Zippy’s — FCH Enterprises Inc.
Streamlining the Meals to Go experience for clarity and efficiency
Project Scope
Zippy’s Meals to Go is a seasonal ordering experience tailored for customers looking to reserve pre-made holiday meal packages for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s.
Piʻikū Co. launched a cross-functional internship program with Zippy’s to optimize the end-to-end flow, making it more intuitive, efficient, and culturally relevant. As one of two product design interns on the team, I led design and research efforts to understand user needs and improve the overall journey.
Team Structure
2 Product Designers (me included)
2 Software Engineers
1 Product Manager
Tools Used
Figma, FigJam, Illustrator, Photoshop, Google Meets, Notion
Timeline
March - June 2025
Impact at a Glance
10 Minutes
Reduced overall ordering time from 20 minutes to 10 minutes or less.
97% simpler
Streamlined pickup dates from 58+ options to 2 actual choices.
Integration
Fully integrated into Zippy’s ordering system with full device responsiveness.
Understanding the Problem
Zippy’s offered Meals to Go for years, but the experience was disconnected, lengthy, and unclear. Customers were redirected to a separate site filled with irrelevant dates and pickup options.
This led to high drop-off rates and support calls, specifically towards middle-aged and elderly users who made up a majority of users of this service.
Industry research shows that up to 70% of users abandon their meal orders if the ordering process is perceived as too long or complicated.
(Baymard Institute)
How might we...
improve the Meals to Go ordering experience so that it's easier, faster, and more intuitive for customers during the busy holiday season?
Key Design Outcomes
These are the three core improvements that transformed the ordering experience into something faster, clearer, and more aligned with customer needs.
01 / Clarity in Pickup Options
Pickup dates were reduced from 58+ to only 2 real options, displayed in clear visual tiles with simplified time slots.
02 / Optimizing Package Display
Location cards now include exact package availability, helping customers avoid surprises and choose confidently. New filters make it faster to find the best match.
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03 / Enhancing Package Transparency
The package details page was redesigned for better visual clarity, faster scanning, and easier package comparisons to support confident, quick decision-making.
Let me show you how we got here - Keep scrolling 😁
Discovery
As a collective, my team began by understanding both customer and internal pain points:
Identify friction points
We interviewed five Zippy’s departments from marketing, operations, digital experience, IT, and customer service to uncover misalignments between customer expectations and system capabilities.
Conduct competitor analysis
I co-led the SWOT analysis of 8 regional and national competitors offering similar holiday meal packages. Leaders in this space emphasized simplified pickup flows and package clarity upfront.
Evaluating the user journey
We mapped the full user journey which highlighted major drop-off points during date/time and location selection, often due to irrelevant options or hidden package details.
Creating the Customer
The initial research identified one of the primary user demographic as middle aged to elderly users. Leihua represents the local customer that balances between busy schedules and tech limitations that need a quick, reliable, and stress-free ordering experience.
Insights & Problem Reframing
With the preliminary research conducted, the key insights we gathered allowed us to reframe the initial problem statement.
Too many irrelevant options created stress and lack of trust in selection process.
Customers wanted to complete orders quickly without second-guessing.
Internal teams needed fewer service calls and better operational alignment.
Below are a few notable quotes that highlight customer concerns, which centered around confusion and lack of clarity in the ordering process.
Revised HMW Statement
Research revealed that the fragmented, unclear ordering experience was driving customers, particularly our majority middle-aged and elderly user base, to default to placing orders through lengthy phone orders instead.
This insight reframed the challenge: we needed to build not just a faster system, but one clear and confidence-building enough to become the preferred choice to meet the needs across all users of varying tech comfort levels.
How might we...
improve the Meals to Go ordering experience to be more intuitive, efficient, and confidence-building, so that customers can order seamlessly online regardless of their digital comfort level during the busy holiday season?
Solution Exploration & Iterations
I led design exploration, rapidly iterating on flows and concepts, and refining based on internal and user feedback.
