Savr Recipes (Concept)
Overview:
To help home cooks of all levels to cook any meal, I participated in a design sprint, enabling rapid testing and prototyping of potential solutions. The primary goal was to enhance users' mastery, confidence, and overall enjoyment of cooking.
Roles:
UX/UI Designer, Visual Designer
Duration:
1 week
Platform:
Mobile iOS
Project type:
Student, Google Ventures Sprint
First, let’s define our problem space!
Learning how to cook is no easy feat! Not everyone is an Iron Chef, but how might we make recipes easier for aspiring home cooks to follow?
5 days to design and deliver! Let’s go!
Having only a week to complete the task provided valuable insight into the key priorities; I recognized the significance of data synthesis and usability testing to create a product that effectively minimized frustrations and eliminated cooking roadblocks.
Day 1
Affinity Map
User Personas
User Flow
Day 2
Lightning Demos
Crazy 8s
Day 4
Wireframes
Prototyping
Day 3
Storyboard
Day 5
Usability Testing
Refining prototype
DAY 1
Ingesting the user feedback using an affinity map.
These five categories emerged through my research, shedding light on the challenges cooks face and the desires they have to enhance their cooking experiences, which will make cooking more enjoyable.
Cooking goals
Check My Progress
Preparation Issues
Recipe Struggles
Efficiency
Let’s cook up a user persona.
Leveraging a User Persona, such as Nick, allows me to empathize with the typical home cook and develop tailored features that align with their behaviors, ultimately assisting them in accomplishing their goals.
Formulating a better user experience.
Knowing the flow of the application gives Nick a sense of direction; he can find a recipe he wants to make, and equip him with the essentials to make his cooking experience as smooth as possible.
DAY 2
Don’t reinvent the wheel, use an existing pattern!
Having identified the path to guide Nick from point A to B, conducting market research became crucial. Drawing inspiration from popular cooking apps, I analyzed successful aspects, such as clear ingredients section, and identified areas for improvement, such as needing an organized feed.
DAY 3
Getting the designs on paper first.
Sketching proved to be a swift and efficient method for conceptualizing; this approach enabled the implementation of various new functionalities, including a recipe progression bar and a disable auto-lock feature
The storyboard helps visualize the two major processes.
There is one path for the seasoned cook (or returning user) and another path for new users, such as Nick, where they can follow along with pre-recorded instructional videos in a Step-by-Step mode to guide them through the process.
Instructional Checklist
Step-by-step Mode
DAY 4
Now, we can get cooking!
Now that I understand what clicks with users like Nick, I employed an high-fidelity design that focused on an organized recipe feed (e.g. relatable categories) based on his cooking preferences and level.
Homepage Organization
Stronger emphasis on visual hierarchy
Specific and targeted recipe categories are shown.
Checklist instructions
Recipe information is broken down into digestible segments.
The user can interact with the directions to track which step has been completed
Step-by-step instructions for novice cooks
The user can enter Step by Step mode anytime with the floating button.
A simple tutorial with tips to help navigate any recipe for beginners.
Disable auto-lock and never lose track of where you were.
Pro Tips to improve cooking efficiency and to eliminate any future preparation roadblocks (less stress for the home cook).
Rating system
Rate the recipe to let Savr know what you thought.
Also helps Savr provide better, tailored recipes for future cooking.
DAY 5
What do our home chefs think?
All the home cooks unanimously agreed that they would be able to successfully follow a recipe from start to finish.
PROTOTYPE
Try it out!
REFLECTION
Final thoughts and future improvements
With this redesign, the user is equipped with the essentials to follow a recipe from start to finish. Implementing these features removes roadblocks and reduces stress, which will make the user’s cooking experience much more enjoyable and relaxing.
Things I would like to have done more of:
Add a preview of the ingredients in Step-by-Step mode so the user does not need to memorize ingredients or refer back to the previous page (and thus lose their progress).
Add video links to the “Skills” section so users have the opportunity to watch a quick skill tutorial if they aren’t familiar!