation bar and added a progress indicator. I also added more emphasis to the CTA button.
05 DELIVERABLES
The final design
The final prototype reduced friction in ordering by surfacing popular items upfront, simplifying the cart, and introducing a linear checkout flow with progress indicators.
Design system
Accessibility considerations
GROWTH & TAKEAWAYS
This was the first end-to-end UX project that I completed from conceptual designs to a high-fidelity prototype! I’m proud of the final product, but more importantly, am grateful to have gone through an entire UX process so I can see what it’s actually like. Some lessons that I learned from this project:
Considering accessibility every step
Although I didn’t directly interact with users who had accessibility needs, creating personas with challenges like visual impairments and language barriers pushed me to explore accessibility tools and design with inclusivity in mind. This experience highlighted how critical it is to integrate accessibility early in the process to improve usability and satisfaction for all users.
Balancing iteration with progress
There were several times during the project when I spent longer than intended refining visuals or research elements, only to make significant changes later. This taught me to embrace iterative design; generating ideas quickly, testing them, and iterating based on feedback led to more efficient and effective design outcomes. Moving forward, I plan to balance speed with depth by seeking feedback more actively from peers, mentors, and users to ensure progress without sacrificing quality.