YUKA App
From scans to subscriptions: A UX case study on improving Yuka's users retention.
Role
Ux Research / Design
Tools
Keynote
Survey Monkey
FigJam
Figma
Waldo
Background
Yuka has transformed how people make healthier food choices with quick barcode scans. While the app excels at engaging first-time users, retaining them beyond their initial scans remains a challenge.
How do we turn one-time users into long-term subscribers?
This case study explores how an Agile UX approach can uncover friction points and design solutions that drive ongoing engagement. Through research, testing, and iteration, we aim to help Yuka to increase and retain paid subscriptions.
The Problem
Yuka is a food-scanning app with 40M users, offering a free core experience and optional premium subscription. Despite strong engagement, only 5% of monthly users convert to paid, generating $20M/year.
With a 31.5% monthly download growth, the challenge is clear: how to drive more subscriptions, especially in regions like Europe where users are less inclined to pay for apps.
The Solution
“Done right, subscription businesses can provide consumers with value, convenience, and personalized offerings while fostering stability and growth.” — McKinsey & Co
The goal is to increase conversion from free to paid users without compromising the core experience.
We’ll do this by understanding user unmet needs and building an MVP that showcases the value of premium features:
Highlighting premium features in the free version to create awareness and interest.
Personalising experiences for each user, increasing subscription perceived value.
Educate free users on what they are missing out to foster exclusivity.
Make switching to premium easy and instantly rewarding.
Discovery Phase.
Lean UX Canvas
To ensure our design solutions effectively address the core challenges, we used the Lean UX Canvas to map out the problem space. This framework helped us articulate business needs, user pain points, hypotheses, and potential solutions, allowing us to prioritise features that could drive meaningful engagement and increase subscription rates.
Prioritaising the MVP
The Lean UX Canvas helped identify key business challenges and desired outcomes, allowing us to formulate hypotheses aimed at increasing user engagement and subscription conversion.
To validate and refine these hypotheses, we conducted Comprehensive Research, including:
• Competitive Benchmarking – Analysing industry standards and best practices.
• User Surveys – Gaining direct insights into user behaviours and pain points.
• Social Sentiment Analysis – Understanding public perceptions and expectations.
These research methods will provided data-driven insights the will help us define an MVP strategy that aligns with both user needs and business goals.
Research.
Competitive Benchmark
To understand Yuka’s position in the market, we compared it against three key competitors, analyzing their strengths, weaknesses, and unique offerings.
Key Takeaways for improvement:
Onboarding – Create a more engaging first-time user experience.
Homepage – Establish a clearer, more structured entry point.
Product Results & Recommendations – Improve scoring visuals and personalise recommendations.
Profile & Preferences – Enhance customisation options for users.
History & Favorites – Make it easier to revisit, save, and organise scanned products.
Online Survey
50%
Users would like
to try app before
paying for subscription
68%
Values
product recommendations
91%
Values saving
their favourite products
79%
Finds product composition
or ingredients important in
their final choice when buying
66%
Finds important
or very important
allergens and intolerance filter
40%
Users would pay
a subscription with additional
premium features
Social Sentiment
Usefulness, Transparency & Community Approvals
"It's great that Yuka is independent from any brands or corporations. Makes it more transparent and I can trust the scores"
"Yuka is a must have for my family's health, I always scan products before buying them."
Effectiveness, Reliability & Trusworthiness
You can instantly find out if something is good, bad or really bad for you….and you can find healthy alternative options."
"I actually stop using many cosmetic products that were my number one go-to before… and my diet! I stopped eating processed food!"
Accuracy Concerns & Product Rating Doubts
"Some of my favourite products are rated bad… Not sure I can trust Yuka's rating"
"Yuka rates some products really bad because of having a few preservatives, even though being FDA approved preservatives."
Recommendation Challenges, Scientific Rigor & Bias
"Yuka rated as unhealthy some cereals but did not give me any other healthier alternatives — what am I supposed to do?"
"Feels like Yuka is bias towards only natural products. I would like to see some links to studies that justify some ingredients being bad"
Defining the MVP.
User Personas & Behavioural Insights
Built from our survey and social sentiment data. These personas reflect our most engaged user types and help us shape our design decisions and prioritise the MVP.
Why User Personas?
In an Agile UX approach, we focus on continuous iterations and user-centered design. By identifying who our users are, their pain points, and their motivations, we can align our product improvements with actual user needs.
User Journey Map
To visualise the end-to-end user experience, we created a User Journey Map, combining insights from User Personas and key findings from our Research Phase. This map helps us better understand user goals, behaviours, pain points, and emotions at each stage of their journey.
By mapping these interactions, we can pinpoint opportunities for improvement, ensuring our design decisions align with user needs resulting on a more seamless experience.
Opportunities for Design Uncovered
Streamlining Onboarding
A clearer, more engaging onboarding experience.
Homepage & Tab Bar
Enhancing navigation & discoverability. Showcasing key functionalities and creating a smoother user flow.
Optimizing Scanning & Results
Clearer rating explanations. Enhanced recommendations to build trust and usability.
Facilitating Better Comparisons
Improved alternative product suggestions can help with decision-making and encourage engagement and healthier choices.
Improving Favorites & Personalization
Smarter organization of favourite products, filtering options, and personalised suggestions can increase engagement and retention.
Strengthening Subscription Value
Highlighting premium features more effectively and offering trial experiences can improve conversion rates.