I facilitated continuous handoff to engineering throughout the process and worked closely with our PM to ensure updates were clear, feasible, and aligned with sprint timelines.
Creating Meals to Go Package Icons
To improve package recognition, I designed a unique set of a 10 new icon system unique to Meals to Go. Each icon was designed to be instantly recognizable, culturally relevant, and scalable across contexts.
The challenge in designing these icons was making sure that they were easily identifiable in context to the products that they were representing and matched the other icons present within the existing Zippy's design system.
Testing & Validation
During the midpoint, we tested our solutions with real users to get feedback on the following objectives:
Objective 01
Validate usability of the new ordering flow in working software.
Objective 02
Conduct a preference test for location card designs.
Preference Tests
After creating 10+ iterative versions of the location cards, it was narrowed down to two designs that my team presented to users that best represented feedback from the Zippy's team.
Assessing User Insights
Our dot voting + sticky note exercise revealed valuable and sometimes unexpected insights that directly informed our design refinements and helped us prioritize improvements.
Here are notable insights from the feedback we received:
User testing favor Option A
Elderly users aged 60+ leaned towards Option A for familiarity, while younger users leaned Option B for visual clarity. However, Option A became the middle ground for design direction.
Map took too much space
Users felt the map took too much space and suggested making it optional.
_JPG.jpg)
Inefficient filter placement
Filtering properties needed to be better integrated into the overall design because it felt disconnected from the experience.
Time selection is confusing
The four-column pill layout was confusing; tabs needed clearer differentiation.
100% completion rate
All of our participants successfully completed the engineering software flow from start to finish with little to no issues.
Implementing Design Changes
We integrated feedback into final refinements and worked closely with engineering to ensure feasibility.
01 / Improved Date & Time Selection
Reworked from a four-column to a three-column layout, with clearer tab switching. On mobile, it switches to a single column for clarity.
02 / Updated Filtering
Based on the feedback on the preference tests and concerns for elderly users in particular, the new design introduces a text-based filter modal with supporting icons for better readability and selection interactions.
03 / Refining the Mobile Map Experience
Made the map collapsible to maximize screen space of locations listed, keeping it as an optional view rather than default.
Full Experience Walkthrough
This video shows the full end-to-end experience, combining all key improvements into one streamlined, ordering flow.
Reflection
I’m grateful to the program leaders at Piʻikū Co. and Zippy’s for giving me and my cohort the opportunity to work on a product that not only solved real business challenges but also honored the broader cultural significance Zippy’s holds in our local community.
Here are ways I grew as a product designer through this experience:
-
Designing with cultural integrity: I learned to embed community values and local traditions into design decisions that directly reflect the local landscape.
-
Aligning business goals + customer needs: Working on a seasonal product like Meals to Go with high stakes taught me to balance operational constraints with creating confident experience that customers can rely on.
-
Delivering under real constraints: Collaborating with engineers and the PM within a limited project window helped me communicate design intent, work within an existing design system, and adapt quickly as scope evolved.
-
Think broadly, design strategically: While I wanted to include every piece of feedback, I learned to step back and focus on the insights that best aligned with Meals to Go’s core goals and impact.
This experience helped me balance vision with reality, move with intention, and design in a way that connects deeply with people.
Next Steps + Recommendations
While our timeline was limited, our team created a resource document for the Zippy’s team that outlined future areas that explores additional features beyond the MVP as they continue building toward the full launch in September 2025. The full resource document is available for review by request.
Here are some of the more notable features within the document:
01 / Order Changes After Checkout
Customer service reported frequent calls from users unable to edit orders after checkout. The new timed modification feature aims to give users the opportunity modify orders in the event of mistakes, reducing customer support calls and manual cancellations by the customer services department.
02 / Future Gifting Feature
Gifting was a popular request identified in meetings with the internal Zippy’s teams, as many customers wanted to send holiday packages to friends and family.
