HEALTHY MENU
Taking the guesswork out of meal planning for a healthier lifestyle
Have you ever been in a situation where you made a resolution to make your diet more balanced and healthy, but struggled to stick to it long-term for some reason?
We’ve all been there. As we looked into the challenges people face, we found that for the majority, the real struggle is the overwhelming guesswork involved in planning their meals.
And so, the idea for Healthy Menu was born—a solution that takes the guesswork out of healthy eating, adapts to personal tastes and requires minimal effort from the user.
PROBLEM
What is stopping people from maintaining a healthy diet?
A lack of time? Motivation? I led user interviews to find out.
We reached out to people who wanted to follow a healthy, balanced diet and either maintain or lose weigth, or build muscle. Our research uncovered four major pain points:
decision fatigue from recipe selection,
uncertainty about proper nutrition,
time/effort barrier,
discouragement from repetitive, uninspiring meal plans that don’t match their personal taste.
Between juggling work, workouts, and a social life, spending hours searching for recipes that suit personal taste, planning meals, and organizing shopping lists feels downright impossible.
MY RESPONSIBILITIES
Discovery phase
Wireframing
Hi-fi design
Branding
TEAM
1 Product Designer (me)
3 Full-stack Devs
MARKET RESEARCH
What solutions are currently available and where do they fall short?
We explored alternatives to our concept to see what they were missing and where we could step in.
Nutrition apps ( e.g. Fitatu, Fitia, Lifesum)
These apps focus primarily on calorie tracking and macronutrient breakdowns. They often require manual effort from users to log each meal. Also, they have limited diet personalization options.
Nutrition counseling
While we don’t want to compete with nutritionists, some people may find our app a convenient and cost-effective alternative to dietitian services.
Healthy meal subscription services
These services save time by eliminating the need for grocery shopping and meal planning, but they lack personalization to individual tastes and dietary needs. Additionally, they are an expensive option long term, compared to other solutions.
SOLUTION
AI-powered app for personalized meal planning & nutrition tracking
Healthy menu creates personalized meal plans, tailored to users' dietary needs and preferences, without requiring them to manually log meals or sift through endless recipes. A meal plan is adjusted to a person’s goal, dietary restrictions, dislikes, schedule, and even favorite cuisine.
Don’t feel like having quinoa? No problem—Healthy menu suggests easy swaps for both recipes and ingredients. The app also automatically turns the week’s meals into a smart shopping list, cutting down on food waste by prioritizing seasonal ingredients and making sure everything gets used efficiently.
Users can easily track whether their diet is balanced, with a nutritional counter that shows how well they’re meeting their daily nutrient goals—no calculations required.
The goal of Healthy menu is to make healthy eating simple, flexible, and stress-free—no guesswork required.
MY ROLE
0-1 design: from concept to MVP
As the sole designer on the team, I led the entire design process end-to-end:
Discovery phase
I synthesized all the insights gathered from user and market research and identified personalization, flexibility, and eliminating guesswork in maintaining a healthy diet as the foundation of our product direction.
Product strategy
For the MVP, we needed to focus on the most impactful features. Cooperating with developers, I organized our ideas into a feature matrix, balancing user value with development feasibility. Some ideas, though great, had to be moved to a later stage in the product roadmap.
App design and branding
I wanted to reinforce the feeling of personalization through an organic aesthetic and human touch. The combination of modern minimalism with hand-drawn illustrations positions the app as approachable and trustworthy, setting it apart from competitors.
User testing
Throughout the whole design process, I kept close to the users. Feedback from real users helped me fine-tune the design, balancing functionality with clean UI.
NEXT STEPS
How is the project progressing?
Once the MVP is functional, we will work with a dietitian to ensure the AI-powered meal plans and nutritional recommendations are accurate and follow best practices. This will allow us to make any necessary adjustments before the final release.
We plan to launch the MVP in the third quarter of 2025.
SUCCESS METRICS
How will we measure if the app is meeting user expectations?
To measure the success of our MVP, I’ll track KPIs that reflect user engagement, retention, and overall product-market fit:
User engagement
To strike a balance between user engagement and cost-effectiveness, I want to start with 10–20 DAU as a benchmark.
An active user could be someone who:
Logs in meals and interacts with the app, e.g. swaps meals, logs in trainings, checks their progress
Saves recipes or checks off ingredients from a grocery list
Engages with notifications or recommendations
Retention rate
I aim for a Day 1 retention rate of 50%, Day 7 retention rate of 25%–35% and Day 30 retention rate of 15%–25%.
Churn rate
<40%
User feedback
I will conduct in-app surveys and collect qualitative insights from user interviews.
The MVP will be free for users until we validate our idea and refine the product based on real user data. We want to ensure that we build a solution that resonates with our target audience before considering monetization.
