YummieStreets
A mobile app that helps Gen-Z backpackers explore authentic Thai street food without the anxiety of unknown ingredients, language barriers, or blowing their budget. Real food, real flavors, real confidence.
TIMELINE
6 weeks
PLATFORM
Mobile
INDUSTRY
Food
TOOLS
FIgma
Miro
TEAM
4 Designers
My Responsibilities
I led user research and interviews on the ground in KhaoSan Road, synthesized findings into actionable insights, shaped the core product concept with the team, built wireframes and prototypes through multiple iterations, and presented the final design as a cohesive product story.
Overview
YummieStreet helps Gen-Z backpackers enjoy real Thai flavours without overspending and safely.
YummieStreets makes authentic Thai street food genuinely accessible, not just geographically, but practically. The app combines
allergy-based ingredient filters,
flavor customization,
street food discovery, and
gamified challenges
to remove the friction that stops backpackers from ordering the thing they actually want to try.
Measurable Metric
6 users, multiple dietary restrictions, zero drop-offs.
After several design iterations, I tested the app with six participants who all had dietary restrictions, the exact users the product was built for. Sessions covered onboarding, allergy selection, flavor customization, and the full ordering flow.
The results validated the direction:
33%
completed every task with zero errors.
50%
became promoters with NPS scores of 9 or 10.
83%
average SUS score hit 83, well above the 68 benchmark for "good" usability
100%
completed the main task flow with no drop-offs.
Problem
Backpackers carve street food but worry about hygiene and unfamiliar ingredients.
Backpackers in Thailand want to eat street food; it's cheap, it's local, and it's the real experience. But the moment they approach a stall, the hesitation kicks in:
What's actually in this?
Is it safe?
Can I ask for it without meat?
Without a way to communicate clearly or filter for their needs, many give up and walk into 7-Eleven instead. The adventure they came for stays out of reach.
Gen-Z travels to experience and food are where the budget gets cut first.
Research shows Gen-Z backpackers consistently prioritize activities and experiences over dining, spending more on things like tours and adventures while looking for ways to eat affordably.
They spend more on activities and experiences (Klook, 2023; The Nation, 2024).
Many prioritize unique travel experiences over dining (AirAsia, 2024).
In Thailand, street food is the natural answer: it's cheap, abundant, and deeply cultural. The problem is that the barriers to actually eating it confidently push budget-conscious travelers toward familiar but forgettable options instead.
Research
29 backpackers, 7 countries, on KhaoSan Road in Bangkok.
We went directly to the source interviewing 29 backpackers on Khao San Road, representing travelers from Canada, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States. Four pain points came up repeatedly across almost every conversation.
Unclear ingredients
Most had no way of knowing what was actually in a dish before eating it.
Language barriers
Google Translate helped with one-way reading, but broke down completely when vendors responded in Thai.
Taste customization
Travelers didn't know they could ask to adjust spice or ingredients, and even when they tried, the communication often failed.
Hidden dietary risks
Vegetarian travelers were regularly caught off guard by meat pieces in dishes that appeared plant-based.
We even talked with 3 street food vendors, listening their insight.
We also spoke with street food vendors and what they shared reframed the problem. The gap wasn't just communication, it was confidence.
Others noted that "travelers would hover near stalls, look around, and leave without ever trying anything".
Many said "foreigners simply didn't know they could customize their order".
Data synthesis
The gap wasn't before or after the trip. It was in the middle of it.
We mapped the full backpacker journey: planning, traveling, and reflecting, and examined every tool and behavior at each stage. The gap was unmistakable: during the trip, especially around food, travelers had almost no reliable support.
Everything else in the journey had solutions. The food experience didn't.
Ecosystem
Digital Tools
Analog Tools & Activities
Lonely Planet Products
Every existing option solves part of the problem. None solves all of it.
Looking at the current landscape: market stalls, 7-Eleven, fast food chains, food courts, and existing apps have no option checked every box a safety-conscious, budget-aware, allergy-sensitive traveler actually needs.
Most food apps focus on delivery or basic translation. None were built around the specific anxieties of a backpacker trying to eat like a local for the first time.
Creating Personas
One persona, built from 29 real conversations.
The interviews pointed clearly to a dominant pattern: a traveler who genuinely wants the street food experience but lets safety concerns make the decision for them.
We named him Hygienic Henry and every feature in YummieStreets was designed with his hesitation in mind.
Henry worries about food that's been sitting out. He defaults to fast food chains because they feel safer. He'll try street food but only when someone he trusts is leading the way. His workarounds reveal the gap: he's not avoiding street food because he doesn't want it. He's avoiding it because he has no way to feel confident about it.
Hygienic henry (primary persona)
"I want to eat Thai street food, but I’m worried about getting sick."
Pain Points
Workarounds
He wasn’t sure how long the food had been sitting out in 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 his own.
Only eats street food when he is with other experienced travellers he trusts.
ALignment
Not every good idea made the cut, and that was the point.
With a defined scope and timeline, we couldn't build everything. I led the feature prioritization process, running team brainstorming sessions and mapping each idea against user impact and feasibility.
