Reducing Decision Fatigue, One Meal at a Time — Zomato Case Study
Day Plan is a meal-planning feature designed for Zomato that uses AI to help users plan breakfast, lunch, and dinner in advance — without giving up control over what they eat.
Role
UX Researcher/UI Designer
Timeline
May 23, 2026
Project Type
Concept based
Tools
Figma
The Problems
Zomato users don't have a discovery problem — they have a repetition problem. The same decision (what to eat) gets made three separate times a day, every day. That's decision fatigue disguised as a browsing task.
What I explored (and rejected)
Approach 1 — Fully Scheduled Orders: AI plans and places the order automatically.
Problem: Users felt locked into a plan they didn't choose in the moment. Removed too much agency.
Approach 2 — Reordering Past Meals: Suggest previous orders instead of planning ahead.
Problem: Cut down repetition, but didn't actually solve planning — it was reactive, not proactive.
Both approaches solved a version of the problem, but not the real one: users wanted less daily decision-making without losing control over the outcome.
The Design Decision
Day Plan suggests a full day's meals in advance using AI, but every meal stays:
Skippable — pause any meal without breaking the plan
Swappable — change the dish
Editable — change the restaurant
Modifiable anytime — right up until the moment of ordering
The feature automates the thinking, not the ordering.
Design details that mattered
Onboarding illustration: Designed warm, playful visuals specifically to soften the idea of "AI is planning your food for you" — making automation feel helpful, not controlling.
Notification copy: Written in Zomato's existing playful, conversational tone rather than generic system alerts — so the feature felt native to the brand, not bolted on.
Key takeaway
The right solution wasn't the most automated one — it was the one that removed effort while preserving the user's sense of control.