Friday night dinner with friends or family is a deeply ingrained Jewish tradition. But what happens when someone has nowhere to go?

There are organisations that help match people in need of a host, with the experience being similar to a “blind date” for both parties. However, it can either be a fun evening…or a nightmare.

User Research

But how many people are actually looking for meal opportunities anyway?

Well, in Tel Aviv alone, the answer is: a lot. ITV, an educational organisation, hold two large-venue Friday night meals twice a month, and they are always full. White City Shabbat (WCS), another Shabbat hosting organisation, have 60,000 members on their mailing list and yet only 150 host families, who are always solidly booked. In addition, when ITV and WCS have events on the same date, they are always at full capacity with a long waiting list.

What’s more, with the current system, those looking for a dinner host cannot find one that fits their needs. After all, if you are a young attractive lady, you would hardly want to be hosted by a strange and old “nebuch”…!

The Users: I started my user research by speaking to many and found they fall into two categories: Guests and Hosts. Guests are those looking for a place for dinner, Hosts are those willing to accommodate Guests. Both categories of users are tech savvy, have smart-phones and are part of social networks.

Guests

Based on my interviews, Guests’ needs are:

1. To recreate the family atmosphere.
2. To bless the Sabbath.
3. To meet new people.

Guests fall into the following categories:

• New Immigrants to Israel (Olim Chadashim)
• Tourists
• Israelis living away from home
• Lone Soldiers

Hosts

Based on my interviews with Hosts, their motives are:

1. Good will.
2. Paying it forward having benefitted from others’ good will.
3. Meeting new people.
4. Fulfilling the mitzah of hosting guests.

Hosts fall into the following categories:

• Families
• Young professionals
• Synagogue members

Market Research

After speaking with Guests and Hosts to learn how they currently go about finding each other, and while doing research on the platforms that offer a “shidduch” service, it appeared that my audience participate in WhatsApp Groups, websites, google spreadsheets and forums.

All these current “solutions”​, however, are problematic for the following reasons:

• Booking a Shabbat meal can be expensive.
• Being hosted is often perceived as a tourist experience.
• Hosts often treat these sites as online dating platforms.
• For free meals, third party involvement is required.
• Guests and Hosts lack control over compatibility.
• No ability to leave reviews of the experience.
• Concerns over personal safety for both parties.

The Solution: ‘Challah Share’

Make a ‘Shidduch” between Couchsurfing and Eatwith, ‘Challah Share’, will be a platform where Hosts and Guests can find each other, directly, review each other’s profile and see if they have mutual friends to increase the chances of a pleasant evening. The product will be in the form of a mobile app, so that users, especially tourists, can use it on the go. Meals will be free, unless they are organised by communities who will be able to charge to cover their costs.

Ideation

By researching social dining apps as well as home hosting apps I made an inspiration board that helped to guide me in terms of general design, color scheme and information set up.

I could see which features and information worked, and which did not, while always keeping in mind the particular needs of the users. The main focus was in the design of the ‘meal event’ as this would be at core of the product and the page that would eventually convert users.

User Flow Map

All the potential paths through the app were designed as a map, to see a high level flow and ensure that all possible steps a user could take were covered.

Wireframes

To illustrate our understanding of the process, let’s view it through the eyes of a particular persona.

Persona

Yael, a new immigrant (Olah Hadasha) to Israel from Vienna, age 30, single who is now residing in sunny Tel Aviv. She is having Israeli breakfast by herself. She is flicking through her phone and is reminiscing about how her family would always gather around the table on Friday night and catch up on the week’s ups and down over a hot potato kugel. However, now away from home, she feels lonely and sad that she has not received any Friday night dinner invitations this week. Although she is shy she decides to use her recently downloaded Challah Share app to find someone who would be willing to host her for this week’s Friday night dinner.

On-Boarding

Yael, signs up through Facebook. This is the only sign up path offered for two reasons: 1) security, to ensure actual people attend and 2) sociability, so users can see their mutual friends with the host and also see who else will be attending the meal. She then fills in a short profile to help the app make the best possible match of a Host for her.

Yael then proceeds to pick the date and location of her desired meal. The whole calendar month is then intentionally displayed, for although Challah Share is primarily intended for Shabbat meals it also accommodates for those looking for Hosts during the High Holidays, which may well occur on weekdays.

