Eko Jeun Mobile App

Recognizing the challenges faced by Lagos’ working professionals in restaurant payment processes, I designed Eko Jeun, a food ordering app with an integrated wallet system. This solution enables users to pre-book and pay for dine-ins and take-outs, eliminating time wasted on placing orders and making payments.

Duration
4 months

My Role
UX and Brand Designer

Skills
User Research, UX Writing, Branding, Wireframing, Prototyping, Testing

Background

Many working-class people in the city of Lagos spend at least a day a week at their favourite restaurant. This activity is sometimes spoiled by delays or embarrassment associated with card transaction errors. Therefore, I wanted to design a solution that will tackle this problem. I carried out interviews to understand the users’ pain points better and define our main target users and features.

Group of friends enjoying a toast at a restaurant, seated at a long table with food and drinks, with a modern, well-lit interior and large windows in the background.

My understanding of the problem

I started my research by conducting interviews with young, tech-savvy, working-class individuals who visited restaurants at least once a week. Before conducting the research, I had the assumption that people were having challenges with making payments at restaurants. It was a relatable problem. The goal of my interview was to identify pain points that users experience when making payments at restaurants.

A presentation slide with statistics and quotes about challenges with restaurant payments and customer experiences, featuring red icons for clock, utensils, people, and light bulb.

“As a busy professional, I want to avoid delays at restaurants so I can maximize my time”

Profile of Femi, a 30-year-old male dentist with a picture showing him smiling with short dark hair, a beard, and wearing a white shirt. The profile includes sections about his background, goals, frustrations, and personal details, all on a light pink background.

Competitive analysis

In order to build a foundation for Eko Jeun, I had to study what other major competitors were already doing and what user goals they were not reaching. I found that none of the apps had a Dine-in option or Wallet feature.

Comparison chart of features offered by Jumia Food, Glovo, and Domino's, including onboarding, UI, user profiles, order history, wallet, dine-in, and accessibility.

Conceptualizing the solution

Hand-drawn comic strip illustrating a restaurant booking app. The first panel shows two friends, Femi and his girlfriend, planning a date. The second panel depicts a man thinking about his appointment. The third panel shows the man remembering he can use the app to book and pay for his meal in advance. The fourth panel illustrates the app interface with a checkmark, confirming the booking. The fifth panel depicts the man on his date with his girlfriend at the restaurant. The sixth panel shows two people enjoying their meal together without delays or embarrassment.

Storyboards

Six hand-drawn sketches of a mobile app workflow for restaurant reservations. The process includes opening the app, logging in, selecting dine-in options, choosing dates and times, selecting meals from a menu, and completing payment with an order confirmation.
Design sketches of a mobile app layout on various sheets of paper, with handwritten notes and labels. A black pen rests on one of the sheets.

Two main features

Wallet feature:

The user will be able to credit his wallet in-app using a debit card at any time and make payments for his meals whether at the restaurant or before his visit. This helps to eliminate embarrassment and time wasted making payments at restaurants.

Dine-in booking feature:

Users will be able to make dine-in reservations—a feature that is useful for restaurants that are regularly packed out.

Usability testing

I conducted a moderated usability study to evaluate the ease of use of the low-fidelity prototype and identify areas for improvement. Using an affinity map, I was able to group the feedback and see areas in the design that needed to be reviewed.

Firstly, the homepage was simplified to show the user a Categories section, Top recommendations and Recent visits. The option of Dine-in, Takeout and Delivery were moved to later in the flow. Favourites was added to the bottom navigation bar and the option to save debit card was introduced.

Wireframe mockup of a mobile app interface for a restaurant ordering system, including login, home, restaurant selection, calendar, dine-in, current order, profile, checkout, confirmation screens, and navigation bar.
A diagram with four columns of colorful sticky notes, labeled from left to right as: 1) "Place Your Order button," 2) "Other Homepage adjustments," 3) "Checkout page," and 4) "Others." Each column contains notes with feedback and suggestions about website design and functionality, written in different colors such as pink, blue, green, and purple.

Branding & style guide

Design sketch of a pot cover named EkoJeun with stylized black ellipses and circles, and a small image of the real pot cover on the bottom right.
A Four-section graphic featuring the Eko Jeun logo, the slogan 'Eat together, Stay together,' and the logo again in two different color schemes with red, yellow, white, and black colors.
Design guideline chart including logo, typography, color palette, iconography, buttons, forms, tabs, alerts, radio options, navigation bar, search bar, and avatar icons.

High-fidelity prototype

I came up with a user flow diagram to have a bird’s eye view of the design. It highlights the key features of the app and the flow from start to order completion.

Flowchart showing online restaurant ordering process from start to successful payment, including steps like signing in, choosing a restaurant, selecting menu items, scheduling delivery or pickup, and paying.
A person holding a smartphone displaying a food delivery app, with categories for food, drinks, pizza, and chicken, and featured restaurants on the screen.
Mobile phone screen displaying the menu of Yellow Chilli Restaurant with a restaurant interior in the background, featuring yellow seating and decorative lighting.
Mobile food delivery app interface displaying categories for food, drinks, pizza, and chicken, with featured restaurants and recent orders visible.

Dark mode exploration

I also set out to explore a dark UI mode for the app due to its aesthetics and accessibility advantages.

Learning points

Through direct interviews with the target audience, I identified specific pain points in restaurant payment processes. This insight led to the design of an integrated wallet system, underscoring the importance of grounding design solutions in actual user needs.

Applying a structured design thinking approach facilitated a comprehensive understanding of the problem space, leading to effective ideation and prototyping phases.

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