As the economy and population grows so do our choices leading to choice overload. Despite time being our most valuable resource, over 52% of the working population is working more than 40 hours a week. According to America Medical Decision, “the average person goes to bed, they’ve made over 35,000 decisions and all of those decisions take time and energy”. An average person has to deal with decisions that occur everyday such as what to eat. With an individual making so many decisions today leads to decision fatigue, which can be draining emotionally and mentally. When individuals are presented with too many options, they are more likely to experience decision fatigue and will stick to comfort food.

Confronted with an abundance of choice, individuals are prone to resorting to comfort food. Time constraints and stress of picking out the food leads to decision fatigue and waste of energy.

Research Insights

We took the task to survey 72 working professionals to gain insight on their dining out and delivery ordering habits. The main takeaway is that they took their time in choosing what to eat and when they could not make a decision on what to eat they decided that too much time and energy had been wasted and they defaulted to comfort food.

Feedback

Analyzing the user surveys reveal that people want a swift and efficient ordering system so that they can relax faster. Users express that they want a hassle free process that allows more time to relax instead of putting in energy for tedious tasks.

Solutions

The solution we landed on was a user-friendly application that assists you in making your food choice. We created a randomizer that helps facilitate your food order from a selection of preferred dishes from a list of your favorite restaurants and cuisine. For the more adventurous ones we have a comprehensive randomizer that will select dishes to accommodate your needs.

Lofis wireframe

Hifi wireframe

Learnings

Product Manager Learnings:

Danny Tran

Three main lessons while working on the team is that timing, prioritizing, and flexibility is key to success for the team. Without those three skills work becomes much harder. Timing is everything, making sure that everyone can meet the schedules especially when working with team members from other timezones. Prioritizing is key for experience. Knowing what to complete first leads to successful product Flexibility is a pillar that needs knowing when to pivot and bend to make sure deadlines are met.

Designer Learnings:

Baliee Davis

Delivered evidence-base perspectives to inform feature development. Developed interacted prototypes to facilitate effective communications with developers, enabling them to better understand design specifications. Implemented an iterative design process that incorporated feedback from developers and product managers resulting in more effective workflow.

Designer Learnings:

Jo Sturdivant

Adapting to an Established Team: Joining the team in week 6 of 8 was challenging, as I had to quickly adapt to existing workflows, dynamics, and goals. This mirrors real-world situations where you often integrate into teams mid-project, and flexibility is essential.
Work-Blocking for Efficiency: With only two weeks to complete the project, I learned the importance of a structured work-blocking system. This approach allowed me to manage my time effectively and meet deadlines under pressure.
Making Data-Driven Design Decisions: Unlike my past projects, I had to rely on research conducted by others. This was a valuable experience in using pre-existing data to guide design decisions, helping me focus on the core insights without starting from scratch.

Developer Learnings:

Idong WIlson

Cross-Functional Collaboration: I learned the value of cross-functional synergy when working with a diverse team. Each team member's unique is essential in shaping a product into a well-rounded and user-focused offering.

Effective Communication: The foundation of success is continuous, clear, and concise communication. Open communication, brainstorming sessions, and regular check-ins create a collaborative atmosphere where ideas flow naturally.

Agile Adaptability: To successfully navigate the ever-changing world of product development, one must adopt an agile mindset. Delivering a product that one would be proud of requires the ability to quickly change course in response to evolving requirements.

User-Centric Design: Through close collaboration with our designer, I discovered how critical it is to put the user experience first and to incorporate user feedback frequently for the product to develop in a way that truly meets the needs and wants of the target market.

Team Empowerment: A sense of accountability and ownership was developed by our shared dedication to leveraging each team member's abilities. Seeing everyone give it their all and knowing that our combined efforts were what made the product successful was motivating.

Developer Learnings:

Vanady Beard

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As the back-end developer, I learned how important it is to create efficient and reliable systems that support the entire application. This experience also taught me the importance of optimising the database and ensuring the backend is scalable and easy to maintain.

Developer Learnings:

Stephen Asiedu

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As a back-end developer, I've come to understand the importance of being familiar with various database systems and modules. This knowledge enables me to build diverse applications and maintain versatility in my work. I've also learned that the responsibility for making the right choices rests on my shoulders, guided by my best judgement.

Developer Learnings:

Simon Dutton

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Communication is not what you have said, but what the other person understands. Coming into this project, I had a lot of pride in my communication skills. I have led many diverse teams/groups before, and have learned lots about different communication styles & how to best manage information / check in to make sure everyone is on the same page. However, during my time at Co.Lab, I learned that even if I personally feel that I have communicated information thoroughly & properly, it does not matter if the other person doesn’t understand what I’ve communicated. I know now that I should directly check in and ask others to explain to me in their own words what they think I was communicating just to ensure that I was effective in a way that works for the person I’m communicating with. You can never just assume that you’ve communicated something properly, and always need to check in.

Another huge lesson that I learned through my time at Co.Lab was to double check the ability to get information before really starting. I had done a lot of research about the APIs for our project & what sort of information the GrubHub/any other food delivery ordering systems API would let us access. GrubHub ended up being the only delivery service that had API endpoints (albeit quite complicated, nested endpoints) which would let us access the information we wanted. I spent a long time familiarizing myself with the GrubHub API & really planning out how to get each bit of information from the API that we would need. Then when I went to get started on actually testing the endpoints, I realized that the GrubHub API required a key that you could only access by getting specific permission from them as a merchant who was selling items on GrubHub. I reached out to them and explained what we wanted a key for, and awaited a response. Eventually I received a “no,” as they strongly limit who has access to their API for traffic reasons. I had never used an API before that required a key that you could not just get by signing up for an account / paying a slight fee, so this was a new experience for me. I know now to always test out at least one API call before taking all the time to plan out API usage. We really had to pivot after this & although I was planning things in advance, I had missed this crucial step. I am glad I learned this lesson now!

There have been a lot of challenges throughout this project, and time seemed to be the biggest constraint for all of us. When coming up with ideas for the project, I could really see the big picture of all the features we could implement for our product & how to make it a fully fleshed out, marketable product. However, with such a time constraint and our team experiencing holidays, work, the end of the fiscal year, family emergencies, and general business/prior commitments, we realized just how little time we had, and how we only really had time to develop our MVP, and maybe not the giant product that we had hoped for

Developer Learnings:

Maurquise Williams

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Process of Creating an MVP: Developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) taught me how to focus on delivering core functionalities balancing between essential features and avoiding scope creep.
Collaboration in a Real-World Tech Setting: This experience taught me how to collaborate efficiently in a fast-paced tech environment, keeping the team aligned and productive, even while working remotely across time zones.
Sharpening Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving Skills: This experience honed my ability to think critically and solve problems efficiently. By tackling challenges and finding quick solutions, I sharpened my decision-making and troubleshooting skills in a dynamic, real-world setting.

Developer Learnings:

Jeremiah Williams

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All in all this experience was very awesome I learned that in coding with others being transparent is key

Developers Learnings:

Justin Farley

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I learned how important communication is when working with a team. Communication provides understanding, advice, ideas, and much more. While working with the product team, I’ve found that communication keeps everything flowing smoothly. Working with a team also showed me that every member brings something different to the table and we all have to work together in order to align and meet our end goal.

Full Team Learning

Our team learning is that collaboration, time, and commitment is important for all of us. Working within a team and understanding everyone's roles and responsibilities help us grow in the tech field.