SafeEats
The ultimate app for individuals with dietary restrictions.
Role
UI/UX designer
Timeline
2 weeks
Tools
Figma
FigJam
Adobe Illustrator
Team
Solo
BACKGROUND & PROBLEM
Eating shouldn't feel stressful
Managing food allergies is tough enough—but trying to eat out or travel with them? As someone with multiple food allergies, eating out is honestly one of the most stressful parts of my day. Whether I’m traveling or just grabbing lunch with friends, I’m constantly worried about what’s in my food; I’m always double-checking menus, asking waiters about ingredients, and scanning food labels.
Even when restaurants try to be accommodating, there’s rarely a reliable system in place. Ingredients aren’t always listed, substitutions can be miscommunicated, and cross-contamination is a real risk. It makes something as simple as enjoying a meal feel like a calculated risk. Dining out should be social, fun, and even spontaneous. But for people with allergies, eating turns something that should be enjoyable into an overwhelming experience. How can individuals safely eat out and avoid allergens that could trigger a reaction?
SOLUTION
From constant worry to confident choices
SafeEats is a personalized app that helps people with food allergies dine out confidently. It takes the fear out of eating at restaurants by giving people with food allergies the confidence to enjoy meals without second-guessing, allowing everyone to feel safe and informed.
Custom profile
SafeEats starts with a personalized onboarding flow where users input their allergies and dietary restrictions. This ensures all recommendations and alerts are tailored to their needs.
Personalized experience
Each user receives a tailored dining experience, with restaurant recommendations based on their allergies and dietary needs. When dining with a friend, the app adjusts to accommodate both users’ restrictions.
Comprehensive restaurant details
SafeEats breaks down menu ingredients and flags allergens instantly, helping users avoid risks. Users can also view each restaurant’s safety and contamination history.
Allergen-detecting translator
The allergen-detecting translator scans labels, highlights allergens, and ensures safe dining—for different languages.
Food safety alerts
SafeEats sends real-time, location-based alerts about nearby food safety risks like contamination or hidden allergens.
DESIGN PROCESS
Designing for a lifeline, not just for an app
Understanding life with food allergies through interviews
About 11% of Americans have at least one food allergy. To better understand the daily challenges these individuals face, I surveyed 32 people who live with food allergies—focusing on how they navigate dining out, especially while traveling. The goal was to identify pain points, understand existing workarounds, and uncover opportunities to design a safer, more confident dining experience.
Here are the main questions I asked them and the insights I received from their responses:
How severe are you food allergies?
5.5 average out of 10
How anxious do you feel eating out?
6.8 average out of 10
Allergic reaction while eating out?
54% said yes
What is your primary worry when traveling with food allergies?
The responses made it clear: the challenge isn’t just the allergies themselves, but the constant uncertainty around information, safety, and trust—especially in unfamiliar settings.
User needs and pain points
After interviewing and surveying users with food allergies, I identified critical user needs that informed product strategy—balancing safety requirements with the human desire for culinary exploration and social connection.
User flow
Using the information from the user survey, I brainstormed any potential ideas for the app using a user flow diagram.
From concept to structure
After defining the user flow, I moved into mid-fidelity wireframes to refine the layout, emphasizing intuitive navigation and visual clarity.
Designing for the users, not for me
My initial SafeEats designs reflected my personal allergy experiences rather than the diverse needs uncovered through user research. Through user feedback and multiple iterations, I shifted focus from my own assumptions to address the broader pain points users actually faced—like cross-contamination concerns and social dining anxiety that I hadn't fully considered.
TAKEAWAYS
Precision matters when safety is involved: This project made it clear that when designing for health and safety—especially in high-stakes scenarios like food allergies—clarity and precision aren’t optional, they’re essential. Every design choice, from icon placement to text hierarchy, had to prioritize speed, accuracy, and trust.
Even small UI details can affect user trust: Something as simple as emphasizing the allergen with a red outline or improving recall alert hierarchy helped users feel more confident in the product’s reliability.