The features highlighted in dark blue represent the decisions we committed to: the ones that directly addressed the core pain points without overcomplicating the experience.
Sketching & Prototyping
Paper first before diving into pixels.
Before touching Figma, I sketched ideas by hand, quickly exploring layouts, flows, and interactions without the pressure of making things look polished. Paper prototypes went through several rounds of rapid testing and iteration, letting us validate or discard ideas at low cost before committing to digital screens.
User Journey
How might we reduce Hygienic Henry’s worries to explore and enjoy street food?
Henry's concern: "I want to eat Thai street food, but I’m worried about getting sick."
Wireframing & Demostration of Main Features
Mark what you can't eat, once and never worry again.
The allergy filter was the most critical feature to get right. Travelers with dietary restrictions especially vegetarians, navigating hidden meat ingredients are needed a way to set their boundaries once during onboarding and have the app filter accordingly from that point forward. No second-guessing, no re-explaining to every vendor.
How it works (UI Interface)
Point, scan, and understand within seconds.
One scan surfaces the full dish details: ingredients, eating tips, and anything the traveler needs to know before ordering in plain, readable English.
How it works (UI Interface)
Adjust your appetite as you like.
One of the biggest frustrations backpackers described was not knowing they could customize their order and not being able to communicate it, even when they tried. This feature lets travelers set their spice level, ingredient preferences, and flavor profile in the app, reducing the communication gap to almost nothing.
How it works (UI Interface)
Tell the vendor exactly how you want it without speaking Thai.
When a traveler is ready to order, their request appears in both Thai and English, giving them a chance to review before they hand it over, and giving the vendor a clear, accurate order to read. No miming, no mistranslation, no ending up with something completely different.
Check tips about what to look for before you eat.
Street food safety isn't about avoiding stalls, it's about knowing the signs of a good one. Simple, practical tips built into the app give travelers the confidence to make their own judgment calls: fresh food, clean cooking, busy crowds.
Anxiety drops when you know what you're looking for.
How it works (UI Interface)
User Engagement
How might we help Henry discover authentic food experience through gamification?
Wireframing & Demostration of Main Features
Eating Thai street food becomes a game and the prize is being a local.
Beyond solving anxieties, we wanted to make the exploration genuinely fun. The bingo-style challenge system turns trying new dishes into a progression:
collecting photos,
unlocking levels, and
working toward Grand Master status.
It reframes the hesitant traveler's mindset: instead of "I'm worried about what's in this," the question becomes "What's next on my list?"
How it works (UI Interface)
Six levels, from cautious to fearless.
Challenge levels are tied to spice tolerance from Rookie (mild only) to Grand Master (nothing is too hot), giving every traveler an entry point that matches where they actually are, with a clear path to push further if they want to.
Rookie
Just starting out, handles only mild spice.
Apprentice
Learning the heat, can take on medium spice.
Challenger
Ready to push limits with bold, fiery dishes.
Expert
Confident with high spice, few dishes feel too hot.
Master
Dominates extra-spicy meals with ease.
Grand Master
Fearless eater, conquers the hottest dishes without breaking a sweat.
Sitemap
14 screens for one full journey.
The sitemap covers the full scope of the app from onboarding and allergy setup, through food discovery and ordering, to the gamification system. Mapping it out early helped the team stay aligned on scope and avoid feature sprawl during design.
Main Userflow
From curiosity to confident order, the core journey userflow.
The main user flow follows the traveler from the moment they're wondering what to eat, through dish discovery, safety checks, flavor customization, and all the way to a completed order the vendor can actually read.
Style Guide (Color)
Colors that feel like Thailand: warm, vibrant, and alive.
The palette draws from the visual energy of Thai street food culture: warm oranges and yellows that evoke spice and heat, paired with fresh greens that signal safety and freshness.
The combination feels inviting without being overwhelming, approachable for a nervous first-timer, exciting enough for an experienced foodie.
Style Guide (Typography)
A typeface that works as hard as a backpacker.
General Sans was chosen for its clean geometry and strong readability at small sizes, essential for an app used outdoors, in daylight, while someone is standing at a food stall trying to make a quick decision.
It's modern without being trendy, and friendly without being childish, matching the tone of a knowledgeable local friend rather than a formal travel guide.
Button Text
16px Semibold
Label
14px Medium
Highlight
9px Medium
Challenges
We almost designed another food delivery app.
The lesson: benchmarking existing apps is useful for understanding the market, not for finding the gap.
Takeaways
What I've learned
Design is a conversation with real people, not a one-time assumption.
The most useful moments in this project came from listening to backpackers on Khao San Road, to street food vendors, and to test participants who showed us exactly where the app confused them. No amount of internal brainstorming produced insights as useful as thirty minutes of field research.
Ask "what if they do something unexpected?" before they do.
Every screen that went through user testing revealed at least one behavior we hadn't anticipated. Building the habit of asking "what happens if a user behaves unexpectedly?" before testing, not after, is what separates a prototype from a product.
This could be evergreen.
YummieStreets was designed for one context Bangkok street food but the underlying problem exists anywhere tourists meet unfamiliar food cultures. The app has a longer life beyond a school project: it's a genuine tool that could travel as far as its users do.