03 / Enhanced Package Clarity
Further refining package groupings and adding inventory indicators for faster, more confident choices.
Mahalo for your time! 🤙
Zippy’s — FCH Enterprises Inc.
Streamlining the Meals to Go experience for clarity and efficiency
Project Scope
Zippy’s Meals to Go is a seasonal ordering experience tailored for customers looking to reserve pre-made holiday meal packages for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s.
Piʻikū Co. launched a cross-functional internship program with Zippy’s to optimize the end-to-end flow, making it more intuitive, efficient, and culturally relevant. As one of two product design interns on the team, I led design and research efforts to understand user needs and improve the overall journey.
Team Structure
2 Product Designers (me included)
2 Software Engineers
1 Product Manager
Tools Used
Figma, Illustrator, Photoshop, Google Meets, Notion
Timeline
March - June 2025
Impact at a Glance
10 Minutes
Reduced overall ordering time from 20 minutes to 10 minutes or less.
97% simpler
Streamlined pickup dates from 58+ options to 2 actual choices.
Integration
Fully integrated into Zippy’s ordering system with full device responsiveness.
Understanding the Problem
Zippy’s offered Meals to Go for years, but the experience was disconnected, lengthy, and unclear. Customers were redirected to a separate site filled with irrelevant dates and pickup options, leading to high drop-off rates and support calls.
Industry research shows that up to 70% of users abandon their meal orders if the ordering process is perceived as too long or complicated.
(Baymard Institute)
How might we...
improve the Meals to Go ordering experience so that it's easier, faster, and more intuitive for customers during the busy holiday season?
Key Design Outcomes
These are the three core improvements that transformed the ordering experience into something faster, clearer, and more aligned with customer needs.
01 / Clarity in Pickup Options
Pickup dates were reduced from 58+ to only 2 real options, displayed in clear visual tiles with simplified time slots.
02 / Optimizing Package Display
Location cards now include exact package availability, helping customers avoid surprises and choose confidently. New filters make it faster to find the best match.
03 / Enhancing Package Transparency
The package details page was redesigned for better visual clarity, faster scanning, and easier package comparisons to support confident, quick decision-making.
Let me show you how we got here - Keep scrolling 😁
Discovery
We began by understanding both customer and internal pain points:
Identify friction points
We interviewed five Zippy’s departments from marketing, operations, digital experience, IT, and customer service to uncover misalignments between customer expectations and system capabilities.
Conduct competitor analysis
I co-led the SWOT analysis of 8 regional and national competitors offering similar holiday meal packages. Leaders in this space emphasized simplified pickup flows and package clarity upfront.
Evaluating the user journey
We mapped the full user journey which highlighted major drop-off points during date/time and location selection, often due to irrelevant options or hidden package details.
Creating the Customer
The initial research identified one of the primary user demographic as middle aged to elderly users. Leihua represents the local customer that balances between busy schedules and tech limitations that need a quick, reliable, and stress-free ordering experience.
Insights & Problem Reframing
With the preliminary research conducted, the key insights we gathered allowed us to reframe the initial problem statement.
Too many irrelevant options created stress and lack of trust in selection process.
Customers wanted to complete orders quickly without second-guessing.
Internal teams needed fewer service calls and better operational alignment.
Below are a few notable quotes that highlight customer concerns, which centered around confusion and lack of clarity in the ordering process.
Revised HMW Statement
Research revealed that the fragmented, unclear ordering experience was driving customers, particularly our majority middle-aged and elderly user base, to default to placing orders through lengthy phone orders instead.
This insight reframed the challenge: we needed to build not just a faster system, but one clear and confidence-building enough to become the preferred choice to meet the needs across all users of varying tech comfort levels.
How might we...
improve the Meals to Go ordering experience to be more intuitive, efficient, and confidence-building, so that customers can order seamlessly online regardless of their digital comfort level during the busy holiday season?
