Track Restaurants
Designing zero to one products at Thrive, a social food discovery app
My Role
Senior product designer-
Strategy, User research, User Flows, Hi fidelity prototypes, Interactions, Testing, Copy writing
Team
2 PM’s, 1 Junior designer and 6+ engineering team
Duration
August 2024 - On going
Overview
The "Track Restaurant" feature on the Thrive app allows users to easily log and map the restaurants they've visited or want to explore, creating a visual culinary journey.
By adding a personalized map, interactive restaurant comparisons, and tailored recommendations, this feature enhances user engagement and helps foster a more social and community-driven food discovery experience. It transforms how users track their dining experiences, making it more fun, intuitive, and personal.
Project timeline
From Concept to Completion
A rough visual representation of the whole process from inception till measurement
About
Thrive connects over 14,000 restaurants with customers, offering more than just food delivery. As a social food discovery platform, it empowers users to ask for and share recommendations, share food experiences with a community of like-minded food lovers, making food discovery a community-driven experience.
Know our users
Challenges & goals
Looking at the Current Situation
Project goals
User Goals
Business Goals
research
In-depth conversations with users
We began with two hypothesis:
To test our hypothesis, we created low-fidelity prototypes and reviewed them with the internal team. Over 2 weeks of user interviews, we talked to 15-20 users as well in order to know which
of the ideas excite them. Additionally we had run polls in Slack channels. Some of the questions asked were:
How often do you go out to eat?
How do you discover new places to try next?
Do you go through the ratings and reviews of a restaurant before wishlisting it or trying it?
Have you found ratings available on different platforms reliable in the past?
Do you usually recommend new places that you’ve tried to your circle or is it the other way round?
Insights
What we learned
The explorer
Explores new restaurants, shares reviews, and engages with the community.
Goals:
Wants to discover hidden gems, connect with fellow foodies, and influence others' choices.
Frustrations:
Generic recommendations and difficulty tracking visited or planned places.
The list keeper
Curates organized lists of restaurants to try and follows trends,
Goals:
Organize saved restaurants and discover personalized suggestions easily.
Frustrations:
Lack of tools for efficient organization and overwhelming, irrelevant suggestions.
The occasional diner
Eats out occasionally, prefers simple recommendations, and trusts friend suggestions.
Goals:
Find reliable restaurant options quickly for special occasions.
Frustrations:
Unreliable recommendations and suggestions, difficulty finding personalized options for rare outings.
Ideation
Connecting the Dots
After gathering user feedback, analyzing insights, and creating user personas, the team utilized the Octalysis framework to strategically identify the best direction for our next steps and craft new user journeys based on the users 8 core drives.
Epic Meaning: Users contribute to a community-driven platform, helping others discover new dining experiences.
Accomplishment: Tracking restaurant visits and reviews gives users a sense of achievement.
Creativity & Feedback: Users can curate experiences, share insights, and create personalized lists.
Social Influence: Connect with friends and fellow food lovers through shared recommendations.
Scarcity: Urgency to try trending restaurants or limited-time offers.
Ownership: Users feel a sense of ownership over saved favorites.
Avoidance: Motivation to stay updated on new trends and popular dining spots.
Don’t know what the Octalysis Framework is?
It's a human-centered design model by Yu-kai Chou that breaks gamification into eight core motivational drives. It helps explain why users engage with products and how design can influence behavior.
Learn more about it here: https://yukaichou.com/
Strategy
Turning Insights into Action
Solutions
Track Your Faves
Easily organize and track the places you've visited and those you want to try, all in one map and list.
Instead of scattered notes or random social media saves, users can now organize their “Been to” and “Wishlisted” spots directly within the app, helping users curate their personal food journey while also enhancing discovery.
Social sharing
Users can share their tracked lists with friends or see places others have been to, driving a community-driven experience.
Match scores
By tracking restaurants, users enable the app to deliver more accurate and personalized recommendations, taking into account their recently rated spots, wishlisted places, and overall interaction history.
Personalised ratings and lists
The Track Restaurant feature creates personalized ratings based on users’ preferences, moving beyond generic one-size-fits-all reviews. With curated "Been To" and "Wishlist" lists and a personalized map, users can easily track the restaurants they have tried and want to try in future. This also makes sharing recommendations to friends easier making food exploration more seamless and tailored.
Impact
Here are some of the success metrics we track—can’t share the exact numbers for confidentiality reasons :).
Business Metrics
Activation rate
Total new users activated
User Engagement
Number of active users, time spent on the app, and frequency of interactions (e.g., tracking restaurants, writing reviews, creating lists).
Community growth
Number of users engaging in social features (e.g., following others, sharing lists, and comparing ratings).
Social sharing
Frequency with which users share recommendations, ratings, and lists with their network.
UX metrics
Task success rate
Percentage of users successfully completing tracking a restaurant.
Drop-off rates
Analysis of where users abandon the app or stop engaging in a particular journey, highlighting usability issues.
What’s next?
Scalability
This is an ongoing project and we’ll continue gathering feedback, refining user flows and journeys, and experimenting with the rating system, comparative ratings, user incentive modal, and gamification to scale and enhance “Track restaurants “.