BiteRight

Overview

BiteRight is a mobile app concept designed to help people with dietary restrictions, allergies, and food preferences find restaurants they can eat at safely and confidently. The project was created as part of a Design for Good course and focuses on transparency, trust, and accessibility in food discovery.


Through user research, iterative design, and usability testing, BiteRight addresses a common frustration: people with dietary needs often feel unsafe, excluded, or overwhelmed when dining out due to unclear or incomplete information.

The Problem

Many people with dietary restrictions, such as food allergies, intolerances, or specific diets, struggle to find restaurants that meet their needs. Critical information about ingredients, preparation methods, and cross-contamination is often missing, buried, or inconsistent across platforms.

Key challenges include:

  • Lack of transparency around menu ingredients and allergens

  • Filters that are too broad and don’t reflect real dietary needs

  • Anxiety around food safety when eating out

As a result, users are often forced to take risks, limit their dining options, or avoid eating out altogeth

Research & Discovery

Our team conducted interviews and discussions with individuals who have dietary restrictions, as well as high-level research into existing food and restaurant apps.

Key Research Insights

  • Users want to find food that feels safe, not just convenient

  • Existing apps rarely support specific allergies or nuanced restrictions

  • Menu transparency is a major trust issue

  • Users want dietary preferences saved for future searches

We synthesized interview findings using affinity diagrams to identify recurring themes around safety, trust, and information clarity.

Personas

Our primary audience includes people with dietary restrictions, particularly college-aged users navigating shared dining spaces or unfamiliar restaurants.

Personas helped us design for:

  • Users with severe allergies who prioritize safety

  • Users with lifestyle-based diets (e.g., vegan, halal, keto)

  • Users who frequently eat out with friends and need reassurance

Design Goals

The primary goals for BiteRight were to:

  • Make dietary information easy to find and understand

  • Support both allergies and lifestyle preferences

  • Reduce anxiety around eating out

  • Create an intuitive, accessible, and visually engaging experience

Design Solution

BiteRight is a mobile-first restaurant discovery app that allows users to filter restaurants and menu items based on specific dietary needs. Rather than relying on broad labels, the app emphasizes ingredient-level clarity and transparency.

Core Features

  • Advanced allergen and dietary filters (multi-select)

  • Restaurant cards with clear dietary indicators

  • Menu views that highlight relevant allergens

  • Saved preferences for future searches

  • Interactive map for location-based discovery

Usability Testing & Feedback

We conducted usability testing to evaluate clarity, usefulness, and ease of navigation.

Key Feedback

  • Users wanted more granular dietary filters, beyond common labels like “vegan” or “gluten-free”

  • Participants preferred having dietary restrictions saved automatically

  • Overall satisfaction with the concept was high

This feedback reinforced the importance of designing for real, lived dietary needs, not simplified assumptions.

Reflection

This project highlighted how deeply food safety and inclusion impact user experience. One of the biggest takeaways was realizing how much emotional weight people carry when making everyday decisions about food.

What I Learned

  • Designing for safety requires clarity, not just convenience

  • Assumptions about “standard” dietary needs often miss real users

  • Team collaboration strengthened both research quality and design outcomes

Hey, I'm Madison Hueston ⋆˙⟡♡

I am a student UI/UX Designer, Photographer and Editor.

I am probably making something right now.