Hypothesis Prioritisation. MVP
At this stage, we re-evaluated our initial hypotheses using the Hypothesis Prioritisation Canvas to determine the most impactful and feasible solutions that would form our MVP. This canvas helps us validate opportunities, identify quick wins, and rule out risky or low-value ideas.
Ideating the solution.
App Architecture
With a solid understanding of our users and a clear definition of our MVPs, we crafted an app architecture to map out how our solutions come to life. This high-level structure lays the foundation for an improved user flow, ensuring a more seamless and engaging experience.
The goal?
To make navigation effortless, enhance personalisation, and ultimately drive higher conversions to paid users.
Engaging Onboarding – Prompting users to set their preferences from the start, increasing perceived value & retention.
Easy Navigation – A simplified tab bar for effortless flow. Home (profile), Scan, and Library.
Personalisation – A dedicated profile where users can manage dietary preferences.
Better Organisation – A library to store scanned products and categorised lists.
User Flow
This core user flow illustrates how both new and returning users navigate the app. It reflects our goal of simplifying navigation, creating a more intuitive journey, and ultimately driving subscription conversions.
Guest and free users are encouraged to experience the value of premium features early on — such as saving scanned products or building favourites lists. However, we set thoughtful limitations: daily scans are capped, and users can only create one list with a limited number of saved items. This approach helps spark engagement while nudging users toward upgrading to a paid subscription.
Sketching.
Sketches and Lo-Fi Prototypes
Profile
Scan Feature
Favourites
Hi-Fi.
OLD Yuka App
NEW Yuka App
Onboarding
Sign In
Old Tab Bar
New Tab Bar
Redesigned and simplified tab bar supporting user navigation with just three primary actions: Home, Scan, and Library.
• Home leads to a personalised profile with dietary settings, recommendations and scan history.
• Scan stays central for quick access.
• Library offers user's saved product collections and favourites.
Home/Profile
Scan Tool
Library
Dedicated Home/Profile
Simplifying navigation,
Enhancing user control
Reinforcing engagement.
Users can manage their dietary preferences, update allergen settings, review their scan history, and access tailored product recommendations and educational content such as articles and tips.
Save favourite products
Create custom lists
Add personal notes.
Lists can be shared with friends and family, encouraging healthy decisions together.
These personal libraries generate a perceived value for the user becoming a natural incentive to stay subscribed and avoid losing their curated content.
Dedicated User Library
Old Design
New Design
More vibrant, easy-to-read colours
Allergy warning more visual and prominent
Premium Prompts
To drive subscriptions, we introduced smart upgrade prompts during key moments of user engagement.
7 scans per day
1 custom favourites list
After that a modal box will encourage user to upgrade to
premium to have unlimited scans and lists.
These nudges are designed to be seamless and value-focused, encouraging upgrades without disrupting the user experience.
MPV Validation & Testing
Since this is a self-initiated case study, I didn’t have access to live users or a development team to test the MVP in a real environment. However, following an Agile UX approach, the intention is not to ship a “perfect” product, but to launch a value-focused MVP, observe user behaviour, and iterate quickly.
If this were a live project, the next step would involve:
• Usability testing of key flows (onboarding, scanning, profile setup).
• Tracking user engagement and conversion data post-launch.
• Iterating based on feedback and performance of premium prompts, scan limits, and personalisation features.
This mindset allows for continuous learning, ensuring that product decisions remain rooted in user needs and business goals, even after the MVP goes live.
Reflections & Takeaways
Learnings
1- Embracing an Agile UX Mindset
• Learned to prioritize and iterate fast, rather than aiming for perfection upfront.
• The Agile Canvas and MVP approach helped me focus on what’s most valuable for both users and the business.
• Made peace with designing without immediate testing, while planning for future validation.
2- Data-Driven Design Decisions
• Used real insights from surveys and sentiment analysis to guide the experience.
• Research helped challenge assumptions and uncover hidden user needs.
• Validating through data built confidence in the direction taken.
3- Balancing User Needs with Business Goals
• Always considered user engagement and usability, but without losing sight of conversion.
• Created features that encourage subscriptions without compromising free user value.
• Focused on long-term retention, not just quick wins.
Impact & Next Steps
- Anticipated Impact
Although this is a personal project, the redesigned Yuka experience aims to:
• Improve user engagement with a more intuitive and personalized experience
• Encourage subscription conversions through strategic feature limitations and prompts
• Increase retention by giving users reasons to return — like saved lists and tailored suggestions
- What's next?
• Prototype Testing: If this were live, the MVP would be tested with real users to validate assumptions and uncover usability issues.
• Continuous Iteration: Following the Agile mindset, future updates would be based on usage data and user feedback.
• Scalability: Exploring advanced features like AI-powered recommendations and deeper personalization as the product evolves.
Final Thoughts
This project was a deep dive into improving an already popular product by focusing on what matters most: real user needs and sustainable business value.
From defining hypotheses to building a lean MVP, every step was guided by research, empathy, and a continuous drive to simplify and enhance the experience.
What I’m Taking Away
• The power of structured UX thinking in shaping product direction
• How small changes — like reorganizing a tab bar or limiting a free feature — can have big strategic impact
• The importance of staying curious, asking the right questions, and always designing with intent
Thanks for reading. This project reflects not just my design process, but my passion for building products that make people’s lives a little better — and businesses a little stronger.