01 The Problem

Meal delivery services like HelloFresh, Uber Eats, and Instacart have reshaped how we access food, offering speed, variety, and the promise of healthier eating.

But a 2022 CBC investigation revealed hidden markups, questionable sustainability claims, and a lack of transparency. These platforms often prioritize convenience and profit over ethics and the environment.

02 The Opportunity

As concerns grow around mainstream delivery services, consumers are turning to local-first alternatives like Fresh City Farms, Mama Earth, Mabel's, and The Healthy Butcher. These businesses partner with local farms to bring fresh, ethical food to more conscious customers.

But underline there's a gap: most lack an intuitive, app-based experience that matches the convenience of larger platforms.

Gaia's Garden

Gaia's Garden is a native mobile app that makes it fast, transparent, and easy to order organic produce and meal kits - sourced directly from local farmers. It bridges the gap between ethical food and modern convenience.

03 The User

Figure 1 : Target Audience

We developed two distinct user personas to represent the primary users of the platform: working parents (figure 2), and stay-at-home parents (figure 3), to better understand their unique needs and preferences.

Figure 2 : User Persona #1

Figure 3 : User Persona #2

The Why, How and When

To create a seamless, intuitive experience, we developed user journey maps based on Gaia's Garden's primary personas. These maps visualize each step - from discovering the app and researching options to placing an order and receiving a delivery (figure 4: meal boxes, figure 5: organic produce).

This process helped us uncover key touch points, highlight pain points, and spot opportunities to improve the user experience, ensuring every step feels tailored, efficient, and satisfying.

Figure 4 : Journey Map #1

Figure 5 : Journey Map #2

04 Research

SWOT Analysis

To position Gaia's Garden effectively, we conducted a SWOT analysis of key competitors in the organic produce and meal delivery space (figure 6). This revealed not only their strengths and weaknesses, but also gaps and unmet needs Gaia's Garden can address.

Understanding the competitive landscape allowed us to sharpen our value proposition and identify opportunities to deliver a more compelling, user-focused experience.

Figure 6 : SWOT Analysis

UI/UX Pattern Analysis

We examined the design patterns of competitor platforms - focusing on key features, navigation flows, and overall usability (figure 7). This analysis provided valuable insights to inform the design of Gaia's Garden and create a smooth, intuitive experience for our users.

Figure 7 : Design Pattern Analysis

05 Brand Spirit

Gaia - The Personification of Earth

We set out to create a digital garden where Canadians feel proud and connected - connected to their food, their farmers, and their communities.
How? underline A mobile app that's simple, engaging, and built around local values.

With Gaia's Garden, users can browse and choose local ingredients, curated meal kits, and seasonal packs, while also sharing their own recipes and discoveries. Every interaction adds value to their lives and meaningful support to the farmers who grow their food. users.

Design System

Gaia's Garden is grounded in four core values: sustainability, transparency, friendliness, and warmth.

To bring these to life, we developed a style tile that defines our colour palette, typography, and iconography (figure 8). This cohesive visual language ensures a consistent, inviting experience that reflects our mission whilst fostering a sense of trust, care, and community.

Figure 8 : Style Exploration

Logo Animation

To infuse Gaia's Garden with more personality, we created a playful logo animation featuring Gaia giving a cheeky wink.

This moment adds a touch of sass and reinforces the brand's friendly, down-to-earth tone. The wink acts as Gaia's stamp of approval - a fun, reassuring cue that users are making choices that support their health, the environment, and their local community.

It's a small detail that builds a stronger emotional connection while reinforcing the brand's values.

06 Design Process

Defining the User Flow

To ensure a seamless experience, we designed two user flows based on Gaia's Garden's primary personas.

Each flow outlines the key steps - from launching the app to completing an order - highlighting how different users navigate the platform to meet their needs efficiently.

1. Subscribing to a meal kit (figure 9): This flow focuses on users subscribing to a weekly meal kit.
2. Subscribing to a produce box (figure 10): This flow focuses users subscribing to a produce box.

Figure 9 : User Flow #1 - Subscribing to a meal kit

Figure 10 : User Flow #2 - Subscribing to a produce box

Collaboration Process

Rather than splitting tasks, our team of three chose to collaborate closely throughout the design process. Each of us created a low-fidelity homepage wireframe, which we then reviewed together (figure 11).

By analyzing and combining the strongest elements from each version, we crafted a cohesive homepage that aligned with Gaia's Garden's goals, brand vision, and core values, reflecting the strengths and perspectives of the whole team.

First set of iterations for Gaia's Garden's homepage low-fidelity wireframe

Figure 11 : First iterations of the homepage

Low-Fidelity Wireframes

The consolidated homepage served as our reference point for developing the rest of the app's low-fidelity wireframes, ensuring consistency across all pages (figure 12).

Figure 12 : View our low fidelity wireframes

07 Usability

To validate our design decisions, we conducted usability testing with three participants, each completing a series of key tasks:
1. Signing up as a new user
2. Subscribing to a meal kit
3. Purchasing a produce box

We gathered qualitative feedback for each task, helping us identify usability issues, clarify user expectations, and uncover opportunities to improve the overall experience.

100%

participants found the meal selection process to be confusing and overwhelming

100%

participants found some text needed more clarity, such as the difference between meal kits and meal boxes

67%

participants found some icons to be confusing

08 Final Design

Based on peer feedback, we made several rounds of iteration to address common usability issues. These refinements allowed us to refine the user experience, optimize visual elements, and ensure that the final design was both aligned with the brand's identity and functional - delivering a seamless and engaging experience for the users.

Mockup of Gaia's Garden's native app, showing the homepage, meal kits and cart page

Figure 13 : View our full high fidelity prototype