SnackHound : A mobile app and website that locates local food trucks and allows the user to order and pay from the app before pick up!
* this is not a live application, but uses inspiration from real food trucks located here in Luxembourg. This is an evolution of a previous concept called Moien that can also be found in my Behance portfolio, however it is taken further and has become a fully developed application.
This project was completed by a team of 5 where I played, primarily, the role of designer while 2 others focused on the backend programming necessary and the final 2 helped me with the frontend. It was my idea to pursue this idea because I felt that an application like this could be useful.
Because of the nature of my role, I began the work before the others. This started, like always, with research. Much of the initial research data I was able to use from a previous incarnation of this concept, but it was necessary to create some user flows and user stories to ensure that the functionality was there.
* this is but one version of the user flows, based off of user stories, that I used in order to design the functionality of the app
* I used user stories to discover pain points and functionality that the user would want in such an app
After researching the project, I created a detailed prototype in Xd. Xd makes it easy to share the assets you created by providing the development team with a link to view the project. This was immensely helpful.
Because this app is meant to be used on mobile, it was necessary to design a version on mobile as well as desktop.
The landing page needed to catch the user's attention as well as make the process of signing up and getting started as flawless and as easy as possible. It was important that a user can use the app without having an account. Ordering and paying would be behind a log in, of course.
It was necessary that the user would be able to view details about their account, such as order history, payment settings, leave reviews as well as the usual account settings. For the functioning app, we only went so far as to build the order history.
What good would this app be if you weren't able to view each individual food trucks menu? Here, the dashboard for each food truck would show the name of the truck, contact info, website (if applicable), distance, any reviews and hours and location open. A photo of the truck would be nice for aesthetics as well as to give an idea of what the truck looks like for any customers navigating to it.
With SnackHound, the user will be able to order from the app and pay and simply just navigate to the foodtruck with the in-app navigation system.
* after checking out, an invoice would be electronically generated
What makes SnackHound special is that it is not just an app for people who are hungry, but also for people who own food trucks. Truck owners will be able to set their own menus, prices and hours, mark themselves as open or closed and log their location on the schedule. This took some time as it was necessary to create several databases to handle all of the data, such as : list of food trucks, each food trucks menu items, prices, reviews, hours, etc., etc.
Here, on the dashboard, the business could also view current orders accept them, leave messages, view past orders or decline orders as necessary.
Here, on the dashboard, the business could also view current orders accept them, leave messages, view past orders or decline orders as necessary.
We also identified that a super admin would be necessary to manage all of these accounts. An admin that could manage users, both customers and food trucks.
* just for fun
We built the app in PHP/Laravel, using mySQL for our database design. A live app is not currently available, but the source code can be found at : https://github.com/BbDgtl/Original-coder-project/tree/master/SnackHound
