Google maps dietary feature

Adding a feature to existing app

UX case study

This case study explores a new Google Maps feature designed to help users with dietary restrictions more easily find restaurants that meet their needs.

Date: Feb 2024 – Mar 2025

My Roles: UX Research, UX Design

Software: Adobe Illustrator, Figma

Background

Google Maps is used by over 2 billion people every month to find places and restaurants. Despite its many features, it doesn’t offer an easy way to filter spots by dietary needs.

This gap is significant considering that dietary restrictions and preferences are increasingly common. In 2022, over half of U.S. adults said they stick to diets like vegetarian, vegan, or gluten-free.

Right now, people have to search manually or check menus and reviews, which takes time and isn’t always reliable.

This case study presents a new

Google Maps Food Restriction Filter to solve this problem.

Research

Competitive analysis

Insights

  • There is a wide range of available online resources with the diverse range of topics
  • Those with a community base are more popular
  • Common disadvantages include limited interactivity, lack of feedback, narrow focus, ineffectiveness
  • Self-taught artists value resources from a specific personality, rather than a platform

User interviews

Conducted interviews with 5 artists and 3 non-artists
Requirement: experience with self-learning a new skill
Age: 17-39 yo

Affinity map

Key takeaways

  • Need for guidance and community
  • Problems with inner motivation
  • Time management and discipline challenges
  • Users never have clear goals and set up a learning path
  • Strong need for external motivation
  • Successful strategies: effort, practice, discipline, incorporating the learning process into daily life and schedules
  • Mostly negative experience with learning resources: surface level, poor quality, aimed at beginners, overwhelming, hard to continue doing once started

User personas

Solution

Feature Roadmap

I created a list of features to ensure the minimum viable product, prioritizing the key features of the product — Learning Section, Path and Practice. At the same time, it’s important to outline more features that can be developed in the future, to fit the User and Business needs.

Sitemap

Sitemap with a major features that allow the user to 

User flows

User Flow 1

Set up path

User Flow 2

Find a lesson

User Flow 3

Start a practice

Task flows

Wireframes

Low-fi wireframes

Mid-fi wireframes

Mid-fi desktop wireframes

Visual design

Typography

Colors

Primary logo

Secondary logo

UI elements

Prototyping & Testing

High fidelity wireframes

HI

Task Flow 1

Initial login after onboarding, watching the first lesson suggested by the dashboard

Task Flow 2

Start the first practice

Task Flow 3

See the Learning Path

Usability testing

5 participants, 2 tasks:

  • complete the first Learning unit
  • complete the first Practice

Metrics:

Task is completed easily and every step is clear to each participant

Recommendations:

  • improve the structure of Learning path, combining the Learning/Practice relation
  • re-organize the Practice page: make more visual, make the function of it clear
  • reduce the amount of text used throughout the website
  • work on typography/hierarchy of text elements
  • make less rooms for user freedom, and make the steps they take inevitable

Login flow

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