Solution Exploration & Iterations
I led design exploration, rapidly iterating on flows and concepts, and refining based on internal and user feedback.
I facilitated continuous handoff to engineering throughout the process and worked closely with our PM to ensure updates were clear, feasible, and aligned with sprint timelines.
Creating Meals to Go Package Icons
To improve package recognition, I designed a unique set of a 10 new icon system unique to Meals to Go. Each icon was designed to be instantly recognizable, culturally relevant, and scalable across contexts.
The challenge in designing these icons was making sure that they were easily identifiable in context to the products that they were representing and matched the other icons present within the existing Zippy's design system.
Testing & Validation
During the midpoint, we tested our solutions with real users to get feedback on the following objectives:
Objective 01
Validate usability of the new ordering flow in working software.
Objective 02
Conduct a preference test for location card designs.
Preference Tests
After creating 10+ iterative versions of the location cards, it was narrowed down to two designs that my team presented to users that best represented feedback from the Zippy's team.
Assessing User Insights
Our dot voting + sticky note exercise revealed valuable and sometimes unexpected insights that directly informed our design refinements and helped us prioritize improvements.
Here are notable insights from the feedback we received:
User testing favor Option A
Elderly users aged 60+ leaned towards Option A for familiarity, while younger users leaned Option B for visual clarity. However, Option A became the middle ground for design direction.
Map took too much space
Users felt the map took too much space and suggested making it optional.
Inefficient filter placement
Filtering properties needed to be better integrated into the overall design because it felt disconnected from the experience.
Time selection is confusing
The four-column pill layout was confusing; tabs needed clearer differentiation.
100% completion rate
All of our participants successfully completed the engineering software flow from start to finish with little to no issues.
Implementing Design Changes
We integrated feedback into final refinements and worked closely with engineering to ensure feasibility.
01 / Improved Date & Time Selection
Reworked from a four-column to a three-column layout, with clearer tab switching. On mobile, it switches to a single column for clarity.
02 / Updated Filtering
Based on the feedback on the preference tests and concerns for elderly users in particular, the new design introduces a text-based filter modal with supporting icons for better readability and selection interactions.
03 / Refining the Mobile Map Experience
Made the map collapsible to maximize screen space, keeping it as an optional view rather than default.
Full Experience Walkthrough
This video shows the full end-to-end experience, combining all key improvements into one streamlined, ordering flow.
Reflection
I’m grateful to the program leaders at Piʻikū Co. and Zippy’s for giving me and my cohort the opportunity to work on a product that not only solved real business challenges but also honored the broader cultural significance Zippy’s holds in our local community.
Here are ways I grew as a product designer through this experience:
-
Designing with cultural integrity: I learned to embed community values and local traditions into design decisions that directly reflect the local landscape.
-
Aligning business goals + customer needs: Working on a seasonal product like Meals to Go with high stakes taught me to balance operational constraints with creating confident experience that customers can rely on.
-
Delivering under real constraints: Collaborating with engineers and the PM within a limited project window helped me communicate design intent, work within an existing design system, and adapt quickly as scope evolved.
-
Think broadly, design strategically: While I wanted to include every piece of feedback, I learned to step back and focus on the insights that best aligned with Meals to Go’s core goals and impact.
This experience helped me balance vision with reality, move with intention, and design in a way that connects deeply with people.
Next Steps + Recommendations
While our timeline was limited, our team created a resource document for the Zippy’s team that outlined future areas that explores additional features beyond the MVP as they continue building toward the full launch in September 2025. The full resource document is available for review by request.
Here are some of the more notable features within the document:
01 / Order Changes After Checkout
Customer service reported frequent calls from users unable to edit orders after checkout. The new timed modification feature aims to give users the opportunity modify orders in the event of mistakes, reducing customer support calls and manual cancellations by the customer services department.
02 / Future Gifting Feature
Gifting was a popular request identified in meetings with the internal Zippy’s teams, as many customers wanted to send holiday packages to friends and family.
