Vegfort

Project Overview

Client/Partner: Meatless Monday China (Advisory)
Industry: Sustainable F&B, Social Impact Tech
Timeline: 10 weeks (2022)
My Role: Lead UX Researcher & Service Designer

Plant-based restaurants in China were growing in number but remained fragmented. Owners lacked shared learning channels and struggled to sustain visibility or exchange operational insights. How might we help independent plant-forward restaurants share knowledge and grow together as a movement?

Understanding the Challenge

In China’s emerging plant-based market, restaurants operate in isolation — lacking the shared playbooks and customer feedback loops that mainstream dining chains rely on.
To uncover opportunities, I analyzed the PESTEL factors shaping the industry (social adoption, supply chain, regulation, culture) and interviewed stakeholders including Meatless Monday China coordinators and restaurant owners.

Key insights:

• Awareness of sustainability is rising, but restaurants lack trusted spaces to exchange operational insights.

• Diners want to support plant-forward businesses but struggle to discover authentic ones.

• There’s no lightweight digital mechanism to connect both sides into a shared movement.

Framing the Design Opportunity

We reframed the challenge from “creating a marketing tool” to designing a self-sustaining ecosystem:

How might we connect restaurants, diners, and advocates so that shared knowledge and visibility reinforce each other?

This required both community architecture and tangible UX expression — a system that motivates participation, not just content posting.

Research-Driven Concept Development

I mapped the ecosystem to identify value exchanges between three stakeholders:

1. Restaurants – share experiences, gain exposure, and attract diners.

2. Diners – discover venues, learn sustainability stories, and contribute feedback.

3. Advocates / NGOs – support education and visibility.

Using iterative prototyping and testing across three rounds, I validated assumptions around clarity, motivation, and usability:

• Round 1 – Impression Testing: Did users understand the purpose at first glance?

• Round 2 – Ecosystem Reflection: How could the model stay valuable beyond early adopters?

• Round 3 – Usability Testing: Where could we simplify navigation and reinforce reciprocity?

Final Design

The final solution supports two personas:

• Restaurant owners can share stories, exchange operations insights, and showcase sustainability efforts.

• Consumers can discover venues, participate in events, and contribute reviews — reinforcing the community loop

✦ Restaurant Profile

✦ Event List

✦ Event Details MECE knowledge centre that provides clear learning path and contextual guidance into assessment workflows, providing clear explanations for every step.

Impact & Reflection

Vegfort demonstrates how ecosystem thinking and research-driven prototyping can turn a social issue into a designable system.
It’s a concept-stage foundation for future extensions — such as “vibe-based” restaurant discovery or integration with existing vegetarian apps — to test participation models in real environments.

Key Strengths Demonstrated:

• Translating social research into actionable product concepts

• Balancing service design, UX, and product storytelling

• Visualizing system-level value exchange through user flows and UI