The Culinary Atelier
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Nutriangle (Pune, India)
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Lead Visual Designer
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UX Research, UI Design, Branding, Prototyping
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Food & Beverages, Wellness
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April 2020 (Covid-19)
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Adobe InDesign, Figma, Basic HTML + CSS
An innovative digital solution for a food & wellness company during the Covid-19 lockdowns in India.
Background
Nutriangle caters to the relationship of food & wellness through its nutritious food products like energy bars and superfood bites. It was founded by my mother in 2019.
In July 2019, I established her startup by executing research, branding, packaging and regulatory from conception to completion.
Less than a year later, when the pandemic hit, this project came to life.
The Challenge
When the pandemic hit, India went under a strict lockdown for almost three months during which any kind of deliveries except medical were banned. How would the company's food delivery model survive in a time of lockdowns and contamination fear?
Nutriangle could no longer sell its products.
We needed to pivot the business model to make sure that we weren’t losing customers and working to support their needs in this time of disruption.
Market Positioning
*Before the pandemic (2019), our market positioning was as follows:
TAM (Total Available Market)
Global Health & Wellness Industry
$4.2 trillion*
SOM (Serviceable Obtainable Market)
Indian Health & Wellness Industry
Rs 1.5 trillion*
$16 billion (by 2023)
SAM (Segmented Available Market)
Pune, Maharashtra, India
vegetarians, vegans, fitness & nutrition enthusiasts
Competitor Analysis
I researched what our competitors were doing to support their customer bases and business models during the lockdowns.
Some common insights that I gathered were that:
Most companies were focusing on heavy social media campaigning,
There was no major online platform transition,
Their business was mostly stagnant during lockdowns and resumed after lockdowns were lifted
Yoga Bar's revenue in particular dropped 52% from 2019.
Research: Survey
I conducted a survey with 71 participants and the goal was to understand their health food habits and where they stemmed from.
91.5%
said that they follow traditionally passed on recipes without questioning their benefits or detrimental effects.
48%
said they watch recipe tutorials or read blogs online for healthier recipes.
91%
said that they would want to learn authentic nutritional cooking methods even if they were different from their existing beliefs and traditional recipes.
76%
said they felt overwhelmed & confused with number of trends and FADs being broadcasted during this health crisis.
User Persona
User Persona
Homemaker, 38
Pooja
Past Experiences
Suffered from a chronic illness in her childhood that was cured by fixing her diet.
Successes
She grows her own fresh herbs in her garden.
Frustrations
She wishes she had more friends who follow similar ‘health food’ lifestyles.
Goals
To learn more about health and food as medicine.
Opportunity
This data led me to discover and ideate upon the opportunity to pivot our delivery-based business model and digitize our services:
To create an online platform that gives users membership access to:
Original healthy recipe tutorials
Complimentary live webinars and culinary classes
A forum where users can communicate with each other, post discussions and form a community
Solution
This innovative design solution had the potential to retain customers, reach wider audiences (SOM), support and educate users during a sensitive time, and prove that our business model can not only survive but thrive and make an impact in a time of ambiguity by using human-centered design as our strongest tool.
Differentiating Factors
Online Platform
An online platform that goes beyond just e-commerce
Subscription Model
Users can become monthly or annual members for exclusive access
Live Webinars
Live webinars with our in-house expert and industry specialists in the realm of food and wellness
Recipe Tutorials
Thoughtfully-curated tutorials to educate users about ingredients, resources and health benefits
Forum
A forum for our users to form a community and find support during this health crisis
Community Welfare
A donation portal to guide our users to help support unheard communities
Information Architecture
User Journey
This user journey map depicts the benefits of using this platform. Pooja’s daughter is suffering from a relentless cold for 3 months and no medicine seems to be working.
Online Platform
Compiling everything, the online platform was ready in a 4-week turnaround. I named it the Culinary Atelier. I had to move quickly so I researched website building platforms that integrate subscription systems and chose Wix. I collaborated with an engineer to customize the HTML & CSS for the payment gateway, profile UI and a few other features. We also included an e-commerce selling channel for the products post lockdowns because we wanted a design solution that's built to last.
Community Welfare
A very important of this platform was the addition of a community welfare portal. I included unheard communities in my human-centered design process by creating a seamless digital entry point for donations and to raise awareness.
Every webinar had a dedicated charitable organization related to the topic of discussion. All proceeds that were collected from non-member attendees were donated to the organization.
For example, we had a class on the Ayurvedic Way of Living and the dedicated charitable organization was an Ayurvedic Research Center in South India. Our non-member attendee proceeds were about Rs 8000 which is $100 approx. and when we called the center to tell them about our mission, they were so pleased that the teared up.
Business Impact
In the first two months our new concept received a lot of love…
30+
Members
200+
Recipe Views
250+
150+
Mailing List Subscribers
Social Media Followers
User Feedback
“The platform is so unique.”
“Each recipe tutorial is shot and edited so beautifully.
Watching it is a pleasure.”
“The payment system glitches at times.”
“The subscription idea is cool but I don’t know how to join.”
Refining the System
Taking the feedback into consideration, I simplified the login flow and created tutorials to send to customers. Our engineer fixed the glitches in our payment gateway, and I instructed him to add a couple more modes of payment. We began working on an app solution too, to make the whole system more convenient and easier-to-use.
Takeaways
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Spearheading this project for Nutriangle during a time of disruption, made me realize that as a designer I’m comfortable with uncertainty and thrive in moments of autonomy and innovation.
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I enjoyed collaborating with an engineer to build this unique design solution that I had visualized.
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This project allowed me to experience human-centered design more closely as I dealt with customers on a more personal level.
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Although this platform proved to be very successful at the beginning, unfortunately we had to pause it because of the rapidly increasing demand and a very small team of just the founder, her assistant chefs and myself. The founder was not ready to hire further so she took the timely decision to pause it.
Next Steps
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Simplifying the membership model for the target audience which is mainly women and some men in their late 20s to early 50s. The second half of this age group is not as technologically savvy and requires more familiarity in newer systems.
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Hiring a larger team to delegate tasks – so that I can focus on the experience design aspects.
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Creating an app that provides further ease and familiarity.
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One of our customers expressed that she would like her cook to be able to learn from these recipes, but he doesn’t understand English. So, adding regional language options will make the platform more useable for diverse groups.