03 / Enhanced Package Clarity
Further refining package groupings and adding inventory indicators for faster, more confident choices.
Mahalo for your time! 🤙
Zippy’s — FCH Enterprises Inc.
Streamlining the Meals to Go experience for clarity and efficiency
Project Scope
Zippy’s Meals to Go is a seasonal ordering experience tailored for customers looking to reserve pre-made holiday meal packages for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s.
Piʻikū Co. launched a cross-functional internship program with Zippy’s to optimize the end-to-end flow, making it more intuitive, efficient, and culturally relevant. As one of two product design interns on the team, I led design and research efforts to understand user needs and improve the overall journey.
Timeline
March - June 2025
Team Structure
2 Product Designers (me included)
2 Software Engineers
1 Product Manager
Tools Used
Figma, Illustrator, Photoshop, Google Meets, Notion
Impact at a Glance
10 Minutes
Reduced overall ordering time from 20 minutes to 10 minutes or less.
97% simpler
Streamlined pickup dates from 58+ options to 2 actual choices.
Integration
Fully integrated into Zippy’s ordering system with full device responsiveness.
Understanding the Problem
Zippy’s offered Meals to Go for years, but the experience was disconnected, lengthy, and unclear. Customers were redirected to a separate site filled with irrelevant dates and pickup options, leading to high drop-off rates and support calls.
Industry research shows that up to 70% of users abandon their meal orders if the ordering process is perceived as too long or complicated.
(Baymard Institute)
How might we...
improve the Meals to Go ordering experience so that it's easier, faster, and more intuitive for customers during the busy holiday season?
Key Design Outcomes
These are the three core improvements that transformed the ordering experience into something faster, clearer, and more aligned with customer needs.
01 / Clarity in Pickup Options
Pickup dates were reduced from 58+ to only 2 real options, displayed in clear visual tiles with simplified time slots.
03 / Enhancing Package Transparency
The package details page was redesigned for better visual clarity, faster scanning, and easier package comparisons to support confident, quick decision-making.
Let me show you how we got here
- Keep scrolling 😁
Discovery
We began by understanding both customer and internal pain points:
Identify friction points
We interviewed five Zippy’s departments from marketing, operations, digital experience, IT, and customer service to uncover misalignments between customer expectations and system capabilities.
Conduct competitor analysis
I co-led the SWOT analysis of 8 regional and national competitors offering similar holiday meal packages. Leaders in this space emphasized simplified pickup flows and package clarity upfront.
Evaluating the user journey
We mapped the full user journey which highlighted major drop-off points during date/time and location selection, often due to irrelevant options or hidden package details.
Creating the Customer
The initial research identified one of the primary user demographic as middle aged to elderly users. Leihua represents the local customer that balances between busy schedules and tech limitations that need a quick, reliable, and stress-free ordering experience.
Insights & Problem Reframing
With the preliminary research conducted, the key insights we gathered allowed us to reframe the initial problem statement.
Too many irrelevant options created stress and lack of trust in selection process.
Customers wanted to complete orders quickly without second-guessing.
Internal teams needed fewer service calls and better operational alignment.
Revised HMW Statement
Research revealed that the fragmented, unclear ordering experience was driving customers, particularly our majority middle-aged and elderly user base, to default to placing orders through lengthy phone orders instead.
This insight reframed the challenge: we needed to build not just a faster system, but one clear and confidence-building enough to become the preferred choice to meet the needs across all users of varying tech comfort levels.
How might we...
improve the Meals to Go ordering experience to be more intuitive, efficient, and confidence-building, so that customers can order seamlessly online regardless of their digital comfort level during the busy holiday season?
Below are a few notable quotes that highlight customer concerns, which centered around confusion and lack of clarity in the ordering process.
Solution Exploration & Iterations
I led design exploration, rapidly iterating on flows and concepts, and refining based on internal and user feedback.
