Jenny Craig needed an app to support their shift to e-commerce that would help customers understand and follow their meal plan without in-person coaching support.
Objective
Create a companion app for Jenny Craig customers to learn, follow, and track their meal plan.
Role
User experience manager, UX research, strategic decision making, end-to-end design
Context
The app also needed to function as a white-label platform, sharing a codebase with Nutrisystem while maintaining Jenny Craig’s distinct brand. This shaped every structural and system decision.
Based on research from actual customers, a completely new journal was designed that makes daily goals visible and logging effortless.
Users see a calorie meter and empty dot indicators at the top of their journal representing each food category. As they log food, the dots fill to show progress for the day.
A prominent log and scan button opens a simple logging flow. Each food shows how it counts toward daily goals before the user commits to logging it.
Water and activity goals live alongside food tracking and can be logged with one tap directly from the journal.
An existing food tracking app had real users and real friction. Before building two new apps from the ground up, users were surveyed to understand what wasn’t working.
Activities conducted:
Key insights:
To support the shift to an e-commerce model, the project transitioned to a common platform with a shared codebase. This scalable architecture allowed for simultaneous feature deployment across multiple brands while preserving unique visual identities.
Mapping the User Journey
Before moving to high-fidelity designs, whiteboarding sessions were utilized to audit and refine the user journey. By architecting a more linear and guided experience, the path from food selection to successful logging was significantly shortened to reduce friction and cognitive load.
This logic informed the development of a modular home screen that adapts to individual needs:
Dynamic Personalization: Smart logic displays specific modules based on user state and history.
Guided Onboarding: Instructional videos, dedicated modules, and timely notices to direct users toward their next steps.
Efficient Workflows: Long-term users are presented with the barcode scanner and quick-log tools immediately upon opening the app.
Contextual Relevance: Tailored views ensure the most relevant tracking tools are always front and center, minimizing unnecessary navigation.
With a significant portion of the Jenny Craig user base falling into the 50+ demographic, it was vital that the app functioned as a tool rather than a barrier.
Typography & Contrast: High-contrast ratios and legible font pairings were prioritized to support system-level font scaling for improved readability.
Dark Mode Support: The introduction of an accessible Dark Mode provided a high-contrast alternative. This was a functional choice to reduce eye strain for users tracking meals in various lighting environments.
Different visualization ideas were evaluated to find the most intuitive way for users to track their daily progress.
Preference Testing: The “Dots” system was selected after outperforming other concepts in clarity and ease of use during unmoderated sessions.
Actionable Results: Feedback from real users helped refine the logging flow, ensuring the interface felt easy to use from the very first day.
To support the shift from in-person coaching to a digital e-commerce model, the app was designed to act as a proactive guide rather than a passive tracker.
Pre-Configured Goals
Daily nutritional targets populate automatically based on the user’s specific plan. As the user loses weight, these targets dynamically recalibrate to ensure the program remains accurate. This automation removes the need to manually calculate requirements or memorize complex rules while logging.
Visual Goal Tracking
The “Dots” System: Empty dots provide a clear mental map of daily needs at a glance.
Positive Reinforcement: Filling in dots gives immediate feedback on what has been accomplished and what remains to be eaten.
The logging flow was rearchitected to prioritize speed, providing multiple paths to entry without sacrificing program accuracy.
Effortless Verification: Displays exact portion counts and nutritional data directly in the search results to eliminate guesswork.
The interface prioritizes high-frequency actions to simplify plan management while balancing core business requirements.
Modules provide a daily snapshot of goals for nutrition, weight, and activity.
A simplified flow shows how food counts toward daily targets before committing to a log.
A one-tap system records specific categories without needing to search the database.
The new app provided the critical infrastructure needed to update the brand from in-person support to a digital-first subscription model.
Reduced Cognitive Load: Automated the most difficult parts of the program, leading to more consistent daily engagement.
Scalable Framework: Created a modular design system that allowed for rapid updates across multiple brand platforms.
Successful Pivot: Successfully bridged the gap between physical food delivery and a self-sufficient digital experience.