Food Map is a personalized restaurant discovery platform that helps people find restaurants they'll genuinely enjoy, not just the ones closest to them. Instead of showing the same recommendations to everyone, the experience adapts to each user's taste, dining preferences and location to surface restaurants that feel personally relevant.
I joined the project when it existed only as an idea and a name. From building the brand identity to designing the mobile app, admin dashboard, interactive prototype and marketing assets, I helped shape Food Map into a complete product ecosystem from the ground up.
ROLE
UI/UX Designer
PLATFORM
iOS & Android, Dashboard
TOOLS
Figma, Claude, Notion
YEAR
2025
Finding restaurants made simple
The problem
Finding a restaurant shouldn't feel like guesswork.
Most restaurant discovery apps treat every user the same. They recommend what's nearby, what's popular or what's sponsored, leaving users to scroll through countless options before finding something that actually matches their taste.
Food Map was designed around a different idea. By learning about each user's food preferences, favourite cuisines and dining habits from the start, the app creates recommendations that feel personal instead of generic.
The design goal was simple: Help people spend less time searching and more time enjoying great food.
The Food Map experience
My Approach
Food Map wasn't a redesign. When I joined the startup, there was no existing product, interface or design system to build upon. Everything started with a name and an idea.
I worked across the entire product, from defining the visual identity and designing the mobile experience to creating the admin dashboard, interactive prototype, motion design and App Store assets. Building everything from scratch allowed every touchpoint to share the same design language and product vision.
Building the Food Map experience
PERSONALIZATION
The experience begins with a guided onboarding flow that learns about each user's preferences before recommending a single restaurant. Questions around cuisine, ambience and dining habits help create a personal taste profile that continues shaping recommendations over time.
Instead of asking users to repeatedly filter results, Food Map remembers what they enjoy and surfaces restaurants that naturally align with their preferences wherever they go.
The result is a discovery experience that feels personal from the very first session.
Building a personalized taste profile
DISCOVERY
Once a user's preferences are understood, Food Map combines them with location to recommend restaurants that genuinely fit their interests. Rather than promoting sponsored listings or generic rankings, recommendations are ordered by relevance to the individual.
Whether users are looking for a quick coffee, a family dinner or somewhere completely new, the experience is designed to reduce decision fatigue and make discovering restaurants feel effortless.
Personalized restaurant recommendations
Empty state designs
TRUST
Food Map introduces its own review ecosystem instead of relying entirely on external ratings. Reviews come directly from Food Map users, creating a community-driven platform where recommendations are based on genuine dining experiences rather than promotional content.
This keeps the focus on helping users make confident decisions through authentic feedback and honest recommendations.
Community-driven restaurant reviews
SUPPORTING THE PLATFORM
Alongside the customer experience, I also designed the admin dashboard used to manage restaurants, users, reviews, categories and platform content. To complete the ecosystem, I created App Store and Play Store assets that extended the same visual identity beyond the application itself.
Designing both customer-facing and operational experiences helped create a product that felt consistent across every touchpoint.
Supporting the platform behind the scenes
REFLECTION
What I took away.
Designing Food Map reinforced that personalization isn't simply another feature. It becomes the foundation for every design decision, from onboarding and discovery to reviews and recommendations.
Building the product from a blank canvas also taught me the value of designing beyond individual screens. Creating the brand, product ecosystem and supporting tools together resulted in a more connected experience where every touchpoint shared the same purpose.
The biggest lesson was simple: Great recommendations start by understanding people, not restaurants.
