Feastly
Planning shared meals with housemates made easier
My Role
UX Design, UX Research
Timeline
3 Weeks
Tools
Figma
Context
Feastly aims to help young adults living in shared homes easily plan and decide on communal dinners. In many cultures, dinner is more than just food — it’s a moment of connection that helps build a sense of home. Living with housemates can be fun, but many young adults struggle to coordinate shared meals due to busy schedules. As a result, shared meals occur less often, diminishing the sense of belonging and togetherness that makes co-living meaningful.
How might we design a dinner planning experience that simplifies scheduling and decision-making among housemates?
Research
Method: Surveyed 54 young adults living in shared homes across the U.S to explore habits, pain points, and emotional needs around communal meals.
Group chat stress: 72% users relied on group chats to coordinate meals, but found it frustrating to keep track of plans as conversations often shifted topics before any decisions were finalized.
Defining the problem
Housemates experience decision fatigue and coordination breakdown when planning shared meals, leading to fewer communal dinners and weakened household connection.
Ideation
Designing a poll experience that prioritizes momentum over perfection
I initially explored shared calendars and more structured coordination tools, but these approaches risked increasing setup friction and long-term maintenance. Instead, I prioritized immediacy and habit formation over feature depth.
Many respondents relied on group chats, yet described them as overwhelming and unproductive. This revealed an insight: young adults engage more consistently with lightweight, time-bound prompts than with open-ended coordination threads.
I drew inspiration from apps like BeReal, which encourage once-a-day participation through a simple, predictable interaction. Translating this behavioral model into the context of shared meals, I introduced a daily dinner poll. By limiting the decision window and reducing steps, the experience transforms open-ended negotiation into a time-bound collective choice that gets the job done efficiently.
Solution
Introducing Feastly, your dinner planning companion that makes it easier for housemates to decide what’s for dinner and who’s joining.
Key Design Decisions
Prioritized action over optimization
Limited steps to reduce cognitive load
Introduced randomness to prevent decision paralysis
Less focus on negotiation features to maintain momentum
🧐Reflection
This project focused on quickly transforming insights into a functional prototype, so formal user testing was not included in this phase. Future testing with real housemates would help validate the flow, measure engagement, and uncover opportunities to make Feastly feel even more natural and collaborative.
🎯Next Steps
It would be beneficial to conduct usability testing with small groups of housemates to observe how they engage with the daily poll and decision-making flow. In addition, there is value in adding lightweight social features, such as linking with social media and image sharing.
Thank you for reading!
