Case study Food production

UX Audit for a Catering Application

A UX audit of a school-meal catering app, with recommendations to improve onboarding, meal ordering, notifications and navigation.

unicrew ran a UX audit of a mobile catering app that lets parents order school meals for their children, using independent user testing, user interviews, and the Nielsen heuristics method to turn direct user feedback into actionable design recommendations and stakeholder-ready deliverables.

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Focus: Food production
Market: Germany
Engagement: Post-launch UX audit
Stack: Nielsen Heuristics MethodUX Audit

Outcome at a glance

What this project delivered.

01Usability reports: detailed findings from the testing sessions, each usability issue listed with a recommendation for it
02Presentation decks: built to share the insights, the proposed solutions, and their expected impact with stakeholders

Project overview

This case study covers the UX audit of a mobile app that allows parents to order school meals for their children. The audit was initiated after user feedback about unclear registration processes and other usability issues. The client’s goals were to increase engagement, customer conversion, and satisfaction, and to offer unique features that stand out from the competition.

The audit targeted the customer-experience challenges that surfaced during the go-to-market stage, after the application launched. For the UX consultants, the client set out these main objectives:

Increase user engagement
Increase customer satisfaction
Differentiate from competitors

Challenge

The initial challenges came directly from user feedback, which highlighted:

Confusing navigation
Slow load times
Difficulty completing tasks
Financial and billing management issues
Inadequate notifications and descriptions

The client expected the UX audit to diagnose these issues and suggest clear, actionable solutions to improve the application’s design and functionality.

Solution

unicrew approached the audit with a mix of qualitative and structured evaluation methods:

Independent user testing: neutral users matching the app’s target demographic completed tasks and gave feedback.
User interviews: gathering qualitative insight into user experiences and expectations.
Nielsen heuristics method: used to evaluate and improve the UI/UX design systematically.
Analysis and solution development: using data from testing and interviews to formulate design recommendations.

From that work came recommendations to improve the customer experience:

User onboarding: introduce “Hero,” an animated avatar that gives user-friendly tips at each step.
Registration and account management: streamline the process and give users more control over finances and billing.
Meal ordering: simplify ordering across different durations and improve meal descriptions to address different cultural and medical requirements.
Order history: improve visibility and control over children’s independent meal orders.
Notification system: improve deadline notifications so parents meet ordering cutoffs.
Navigation and interface usability: improve icon and notification clarity and overall app navigation.

Result

The audit ended with the findings written up in two forms: a detailed record of what the testing sessions surfaced, with each usability issue paired with the recommendation for it, and a stakeholder-facing version covering the insights, the proposed solutions and their expected impact.

If users are already complaining and nobody inside the company agrees on what to fix first, an audit settles that argument before a rebuild budget is committed. Our UX and product design team works at both ends of that range, from a diagnostic pass like this one through to interface modernization such as the UI modernization for a training-software company. More of what clients say about working with us is on our client reviews page.

05/Technologies

Technologies on this project

Practice

Nielsen Heuristics Method
UX Audit

06/Quick answers

The questions behind the project

How did unicrew run the audit of the catering app?

The audit combined three methods. The UX audit used independent user testing, where neutral users matching the app's target demographic completed tasks and gave feedback. User interviews gathered qualitative insight into what people expected the app to do. The Nielsen heuristics method was applied to evaluate the UI/UX design systematically. The findings from the testing and interviews were analyzed together to formulate the design recommendations.

What deliverables did the audit produce?

Two things the client could act on. The usability reports carry the detailed findings from the testing sessions, with each usability issue listed next to a recommendation for it. The presentation decks are the version built to share with stakeholders, covering the insights, the proposed solutions, and their expected impact.

What kind of recommendations came out of it?

Specific and actionable ones, covering onboarding, registration and account management, meal ordering, order history, notifications and navigation. Some were additions, such as introducing Hero, an animated avatar that gives user-friendly tips at each onboarding step. Others tightened what was already there: clearer meal descriptions to address different cultural and medical requirements, and deadline notifications that help parents meet ordering cutoffs. unicrew's UX and product design work spans audits to full builds.