Mobile app design and build for Spork: 29 iOS screens where friends suggest a place, vote, re-vote on a tie or spin a wheel. Built in under 6 months.
Spork is a phone app for a group of friends deciding where to eat. Plainbuilt designed and built it full stack and delivered it in under 6 months: 29 iOS screens, from the splash and sign-in to the home list of nearby shops, suggesting a place to friends, voting, a re-vote on a tie and a wheel to spin when nobody can decide. The line the design rests on is on the splash: choices without the challenge.
A group of friends who want to eat out and cannot agree on where. One person opens the app, sees the mom-and-pop shops and restaurants near them with a rating and a distance, and sends a place to the friends they pick. The friends vote from their own phones. The restaurants are the other side: each has a detail page with contact details, distance, ratings, wait time, a gallery, specials and the people who voted for it, plus a business gallery of its own.
Deciding where to eat with friends can end in a long chat and no answer. The splash screen says what Spork is for in four words: choices without the challenge. Every screen after it takes one step out of that chat: a list of places with the facts on each, a way to send one to friends, a vote count, a re-vote when it ties, and a wheel for the night when nothing else settles it.
The full iOS app, 29 screens across these flows: a splash and 3 onboarding slides; sign in and sign up, with Facebook, Google and Apple; forgot password, a 4-digit code and a reset; an Enable Location step; a home with the current location, search and a filter, promo cards, a Moms And Pop Shops grid, a Restaurants Near You list and a See All Shops page; a restaurant detail with contact, distance, ratings, wait time, a gallery, specials and the people who voted, plus a business gallery and a ratings page with a star-by-star breakdown and Rate and Review; a friends tab with Invite and Send Questionnaire; Suggest place to a friend; Suggested Place with vote counts; Re-vote on a tie; a 5-question questionnaire; Can't Decide? Spin the Wheel to Place for you; notifications; and settings for notifications, location, password, terms, privacy and logout. Four tabs sit in the bottom bar: home, notifications, friends, settings.
A person taps a restaurant, opens Suggest place to a friend, ticks the friends and taps Suggest Place. On each friend's phone the place appears on the Suggested Place tab as a card with its rating, its distance and the votes so far. If two places tie, a notification says there is a tie, with a Re-Vote link; the re-vote screen shows the two places one above the other over one Vote button. If the group is still stuck, Can't Decide? Spin the Wheel picks one, and Place for you shows the pick as a card.
Because a vote can tie, and a group that cannot decide needs an ending, not another round. The wheel screen looks different from the rest of the app on purpose: purple and orange segments, a red GO button, a pink pointer, against the app's off-white. The result still lands on the same restaurant card as everything else, so the pick is a real place with a rating and a distance, not a number.
Friends' suggestions land on the Suggested Place tab as restaurant cards, each with a star rating, the distance and a vote count. When two places tie, the app puts the pair on their own screen, one card above the other over one Vote button, so the group votes again on those two and nothing else.
A Can't Decide? screen spins a numbered wheel with a GO button. The result lands on a Place for you screen as a restaurant card with its rating and distance, the same facts the rest of the app shows, so the pick from the wheel is a real place, not a number.
From a restaurant, the person opens Suggest place to a friend, ticks the friends to send it to and taps Suggest Place. The friends tab carries Invite and Send Questionnaire as well; the questionnaire runs 5 questions, one per screen, with a Next button under each.
The home screen reads the current location, offers search and a filter, and runs promo cards across the top. Under them sits a Moms And Pop Shops grid with a See All link, each card with a photo, the name, a star rating and the distance in miles. The four tabs, home, notifications, friends and settings, sit in a bar over the list.
A notifications tab lists what waits on the person: a friend has sent a questionnaire, or a vote has tied. Each line carries its own action, View Questionnaire or Re-Vote, so the next step is one tap from the notice.
The suggested places list shows each restaurant with its rating, its distance and how many votes it has so far. The state of the group's decision sits in the list itself, so nobody has to scroll a chat to find out where the group stands.
When two places tie, the app does not pick one. It puts the pair on their own screen with one Vote button and posts a Re-Vote notification, so the group breaks the tie itself.
Can't Decide? Spin the Wheel has its own screen. The result lands on Place for you as a restaurant card with a rating and a distance, not a number on a wheel, so the spin ends in somewhere to go.
The home grid, the near-you list, the suggested places, the tie screen and the wheel's result all show a photo, the name, a star rating and the distance in miles. A person learns the card once and reads it everywhere.
Built and delivered in under 6 months
One outcome per item, dated, or not disclosed: never an estimate.
Yes. Plainbuilt designed and built it full stack and delivered it in under 6 months.
It helps a group of friends settle where to eat. It lists mom-and-pop shops and restaurants near the person with a rating and a distance, lets them suggest a place to friends, counts the votes, runs a re-vote on a tie, and spins a wheel when nobody can decide.
