UC Davis Dining Commons App
A mobile solution to consolidate menus, dietary options, and nutritional data for a seamless dining experience.
Tech Stack
Project Overview
The UC Davis Dining Commons App was developed to address the fragmentation of the current dining commons website. By consolidating four separate sites into a single, user-friendly mobile application, the app streamlines access to menus, dietary options, and nutritional information. Additionally, users can save favorites and track their dietary choices effortlessly.
The Challenge
The existing UC Davis dining commons website is split into four separate sites, making it cumbersome for students and staff to navigate menus, dietary choices, and nutritional information.
The Solution
We developed a React Native mobile application that aggregates dining commons data into one centralized platform. The app utilizes web scraping for real-time updates, provides detailed nutrition and allergen information, and offers features to save favorites and track dietary progress.
The Outcome
The result is an intuitive and efficient interface that simplifies meal planning and dietary tracking for students, ensuring access to the most up-to-date menu details.
Project Visuals
A seamless mobile interface that consolidates menus, dietary options, and nutritional data.
Detailed menu views showcasing nutritional information and dietary filters.
Iterative design flows that refined the user experience from concept to final prototype.
Development Process
Research & Planning
The project began with extensive market and user research targeting UC Davis students. We identified the challenges of a fragmented dining website and mapped out a unified mobile experience.
Design & Prototyping
Iterative design phases involved low-fidelity sketches, mid-fidelity prototypes, and high-fidelity wireframes. Emphasis was placed on usability, flexible search filters, and effective favorites tracking.
Development & Testing
The development involved building a React Native app integrated with an Express server and a MongoDB database. Web scraping with BeautifulSoup in Python extracts real-time menu, nutritional, and allergen data, while secure authentication is handled via hashed passwords and JWT.
Key Features
Real-time Menu Updates
Web scraping ensures the app displays the most current dining menus and nutritional data.
Personalized Favorites & Tracking
Students can save preferred food items and monitor their dietary choices over time.
Advanced Dietary Filtering
Custom filters enable users to search menus based on dietary restrictions and nutritional requirements.
Secure User Authentication
Robust security measures, including password hashing and JWT, ensure that user data remains protected.
Interested in working together?
Let's discuss how we can bring innovative dining solutions to life.