Yummie Street
A Thai foodie friend in your pocket guiding you to eat street food safely.
Duration
5 weeks
Team
4 members
Role
UX/UI, Research
Project Overview
Travelers including backpackers and those with food allergies; often struggle to communicate their dietary needs to local Thai street food vendors due to the language barrier. They also worry about getting sick from unsafety food, or from not understanding the menu. Yummie Street is a mobile application that helps users explore Thai street food safely.
Bringing Street Food into
the Safe Zone
Backpackers love exploring, but when it comes to street food, safety worries, ingredient confusion, and language barriers stop them from diving in.
An app that helps not only backpackers but also foreigners to eat like locals — showing what’s safe, what’s spicy, what’s inside, and how to order — all while unlocking fun foodie achievements along the way.
Backpackers love exploring, but when it comes to street food, safety worries, ingredient confusion, and language barriers stop them from diving in.
Spotting the Gap in the
Travel Experience
After looking at the travel experience across the pre-travel, during-travel, and post-travel phases, we found a clear gap in the “during travel” stage, especially around food discovery.
Many backpackers avoid Thai street food due to safety concerns and communication barriers, often relying on word of mouth or social media. This creates an opportunity for a digital solution that helps them explore street food safely, confidently, and with more cultural connection.
Language Barriers & Food Restrictions get overlooked
We did the competitor analysis to make sure our solution is unique in the market. We found that most travelers and backpackers avoid market stalls due to unfamiliarity, communication barriers, and safety concerns. They are unsure of exact ingredients because of the language barrier, and very few competitors facilitate food restrictions.
Criteria
Market Stalls
7 Eleven
Fast Food Chain
Food Court
Yummie Street
Not worrying about potentially getting sick from the food
Being able to cater to specific food restriction
Being familiar with the food and ingredients
Not worrying about miscommunication
Eating authentic food with affordable price
We spoke to our target audience and asked them about their travel journey
We Spoke to Our Target audience and asked them about their travel journey. We conducted interviews at Khao San Road to the Gen-Z backpackers who meet the following criteria.
29 backpackers interview
18-24 years old backpackers
3 days of interview
Mostly first time in Bangkok
We created personas reflecting different eating behaviors
To better understand the challenges Gen Z travelers face, we created three representative personas based on our interviews. Each one highlights common frustrations and the temporary solutions they’ve had to come up when it comes to eating during travel.
"Thai food is culture on a plate—I just need guidance on what to try for a truly authentic experience."
Curious Clara
Pain Points
Workarounds
Overwhelmed by many stalls selling variations of the same dish.
Choose randomly from one of the stalls to try out the food first.
Struggles to find unique local dishes for an authentic experience.
Asks hostel mates and locals for suggestions on what to try.
Large-portion dishes make it hard to try different street food.
Buys small portions to sample as many dishes as possible.
"I want to try Thai street food, but being vegetarian in a new country is always tricky."
Picky Pia
Pain Points
Workarounds
Hard to find vegetarian-friendly dishes in street food.
Rely on the familiar dishes she knows, like mango sticky rice.
Can’t tell if some dishes contained hidden meat- related ingredients and ended up eating them.
Go to dedicated vegetarian street food stalls at Chatuchak Market and Chinatown.
Feels like there’s limited vegetarian options at street food stalls.
Choose Indian restaurants or package snacks in 7-11 if no options are available.
"I want to eat Thai street food, but I’m worried about getting sick."
Hygienic Henry (Primary Persona)
Pain Points
Workarounds
He wasn’t sure how long the food had been sitting out in the open.
Only eats from stalls where he can see food being cooked fresh.
Worries that street food might come at the expense of hygiene.
Only eats at fast food chains and small restaurants, where he is more comfortable.
Sees that street food is cheaper and is curious but still hesitant to order on his own.
Only eats street food when he is with other experienced travelers he trusts.
How might we help Hygienic Henry?
We choose Hygienic Henry because his problems require the most guidance on how to navigate and enjoy street food safely, which is how we will help deliver our promise!
Start with greeting message
Yummie Street will greeding with onboarding page when your are the first time user.
Choose your food restriction
Users can create a profile with all of their food restrictions and preferences
Collect Badge
Upgrade the Badge by collecting photos
Explore the dishes
Users can explore the dishes by swiping the card.
Safety Guide
Read safety tips if you are not familier with streed foodstalls
Customize dishes
Customize own dishes by adding and replacing the ingredients.
Success
Flipping the phone horizontally and shows the order to the street food vendor.
User flow
This is how the user navigates through the main features of Yummie Street App.
Sitemap
Here’s the overall structure of the app and its basic screens. There are total 14 pages.
0.0
Explore (Landing Page)
C1
Payment Detail
C1
Payment Detail
A1
Onboarding/ Reason 1
C1
Payment Detail
A2
Onboarding/ Reason 2
C1
Payment Detail
A3
Onboarding/ Reason 3
C1
Payment Detail
A4
Food Restrictions Question
A4.1
Food Restrictions Screen
B1
Login/Sign up
C1
Payment Detail
1.0
Safety Guide 101
2.0
Scan Menu Translation
3.0
Profile
4.0
Dish Details
3.1
Terms & Policies
3.1
Terms & Policies
5.0
Other Profiles
1.1
My Booking
2.1
Activity Confirmation
3.1
Edit Profile
4.1
Dish Customization
4.2
My Map
4.3
Terms & Policies
5.1
Activity Detail
1.1
My Booking
2.1
Activity Confirmation
3.1
My Messages
4.1.1
Thai Translation
4.2
My Map
4.3
Terms & Policies
5.1
Activity Detail
Key learnings
Through this project, I learned to think about the full travel experience of backpackers and find ways to make it better. Working with my team helped me discover new ideas and come up with a useful solution for the backpackers and travelers.
Presenting our research, wireframes, and suggestions taught me how important it is to explain things clearly. Making sketches and wireframes helped others understand our ideas better. I also improved my research and thinking skills by joining class discussions and getting feedback. Most of all, I learned how teamwork and solving problems together can lead to better results.