The dining table has long served as a symbol of strength within the family unit. Those that share meals together on a regular basis are found to be in better health, particularly in terms of mental health. With mental health concerns on the rise, largely due to COVID-19, depression and loneliness has become overwhelming for many individuals. In order to combat this isolation, The Table was designed to facilitate meals with an individuals community to help share burdens, costs, and hardships, while simultaneously encouraging healthy conversation and better eating habits.
Throughout the discovery process, it became clear that the following problems were prevalent.
Families aren't gathering as often as they should be around a meal
Mental health is on the rise, in large part due to loneliness
With food costs skyrocketing, eating at home is becoming more necessary for families
Growing dependence on fast food has led to poor diets and an inability to cook
Meals are often neglected unless they are built into the schedule
Use case #1 -Jeff, a father, wants to spend more quality time with his family. With everyone's busy schedules, they've been indulging in more Taco Bell and Chick Fil A than they'd like, and are eager to sit down to a home cooked meal. To ensure everyone will be in attendance, Jeff downloads The Table and invites his family to join the app. He then blocks off the calendar every night at 7pm and shares the meal with his family so he can be sure who will be in attendance.
Use Case #2 - Leigh, a college student tired of the dining hall food, wants to organize a meal with her friends. Realizing the majority of their time is spent in the library studying, having a home cooked meal sounds like a great way to share the food everyone grew up eating. Using the app her dad encouraged her to download, she invites her friends to join and accept the meal invitation to make sure everyone can attend.
Focusing on usability, the MVP is supposed to be as simple as possible to determine efficacy of the application. In order to generate feedback from users, I opted to prioritize user testing and release updates as additional functionality was requested/suggested. With the main goal simply being to facilitate more shared meals, I wanted users to spend as little time in the app as possible. Once meals were planned and attendees invited, users would only need to access the app to double check date and time. The main advantage aside would be having all meal plans located in one place, with a simple to use interface providing relevant info at a quick glance.
Future elements to be added:
- recipe sharing/storage
- potluck request optionality
- birthday notifications
-and more
V2 coming soon...