I facilitated continuous handoff to engineering throughout the process and worked closely with our PM to ensure updates were clear, feasible, and aligned with sprint timelines.
Creating Meals to Go
Package Icons
To improve package recognition, I designed a unique set of a 10 new icon system unique to Meals to Go. Each icon was designed to be instantly recognizable, culturally relevant, and scalable across contexts.
The challenge in designing these icons was making sure that they were easily identifiable in context to the products that they were representing and matched the other icons present within the existing Zippy's design system.
Testing & Validation
During the midpoint, we tested our solutions with real users to get feedback on the following objectives:
Objective 01
Validate usability of the new ordering flow in working software.
Objective 02
Conduct a preference test for location card designs.
Preference Tests
After creating 10+ iterative versions of the location cards, it was narrowed down to two designs that my team presented to users that best represented feedback from the Zippy's team.
Assessing User Insights
Our dot voting + sticky note exercise revealed valuable and sometimes unexpected insights that directly informed our design refinements and helped us prioritize improvements.
Here are notable insights from the feedback we received:
User testing favor Option A
Elderly users aged 60+ leaned towards Option A for familiarity, while younger users leaned Option B for visual clarity. However, Option A became the middle ground for design direction.
Map took too much space
Users felt the map took too much space and suggested making it optional.
Inefficient filter placement
Filtering properties needed to be better integrated into the overall design because it felt disconnected from the experience.
Time selection is confusing
The four-column pill layout was confusing; tabs needed clearer differentiation.
100% completion rate
All of our participants successfully completed the engineering software flow from start to finish with little to no issues.
Implementing Design Changes
We integrated feedback into final refinements and worked closely with engineering to ensure feasibility.
01 / Improved Date & Time Selection
Reworked from a four-column to a three-column layout, with clearer tab switching. On mobile, it switches to a single column for clarity.
02 / Updated Filtering
Based on the feedback on the preference tests and concerns for elderly users in particular, the new design introduces a text-based filter modal with supporting icons for better readability and selection interactions.
03 / Refining the Mobile Map Experience
Made the map collapsible to maximize screen space, keeping it as an optional view rather than default.
Full Experience Walkthrough
This video shows the full end-to-end experience, combining all key improvements into one streamlined, ordering flow.
Reflection
I’m grateful to the program leaders at Piʻikū Co. and Zippy’s for giving me and my cohort the opportunity to work on a product that not only solved real business challenges but also honored the broader cultural significance Zippy’s holds in our local community.
Here are ways I grew as a product designer through this experience:
-
Designing with cultural integrity: I learned to embed community values and local traditions into design decisions that directly reflect the local landscape.
-
Aligning business goals + customer needs: Working on a seasonal product like Meals to Go with high stakes taught me to balance operational constraints with creating confident experience that customers can rely on.
-
Delivering under real constraints: Collaborating with engineers and the PM within a limited project window helped me communicate design intent, work within an existing design system, and adapt quickly as scope evolved.
-
Think broadly, design strategically: While I wanted to include every piece of feedback, I learned to step back and focus on the insights that best aligned with Meals to Go’s core goals and impact.
This experience helped me balance vision with reality, move with intention, and design in a way that connects deeply with people.
Next Steps + Recommendations
While our timeline was limited, our team created a resource document for the Zippy’s team that outlined future areas that explores additional features beyond the MVP as they continue building toward the full launch in September 2025. The full resource document is available for review by request.
Here are some of the more notable features within the document:
01 / Order Changes After Checkout
Customer service reported frequent calls from users unable to edit orders after checkout. The new timed modification feature aims to give users the opportunity modify orders in the event of mistakes, reducing customer support calls and manual cancellations by the customer services department.
02 / Future Gifting Feature
Gifting was a popular request identified in meetings with the internal Zippy’s teams, as many customers wanted to send holiday packages to friends and family.
03 / Enhanced Package Clarity
Further refining package groupings and adding inventory indicators for faster, more confident choices.
