Crypworkz
UI UX Case Study
RescueMeal tackles food insecurity by connecting food rescue organizations with food truck operators to deliver fresh meals to underserved communities. The platform streamlines event coordination, ingredient sourcing, and meal distribution while offering tax incentives to participating businesses.
Summary
RescueMeal addresses Indianapolis's critical food insecurity crisis, where 242,000 Marion County residents (25% of the population) rely on food assistance programs like SNAP and food pantries. The platform connects food truck chefs with food rescue organizations to transform rescued ingredients into fresh meals, leveraging the city's 2,255 restaurants and 160+ food trucks as potential contributors.
Client:
Duration:
3 Months
Project Status:
Currently in Development
Industry
Social Impact, Nonprofit Technology
My Role:
I led product design for RescueMeal, conducting user interviews, creating personas and scenarios, designing interactive prototypes in Figma, and facilitating user testing that identified 15+ design improvements
The Team
3 UX Researchers
2Â UI Designer
Tools Used:
Users face challenges in building confidence, mastering networking conversations, preparing for events in uncertain situations, and sustaining meaningful professional connections.
Note: Emily's persona was built based on data gathered from user research.
What are the 2 key pain-points?
1. Mastering Networking Conversations Effectively
Professionals often struggle to start and sustain engaging conversations, limiting success.
2. Networking Event Preparation & Sustaining Connections
Professionals struggle to identify key connections, strategize for events, and follow up, limiting long-term opportunities.
Note:
We identified two key pain points by analyzing data from user interviews, surveys, personas, and user flows.
The AI-powered MetaHuman.
Boost your networking skills with a lifelike MetaHuman that helps you prep, practice, and perfect conversations with real-time feedback.
Your AI-powered networking coach
Practice real conversations with a lifelike MetaHuman. Refine your approach and build confidence before you walk in.
Personalizing the learning experience
By setting clear goals and time limits, we made the learning journey focused, manageable, and tailored to participants' needs for greater impact.
Test your skills with MetaHuman
Put your networking abilities to the test in a realistic conversation
Personalized Progress Score & Feedback Report
Track your growth over time, identify strengths, and discover specific ways to improve with actionable insights.
Learn, and grow with your MetaHuman
Ask real-time questions, sharpen your thinking with brain teasers, and receive personalized performance reports.
From practice to people: Let’s make those connections count
Confident and ready, you’ll turn small talk into solid connections with tailored conversation starters, smart attendee suggestions, and seamless follow-ups.
Discover events around you
Get a personalized feed of nearby networking events. So you’re always ready to connect.
Meet the right people, not just anyone
Get smart connection recommendations with built-in reasons and icebreakers.
Real talk, real connections - Made easy
Spark meaningful chats with tailored prompts, then save key insights.
Smart, personal follow-ups that feel real.
Get gentle reminders and personalized follow-ups that feel natural.
Was it actually helpful? Let the stats talk
Following our post-launch UX satisfaction survey, we gathered valuable insights—here’s what the data reveals about the user experience.
User Satisfaction (CSAT): Measures how happy or satisfied users are with a product or experience, usually on a simple scale.
Net Promoter Score (NPS): Gauges the likelihood that users would recommend a product to others, indicating overall loyalty and satisfaction.
System Usability Scale (SUS): A standardized 10-question survey that produces a single score reflecting perceived usability of a system.
Time on Task (ToT): Measures how long it takes users to complete a specific task, indicating efficiency and ease of use.
Challenges
Not always smooth sailing...But I steered through
Every step came with its own set of challenges—but each obstacle helped shape a smarter, more thoughtful solution.
Challenge 1: The lag that breaks the flow
Humans naturally respond within 200–500ms,while AI delays of 1.5–3 seconds can feel awkward and disrupt flow. Delays over 2 seconds can drop engagement by 40%. This responsiveness gap becomes even more noticeable in real-time conversations, especially during networking or coaching scenarios where timing is key to maintaining rapport.
Solution 1: Ensuring real-time, seamless conversations
To reduce latency and keep conversations natural, we used Deepgram’s Aura for real-time TTS under 200ms. NVIDIA ACE and Convai powered lifelike speech AI in Unreal Engine MetaHumans for realistic interactions. On-device processing ensures speed and privacy, making networking feel smooth, secure, and human.
What’s in it for organizers?
Event organizers may hesitate to host their events on new platforms due to concerns over reach, engagement, and the platform’s ability to provide valuable features for their events. Building credibility and showcasing unique, organizer-friendly features becomes essential to earn their trust and participation.
Phased rollout
We initially launch as a networking skill-building platform, focusing on helping users gain confidence and refine their abilities. As the user base grows, we graduallyintroduce event integration, ensuring a seamless transition to real-world networking.Â
Behind the screens: What I really learned
From design decisions to real-world testing, this journey came packed with surprises, setbacks, and skills I never knew I needed—here’s what I took away.
Real problems > Assumptions
Starting with experience mapping and interviews, we learned that people don’t struggle with “networking” itself, they struggle with what to say, how, and when. Generic advice didn’t help users; we had to zoom in on the real friction points to design something useful.
Practice beats passive learning
Users were watching tons of videos, reels and LinkedIn posts, but rarely putting tips into practice.
Netwise shifted this by offering interactive, repeatable practice which is the missing piece in traditional learning.
Human-like timing matters
Latency isn’t just a tech metric, it’s a trust breaker. Delays over 1.5 seconds made conversations feel robotic and disconnected, people noticed even slight lags.
Iterate like your UX depends on it
Usability testing at mid-fidelity saved us from building flawed flows into high-fidelity screens. Testing early and often helped us catch what wireframes couldn’t.
Micro Interactions
These small, intentional details reduce friction and make each interaction feel responsive, human, and rewarding.
Proud to have collaborated closely with cross-functional teams to bring Netwise to life.
Here’s to the brilliant minds who turned vision into reality—designers, developers, and strategists who made Netwise come to life.
Devanshu Magiawala , Rahi Shah, Himali Trivedi, Hiren Dhakecha
Ankush Ashok Kumar (That's me 👋)
