For the first project in Northwestern’s UX/UI Design Bootcamp, we were asked to research an issue in our community and design a mobile app solution for it. As someone with recently developed food allergies, I spoke to others with allergies and worked on developing a possible solution. My first round of interviews did not go as I expected. Most people had been dealing with food allergies since childhood and were well equipped with knowledge of what they can eat and what they can’t, what sort of restaurants to avoid (like Thai restaurants when suffering from a peanut allergy), and on the other hand, getting up-to-date information about ingredients in menus from local restaurants was not a feasible option. I had to shift gears, change my approach, and interview again. Facing an open fridge of mismatching ingredients and an idealistic mindset, I set out to solve the everyday question of: what should I eat?
While researching online, there were a few questions I was looking to answer:
Do most people cook or prefer ready made meals/take-out/going out?
Where do people get recipes?
Is there an app or website that people prefer?
I came across some interesting statistics:
89% of millennials cook meals at home.
52 minutes is the amount of time an average American has to cook and eat a meal.
70% of adults use social media over traditional cookbooks
There are over 5,200 recipe websites online
400+ comments on the Reddit post: “Why are all recipe websites so terrible”
Sources from The Independent, Chicory, Supermarket Perimeter, Statista, Reddit
While more consumers are cooking and turning to the internet for recipes, there is no loyalty to a website or mobile app that stands out as a primary option.
After conducting preliminary research, I created a proto-persona based on the data so far. This proto-person is someone who struggles with juggling time, money, and nutrition.
I conducted five user interviews to better understand the exact challenges users were having with current food habits. I spoke to people who are in their 20’s, have a busy work schedule, and who cook. Some of the open-ended questions I asked were:
What factors into your meal choice? Where do you get your recipes from?
If there is anything that would make cooking easier for you, what would that be?
Do you use any apps or websites to help you with cooking?
What frustrates you on a recipe app/website?
Describe to me what your average grocery trip looks like.
Their responses provided general insight to the habits of their demographic but there were a few quotation that provided clarity into the needs and pain points:
Mapping out the interviews on to an affinity diagram, there were trends in the responses based on the amount of notes regarding particular concerns or subjects.
The main patterns that I chose to highlight due to quantity of notes that fell under those categories:
Most people use social media over recipe websites
People need inspiration and recipes ideas
Recipes must be to the point, not long paragraphs
Time is a big factor, need quick recipes
People are interested in more information/facts about ingredients
Limiting ingredients and grocery trips is a desire
The interviews gave me insight to create a user persona, someone who encompasses the struggles and goals that were reflected in the interviews and research.
Young and busy professionals need a quick and efficient way to pre-plan meals because it will save them time and limit decision fatigue so they can focus on having a better work-life balance.
We believe providing recipes based on ingredients owned while eliminating the unnecessary exposition that recipe websites have will save time for young, busy professionals so that they will have more energy to make healthier meal choices.
Using the “I like, I wish, What if” method, I brainstormed some ideas for potential goals and features of the mobile app.
I put these ideas on a priority matrix to assess which features to focus on.
The easy wins:
Finding recipes quickly
No paragraphs or exposition to get to a recipe
Search recipe by cuisine type
Filtering based on dietary needs
With a better idea of what features this app will have, I crafted a user scenario with Elodi James.
User Scenario talked through....
Started the design process by creating a simple user flow of the main task I would expect users to perform on the app.
Using Procreate I sketched out frames. I was inspired by traditional recipe boxes, brought the colors and the shape of the recipe filing system to evoke the feeling of warmth, tradition,
Happy with the direction of the design, I cleaned up the sketches and created a quick digital prototype to test.
I tested four users, asking them to think out loud as they went through the prototype.
Objective
Is it intuitive to add ingredients to your list?
Target Users
Young professionals
Questions
Can the user quickly identify which ingredients they are missing and add it to their shopping list?
How many taps does it take to get to the objective?
“Home page is very empty, feels like the space could be used better.”
“I am left-handed, I can tell that I would always be accidentally clicking the 'List' button.”
“How do I go back to the recipe?
”“Is clicking an ingredient the only way to add it to the list? What if I accidentally clicked on it?”
Armed with the feedback from my tests, I updated the design of In My Pantry.
I initially came in thinking I can create a better recipe app than any of the competitors since there wasn’t one app that seemed to dominate the market. With some more research, I would have learned that users aren’t really interested in a recipe app in the first place. People seem to enjoy seeing photos of food on social media sporadically and try to recreate them, or when in a hurry, just search on the internet what they are looking for. Getting the research is one thing, but understanding what the research actually means is what I overlooked in the first place. Regarding my first app design, I quickly learned that function is more important than form.
