Mealvana Endurance
🚴🏽♀️ Streamlining the onboarding process to be faster, easier, and more personalized to individual dietary needs
OVERVIEW
Nutrition planning for endurance athletes
Developed by Milkman Inc., Mealvana Endurance is a mobile app that calculates personalized, science-backed nutrition plans for long distance runners, cyclists, and swimmers.
The Problem
The lengthy onboarding process overwhelms users with too many choices, leading to fatigue and lower engagement. A lack of dietary guardrails increases the risk for irrelevant or unsafe food recommendations.
The Solution
Streamline the onboarding process with fewer decisions that are simpler and more scannable. Add options for dietary preferences and allergies to recommend safe and personalized foods.
Impact
The streamlined onboarding process reduced friction, with 80% of testing participants reporting improved ease and speed.
MY ROLE
Optimizing for simplicity & clarity
Over 2 weeks, I worked closely with our UX Researcher to craft designs that enhanced both the user experience and the client’s vision.
Contributions:
- Conducted an end-to-end audit of the app to identify usability gaps
- Evaluated competitor products for opportunities and design patterns
- Optimized the onboarding process by simplifying interactions and incorporating dietary guardrails
- Enhanced visual and content clarity through semantic colors, legible type, and refined copy
RESEARCH
Onboarding is a drag
Base audit & usability testing
Rating 20 foods on a 5-point scale
Participants gave up after scrolling down and seeing more foods.
Referring to best practice guidelines for mobile applications, I audited the onboarding process to identify usability gaps and opportunities. Concurrently, our UX Researcher tested the experience with 5 athlete-participants. Our findings revealed that the process is too long and demanding. While participants were excited about the content, they were overwhelmed by the amount of work.
Key takeaways:
- Cognitive overload – Too many input requests is tedious and demotivating.
- Unclear elements – Wide letterforms and ambiguous icons are difficult to scan.
Competitive audit
Left to right: Fuelin, MyFitnessPal, Ollie, The Athlete’s Foodcoach
Next, I evaluated competitor onboarding approaches, focusing on their navigation and input methods.
Key takeaways:
- Dietary guidelines – Competitor apps capture users’ dietary preferences and allergens to avoid harmful food recommendations.
- Staged disclosure – To minimize cognitive load, content is presented step-by-step within a single viewport with low-effort inputs like checkboxes, radio buttons, and chips.
DESIGN & TESTING
Accelerating the experience
Building on our research, I redesigned the onboarding process to enhance speed, clarity, and personalization. I then crafted a prototype for testing with athlete-participants. 4 out of the 5 participants preferred the new version, commenting that it is faster and easier to navigate.
Key improvements:
- Step-by-step flow – Information requests are presented progressively within a single viewport
- Dietary customization – Options for preferences and allergens ensure safe and relevant recommendations
- Scannable inputs – Easy-to-use inputs like chips, radio buttons, and checkboxes reduce effort
- Visual and copy clarity – Semantic colors, legible fonts, and actionable language provide a smoother experience
Users need input requests in small chunks, so the experience doesn’t feel overwhelming
Problem
For Sport Preferences, participants had difficulty keeping track of their inputs because of the long scroll length.
Solution
Spacing inputs over several screens creates a more manageable experience.
Users need a faster and easier way to indicate their preferred foods.
Problem
Participants were tired with rating 20 foods on a 5-point scale.
Solution
Chips contained in a short viewport allow faster selections.
FINAL DESIGNS
Leaner, faster, & more impactful
The streamlined onboarding process makes decisions faster and easier. By including options for dietary preferences and allergens, food suggestions are personalized to each user.
NEXT STEPS
Sharpening the core experience
Having completed an audit of the product, I worked with our UX Researcher to identify the most high-impact opportunities. The next step is to sharpen the core nutrition planning experience so that users can quickly scan the content.