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Insights
Product Design
UX/UI
User flows definition
Visual system
Interaction design
Branding & Strategic design
MealClub
A habit-focused
meal planning app
Year 2024 · Technology and lifestyle
FullStack Developer
Helena Fernández
Miralpeix
Product Designer
Brand Strategist
Creative Direction
MealClub was conceived as a digital product designed to help users understand and improve their eating habits without adding complexity to their daily routines.
The project focuses on reducing friction in meal planning by offering a clear, visual and motivating experience that supports habit formation and long-term decision-making.
Problem
Meal planning often feels restrictive, fragmented or too demanding to maintain as a daily habit, especially when users lack time or nutritional confidence.
Role
I defined the product strategy, UX/UI structure, visual system, storytelling and creative direction, then supported the translation into a buildable interface.
Solution
A modular food experience that turns planning, recipes and progress into learning moments users can repeat, save and adapt to their routines.
What it proves
Design can make wellness products clearer, more motivating and easier to sustain when guidance feels practical instead of restrictive.
Overview
What the product is about
MealClub turns meal planning into a learning product that helps users understand food decisions without relying on restrictive plans.
The experience helps users make better food decisions without relying on restrictive plans. Contextual guidance, visual learning and low-friction planning make nutrition easier to understand, repeat and adapt to daily routines.
1 Product focus
A habit-focused product experience designed around learning, clarity and long-term behaviour change.
Nutrition becomes something users can understand and adapt at their own pace.
2 My role & process
My role covered product strategy, UX structure, interface design, brand direction and front-end implementation support.
🔍 Product research & opportunity:
Mapped the gap between tracking apps, recipes and educational food guidance.
🧠 Experience strategy:
Defined the learning loop, user flows, onboarding and recommendation moments.
🧩 UX/UI system design:
Designed reusable screens, cards, navigation and content modules.
🎨 Brand & visual direction:
Built the blue visual system, food imagery direction and MC character logic.
⚙️ Implementation coordination:
Translated UX decisions into responsive, reusable interface logic.
1 Project type
- Product design concept
- Self-initiated case study
- Year 2024
A product case study focused on meal planning, nutrition education and habit-building.
2 Scope
- Product strategy
- UX/UI design
- Creative direction
- Brand storytelling
Product opportunity, experience logic, user flows, UI system and visual language.
3 Tools & team
- Figma
- FigJam
- Notion
- Slack
- Photoshop
I led concept, product strategy, UX/UI and creative direction, with development handled by a specialised FullStack Developer.
Insight
Phase 1.1 · Initial user research
MealClub started with a user-first question: can nutrition guidance create value without rigid plans, calorie tracking or dependency?
Research looked at where everyday food decisions break down in real routines.
Interviews and surveys with more than 300 users revealed recurring friction around lack of time, low nutritional confidence, changing routines and context-specific decisions. Those patterns helped define the opportunity: support users before the meal choice becomes stressful or abandoned.
of health apps are abandoned within 90 days.
of fitness apps are abandoned within 90 days.
median abandonment rate within the first 100 days.
most studies reported more than 50% abandonment within the first 100 days.
Health-related apps have a retention problem. A 2024 scoping review published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research found high abandonment rates across health, fitness and lifestyle behavior apps.
For MealClub, this insight reframed the challenge: the product could not rely only on tracking, restriction or reminders. It needed to make food planning easier to repeat, easier to understand and emotionally lighter to return to.
Source: Journal of Medical Internet Research, 2024 — “When and Why Adults Abandon Lifestyle Behavior and Mental Health Mobile Apps: Scoping Review.”
Fieldwork with more than 300 people helped identify
low nutritional confidence, changing routines and the need
for clearer, more contextual meal guidance.
Problem statement
Phase 1.2 · Problem framing
Most nutrition apps give users predefined plans, but rarely help them understand why choices matter or how to adapt them to real life.
Challenge
Move beyond restriction, tracking and calorie control by focusing on the daily decisions users actually struggle to repeat.
Approach
Use guidance, clarity and learning instead of number dependency, so users understand the reason behind each suggestion.
Direction
Reframe nutrition as self-awareness and habit-building, with a product tone that supports progress without pressure.
"The opportunity was not to create another plan. It was to design a system that helps users understand themselves."
User needs
Phase 1.3 · Use case definition
Research became two priority user contexts: people who need quick planning help and people who want to understand their choices.
The product needed to support people who want quick planning help and people who want to learn why a choice makes sense. This distinction shaped onboarding, recommendation logic, educational content and the first MVP flow.
1 The busy planner
Needs fast guidance, clear meal ideas and flexible planning without building a full plan from scratch or comparing too many options.
2 The learning-oriented user
Needs contextual explanations, visual cues and small learning moments that build autonomy instead of creating dependency on fixed diet rules.
Meal discovery & planning
Discover and plan meals without strict diets or dense nutrition data, moving from inspiration to a concrete daily choice faster.
Contextual guidance
Recommendations adapt to routine, energy, training, rest or emotional context, making advice feel relevant to the moment.
Learning through choices
Explain why meals, combinations or habits make sense, so each interaction teaches something small and reusable.
Habit reflection
Show routines and decisions clearly so users can recognise patterns and adjust without feeling judged.
Creative Direction
Phase 2.1 · Product strategy & visual direction
The visual direction makes nutrition feel approachable, warmer and less clinical.
