Nando's Mobile Ordering UX Writing and Design
Miha N
Published
PROBLEM
Brand voice stops one you open the app:
Most food apps use neutral, interchangeable language. This creates a quiet but real disconnect: a brand that’s warm and cheeky in marketing becomes cold and transactional the moment you actually try to order.
Generic copy everywhere: Error messages, empty states, and confirmations that could belong to any app.
Friction at key moments: Unclear onboarding, payment anxiety, and no reassurance when things go wrong.
GOAL - Microcopy that earns its words
Create UX copy that reduces friction at stress moments, builds trust during sensitive interactions like payment, maintains Nando’s playful voice without sacrificing clarity, and makes every screen feel like it was written by a person, not a template.
APPROACH - Studying the voice before writing the words
Before writing a single line of copy, the tone of voice had to be mapped. Nando’s brand language is playful, cheeky, warm, and surprisingly self-aware. It never takes itself too seriously, but it’s never unclear either.
Wrote multiple copy variants per screen and filtered for the balance of clarity and personality.
Used a simple tension test: would a user still understand this immediately?
Key microcopy decisions
ONBOARDING - FIRST SCREEN
ERROR STATE - PAYMENT FAILED
EMPTY BASKET STATE
ORDER CONFIRMED
Conversational, never corporate FEATURE ADDITION - Spice Roulette: making indecision fun The Spice Roulette feature started with a simple observation: choosing your heat level can feel like a commitment. But what if that moment of uncertainty became part of the fun?
HOW IT WORKS:
Set your spice range
Tap the card to spin
Roulette lands on a level
Background shifts colour
Suggested dish pops up
Why this matters: The feature accounts for spice anxiety, dietary needs, and pain thresholds, without making those concerns feel like obstacles. The fun is the surface. The safety is the structure underneath.
INTERACTION DESIGN NOTES:
Quick bottle shake animation after the spin: tactile, brand-consistent payoff
Ticking roulette sound cue heightens anticipation during the spin
Sauce bottle lands: the moment of reveal is a micro-celebration
Background colour shift reinforces the result and shows the chosen meal What this project demonstrates This project wasn’t about redesigning Nando’s app from scratch. It was about asking a focused question: what happens to a brand when its voice moves from marketing into product?
The answer lives in small decisions: a confirmation message, an error state, a feature name. Those moments accumulate into something that either feels like the brand, or doesn’t. The goal was to make sure they do.