Smartbite

March 2025

Role
Product Designer
No-Code Builder

Tools
Softr
Airtable
Zapier

Helping busy people simplify weekly grocery planning with AI and automation.

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Problem

Busy professionals often feel overwhelmed by meal planning and grocery shopping, leading to decision fatigue and last-minute unhealthy choices.

Goal

Design an AI-powered assistant that creates weekly grocery lists by cross-referencing users' pantry inventory with chosen recipes, highlighting missing ingredients for efficient shopping.

My Role/Responsibilities

✏️ Defined product scope and MVP

✏️ Mapped user flows

✏️ Built a functional prototype using Zapier, Airtable, and Softr

✏️ Designed UX/UI flows and tested with 3 users

✏️ Iterated based on feedback

My Process

🔍 Research

People felt overwhelmed by decision fatigue.

Current apps felt too rigid or overly complex

💡 Ideation

Users input pantry items and desired recipes and system identifies missing ingredients, and generates shopping list.

🔁 Testing

I ran tests with early users and users loved the automated shopping list, but also wanted easier ways to input recipes.

Solution

Step 1: Smartbite starts by getting to know the user — capturing dietary needs, cuisine preferences, and allergies to personalize meal suggestions from the start.

Step 2: Based on “Get Started” inputs and preferences, Smartbite suggests quick, healthy recipes — helping users skip the endless search and get straight to cooking.

Step 3: After users select a recipe, they start adding their pantry essentials. Smartbite then cross-references this data in Airtable to instantly identify what’s missing for the week.

Step 4: By combining pantry inventory with selected recipes, Smartbite instantly generates a streamlined shopping list, making meal prep and grocery runs faster and smarter.

What I Learned

This project deepened my understanding of building human-centered, AI-powered tools and apps. I gained valuable hands-on experience with tools such as Zapier, Softr, and Airtable, which allowed me to manage workflows efficiently. Most importantly, this experience strengthened my ability to think like a product designer, focusing on the end-to-end user experience, user needs, testing of assumptions, and the importance of building an MVP to save time, money, and resources.