MC, colour and food imagery turn guidance into a product language that feels friendly without losing clarity.
The creative layer avoids the clinical or restrictive tone common in wellness products. Rounded shapes, bold blue, food photography and the MC companion make learning feel visual, friendly and memorable while still supporting product clarity.
Strategic principles
Phase 2.2 · Product decision criteria
Strategic principles kept MealClub focused on education, clarity and sustainable behaviour change.
Every feature, recommendation and screen had to reinforce education, clarity and sustainable behaviour change. The criteria helped filter ideas that felt useful but could add pressure, noise or dependency.
Learning over restriction
Help users understand nutrition instead of telling them what to eat, turning recommendations into explanations rather than orders.
Guidance over pressure
Simple recommendations and contextual explanations act as a pocket mentor that reduces uncertainty without adding guilt.
Clarity over data overload
Structure information to reduce confusion, prioritising the next useful action over dashboards full of numbers.
Habit-building over short-term results
Encourage sustainable routines over fast restrictive outcomes, so progress can survive changing schedules and real-life interruptions.
Product positioning
Phase 2.3 · Defining the product angle
MealClub is not a calorie tracker. It is positioned as a learning-based meal planning product.
The product was positioned as a learning-based meal planning experience: supportive, educational and flexible. Instead of measuring success only through numbers, the concept focuses on helping users understand what to eat, why it fits and how to repeat better decisions.
MVP Scope
Phase 3.1 · Defining the first usable version
The MVP validates one core loop: moving from an everyday food need to a useful meal decision.
The first version tests context, recommendation, explanation and save or plan actions.
Before adding tracking, community or deeper personalisation, MealClub needed to prove that contextual guidance could reduce decision friction. The first version focuses on helping users identify a need, receive a relevant meal suggestion, understand why it fits and save or plan it for later use.
Meal recommendations
A focused recommendation feed that turns the user's context into practical meal options without overwhelming the first session.
Educational explanations
Short explanation modules that show why a recipe, ingredient or habit fits the user's current need.
Planning support
Save and planning actions that help users turn isolated ideas into reusable weekly decisions.
Habit reflection
Lightweight feedback that helps users recognise routine patterns without turning the app into a strict tracker.
Core experience flow
Phase 3.2 · From need to action
The main flow moves users from uncertainty to a confident food decision quickly.
Context selection, meal discovery, educational content and planning work as one repeatable loop.
Each step has a specific job: capture the situation, reduce the number of options, explain the value of the recommendation and make the decision reusable. This keeps the flow useful without turning it into a long setup process.
Choose a context
The user starts by selecting a situation, need or moment of the day, such as training, rest, low energy or meal planning.
Discover meal ideas
MealClub provides clear meal suggestions that feel practical, visual and easy to compare.
Understand the choice
Each recommendation includes simple explanations that help users understand why it fits their context.
Save or plan
Users can save meals, organise ideas and start building a more repeatable routine over time.
Each product area has a dedicated experience system,
so users can understand what they can do at each moment.
Onboarding works as a visual entry point,
condensing key information into a few clear steps.
UX/UI System
How the product logic becomes an interface
The UX/UI system makes MealClub’s strategy usable through repeatable modules and predictable navigation.
Screens are built around clear content hierarchy, reusable cards and actions that are easy to understand.
Navigation, recipe cards, learning blocks and saved actions were designed as reusable interface pieces. The goal was for users to understand what each screen offers, what action is available and why a recommendation matters without decoding dense nutrition data.
Low-fidelity wireflow showing onboarding and navigation logic.
The flow reduces steps from setup to discovery and action.
Clear navigation
Users quickly understand where they are, what each screen offers and what action comes next.
Modular cards
Recipes, ingredients and learning content use reusable cards, making the system easier to scan, extend and maintain.
Visual guidance
Images, icons and colour coding reduce scanning effort and help users connect food choices with context at a glance.
Development
Phase 5.1 · Building the product system
MealClub was built as a connected product system, combining interface design, front-end structure and organised data logic.
The implementation connected interface design, front-end structure, server-side logic and database management. The technical setup translated UX decisions into reusable templates, responsive foundations and organised data flows.
1 Server structure
- php · Programming language.
- symfony · Reusable PHP structures.
- twig · Template engine.
- Visual Code Studio · Code editor and Git support.
2 Client experience
- html · Product structure.
- css · Responsive interface styles.
- JavaScript · Interactive product logic.
3 Design workflow
- Figma · UI design and collaboration.
- FigJam · Research mapping and collaborative planning.
- Adobe Creative Cloud · Visual design and creative assets.
4 Data foundation
- Xampp · Local development environment.
- MySql · Relational data management.
Impact
Phase 5.2 · What the concept proves
MealClub shows how a wellness product can move away from pressure, restriction and data overload.
Guidance, habit-building and visual proximity become the core product value.
The concept shows how product strategy, UX/UI and visual direction can make nutrition feel clearer and more sustainable. Instead of asking users to track everything, MealClub helps them understand decisions, repeat useful habits and return to the product with less friction.
"The project demonstrates how product strategy, visual direction and UX/UI can work together to turn everyday nutrition into a clearer, more motivating and more sustainable experience for users."
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Creative
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Creative direction, visual identity and storytelling for a playful food learning universe.