Finding a Meal

After creating a profile and picking a date and location, Yael is presented with the nearest results to her based on a 3km radius (around a 20 minute walk). This is the default radius but can be changed by the user to show more results within longer/shorter walking distance.

In this case, Rina’s dinner attracts Yael’s attention so she clicks on it to find more information, hoping this will be a place where she feels at home and has the Shabbat family atmosphere she is looking for.

The most important information, the host’s review score, level of Shabbat and Kashrut observance, dietary preferences and available places, are viewed at the top of the screen for fast and easy scanning.

As seen from the wireframe below, Yael’s host is a good match for Yael’s level of Shabbat and Kashrut observance. Rina’s meal will also be able to cater for Yael’s preference in food and she can see that Rina has two available places, so she decides to bring a friend with her. Yael reads some more detail provided by the host and sees there will also be singing during the meal - sounds like fun!

It seems that Rina is already hosting 14 people on Yael’s chosen date and it turns out that Yael already knows one of them from her home town. Great! She can also see that previous guests have given Rina top reviews for her hosting skills…she sounds like a proper “Balabusta”.
Mazel Tov Yael, you’ve got a match!

Booking A Meal

Yael then sends Rina an RSVP, displayed as an easy to scan overview of the date and number of guests. Yael also has the option of including any allergies in order to avoid Rina being embarrassed for not preparing the appropriate food. As a gesture of good-will, Yael is encouraged to contribute either wine, challah, salad or dessert to the meal. Rina will soon receive the RSVP where she will then be able to accept or decline Yael’s request.

Keeping Track of Meals

Challah Share includes a ‘My Meals’ tab where all upcoming meal information for both Guests and Hosts can be viewed. From Yael’s side, she can see all the meals she has planned and an icon next to the meal reminding her of her contribution. On Rina’s side, she is able to quickly scan the ‘Hosting’ tab to view the days she is hosting and who is coming. In addition, whenever someone new makes a request to join her meal she can see a notification at the bottom of her screen. The notification will be also be seen in the ‘My Meals’ menu tab.

Usability Testing

The app passed a usability test as experienced by three users.
The users were asked to complete five tasks starting from ‘easy’ and gradually escalated to more challenging tasks. The aim was to see if the app design was easy enough for the users to navigate and identify any bottlenecks. When bottlenecks were encountered, the design changed accordingly.

The tasks set were:

• Complete registration
• Find the results on the map
• Search for Rina Bina’s event and press RSVP
• Look for upcoming meals and say what are you are expected to bring
• Create your own event

The last task was the most challenging. Users were slightly slower in creating their own even, though this may be due to lack of familiarity with the app.

Further Actions needed

• Make an App Logo
• Set a Brand voice
• UI design for the entire app
• Business plan

Design MockUps

Deploying Strategy

To ensure that the app already has Hosts upon launch, Hosts should be recruited before the launch date. The hosts can be located in one particular area, for example, Tel Aviv.

If the Guest user is outside of Tel Aviv he/she will receive a pop up saying
“Oy Gevalt! Challah Share is not available in your area, unless you want to schlep to Tel Aviv”.

Measuring Success

The success of the project can be measured by the following parameters:

• Meals booked
• Meals created
• Referrals to friends
• Active users

Future Features

Currently this project operates as a platform where Guests can find Hosts. Future additional features include:

• Connect with a florist, a wine vendor or bakery, so that guests can send their hosts a ‘Thank You’ present before or after a meal.
• Additional feature in the map option to calculate the distance and directions to a host.

Final Thoughts

As the great early Zionist, Ahad Haam, once said, “More than the Jewish People have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jews”. Regardless of religious observance, Friday night Shabbat dinner is an opportunity for people to connect with others, make stronger bonds and have an experience which is food for both the body and soul.

Indeed, research has shown that thousands of people are actively looking for free social dining opportunities, opportunities which the Challah Share app is the perfect solution to fulfill.

My hope is for an non profit organization to understand the value of this product and take it to complete development, release and maintenance.

A big Thank You and “Shkoyach” to Lior Yair and Eytan Shleizer for the guidance during the project and to Richard Clayton for the editing of the text.

About me: When I’m not baking Challah, I design digital products to make this a fun world . You can check my other projects here.
If you liked my case study clap your hands, raise a glass and say “L’Chaim”!

Making a “Shidduch” between Couchsurfing and EatWith — a UX case study was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.