Applied Medical

Catering Request

Applied Medical is a global medical device company that designs, manufactures, and distributes innovative medical devices used by healthcare professionals around the world.

During my UX Design internship at Applied Medical, I worked across the full UX design process, from research and ideation to high-fidelity design and prototyping. As a vertically integrated company, Applied Medical develops and manufactures its products entirely in-house while also creating internal tools that support day to day operations. My internship project centered on designing a new internal application for the hospitality team that simplified the process of submitting and managing catering requests for employees across the company.

Scope: UX Design, UI Design, and Prototyping

Role: UX-UI Designer

Tools: Figma

Timeline: May 2026 – August 2026 (Summer Internship)

Contributions:

  • Led end to end UX/UI design as the sole designer
  • Conducted competitive research to define UX best practices
  • Designed 11 end to end user flows spanning three user roles, resulting in 28 high fidelity desktop screens and interactive prototypes.
  • Streamlined internal catering request workflows by designing a more intuitive and efficient user experience.

Final Designs

Hi-Fidelity Designs

The Goal

Simplify 
the catering request process through intuitive, role-based workflows

Increase efficiency 
by reducing manual effort, improving administrative tools, and streamlining processes

Create a scalable solution 
aligned with Applied Medical’s design system and future product growth

Who We Are Designing For

1. Requestors

Employees creating catering requests for events

2. Hospitality Admin

Administrators managing and fulfilling orders

3. Approvers

Stakeholders reviewing and approving the requests

Internship Milestones

To structure this internship into clear, actionable goals, I established three key milestones to help guide my progress.

01.

Preliminary Research & Ideation

Understand the current experience, identify opportunities, and generate design directions.

02.

Design Exploration & System Expansion

Develop a scalable solution across three user roles through iterative design.

03.

Design Refinement & Validation

Optimize the experience through stakeholder feedback and product decisions.

01. Preliminary Research & Ideation

Key Activities

Understanding the User Journey

I first studied the current user flow to understand how each user role interacted throughout the catering process. This chart provided a clear picture of the current system, helping me identify dependencies, understand existing workflows, and recognize opportunities for improvement.

General user flow for placing a catering request between the 3 user groups

Preliminary Research

I began by analyzing the current catering platform to understand existing workflows, user interactions, and opportunities for improvement.

The admin experience presented several usability challenges:

  • Dense information displays
  • Extensive horizontal scrolling
  • Limited organization within a spreadsheet-style interface

Original Admin View

Original Requestor View

Additionally, both the Requestor and Admin experiences used an outdated visual design that did not align with Applied Medical’s current design system.

These findings helped identify key areas of focus for the new platform, including improving information hierarchy, streamlining workflows, enhancing usability, and creating a more cohesive experience across user roles.

Idea Generation

I explored a several commercial catering platforms and local catering providers. Through this activity, I focused on analyzing platforms across three key areas:

  1. Layout and content organization
  2. Request form structure and user flows
  3. Catering-specific features and functionality

These insights provided inspiration for structuring the requester experience and identifying design patterns that could be adapted to Applied Medical’s internal catering application.

Table Inspiration

I evaluated ways to improve the existing administrative tables, which contained a large amount of information and required excessive horizontal scrolling.

I explored multiple approaches for organizing data to improve its information hierarchy. Topics include:

  • filtering
  • sorting
  • dropdown menus
  • alternative table layouts

Together, these activities informed key design decisions and revealed opportunities for how Catering Requests could be expanded and improved in the next phase of development.

02. Design Exploration & System Expansion

Key Activities:

Design Strategy

I began by reviewing the URS to understand the Hospitality team’s goals with the new application and translate their requirements into an intuitive user experience. I approached the project in phases, beginning with the simpler Requestor experience of placing a Catering Request:

Initial Design: (Requestor)

First design without stakeholder feedback and prior to learning how to implement the design system

Final Iteration

Final design fully implementing the design system and stakeholder feedback

Requestor order form when placing a catering request

Based on stakeholder feedback, I expanded the requestor’s experience by introducing additional order management capabilities, such as allowing users to duplicate, edit, cancel, and manage requests after submission:

Initial Design: (Requestor)

Prior to stakeholder feedback, all active and past requests were together. Users only had the option to preview and duplicate their requests

Final Iteration

After multiple iterations, active and past requests were separated. Users now have the option to preview, duplicate, edit, and cancel their requests.

Requestor flow of all requests and its new functionalities

Design Challenge

After finalizing the Requestor experience, I shifted my focus to the Admin interface, which introduced significantly more workflows, and data management requirements.

One of the largest design challenges centered around the Admin data tables. The existing interface displayed a large number of fields, requiring extensive horizontal scrolling and making it difficult to quickly scan information.

Initial Design: (Admin)

During early design discussions, the Hospitality team preferred keeping every available field visible and initially rejected the idea of simplifying the table.

Drawbacks to this design:

  • Multiple items within an order were not able to be grouped together under one order number since they contained food-specific information (needed their separate rows)
  • Horizontal scroll was extreme
  • User’s will still experience information overload

First Iteration of the Admin Landing Page

Rather than removing information, I continued exploring alternative layouts and demonstrated how prioritizing the most frequently used fields could improve readability and efficiency while still preserving access to the remaining data.

Introduced a drop down option that reduced the tables horizontal scroll and grouped order items together in an organized format:

2nd Iteration:

Admin Data Table Incorporating Dropdown Order Summary

Through several rounds of further iteration and discussion with the Hospitality team, we identified the highest priority fields and placed them on the main table, secondary (item-specific information) was placed within the dropdown, and tertiary information was relocated to a detailed view accessed by selecting a specific request.

Final Iteration:

The final iteration created a cleaner, more scannable interface without sacrificing access to important data.

The horizontal scroll was able to be removed completely and helped reduce cognitive overload

Viewing Requestor Order Details

With the core workflows complete, I shifted my focus from expanding the application to refining the experience through stakeholder collaboration and iterative design improvements.

03. Design Refinement & Validation

Key Activities:

Following stakeholder discussions, several proposed flows were removed or consolidated after determining they did not provide sufficient value to the overall application. Simplifying the experience reduced unnecessary complexity and allowed the team to focus on the interactions users performed most frequently.

Email Template

Challenge: The initial URS required administrators to manually send customizable emails from the platform if changes were made to Requestors orders after the submission.

During design reviews, we questioned whether this workflow was necessary, as many communications (e.g., confirmations and status updates) could be automated through the backend.


Current Messaging System

Newly Designed Email Modal

Iteration: I explored a customizable email template that allowed administrators to edit content and select recipients.

As discussions continued, we compared this approach with an automated solution and evaluated the trade offs between flexibility, efficiency, and long-term maintainability.

Outcome: TBD

Admin Tool Bar

Initial Admin Tool Bar

Challenge: The initial Administrator interface included numerous toolbar actions, creating visual clutter and competing with the page’s primary content.

Iteration: Through several rounds of iteration, I consolidated less frequently used actions into a kebab menu and a settings page, reserving the toolbar for the most essential actions while keeping order-specific functionality easily accessible.

Outcome: This refinement reduced visual clutter, improved content hierarchy, and allowed users to focus on key information without sacrificing functionality.

Tool Bar, Kebab Menu, and Settings Page

I am pleased to present to you a polished, user-centered Catering solution that balanced business requirements, stakeholder needs, and usability principles for Applied Medical

Design Walkthrough

Future Considerations

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Thanks for Reading!
Let’s Get in Touch

madiloyd@icloud.com