Home cooking becomes very popuplar since the covid-19 pandemic and following by the 40-year-high inflation in the United Kingdom. However, without proper coaching, it is not easy to find out what went wrong. Most of the Britons find it hard and have no idea how to improve their cooking skills.
DELIVING DESIGN SOLUTIONS AND ACHIEVING THE GOAL
Recipence helps users master cooking skills efficiently and allows them to quickly elevate their culinary expertise.
Recipence is a recipe app that aims to provide more than just recipes (somesone else's footsteps) and helps shorten the period of time of trial and error before becoming a good cook.
HOW DID I GET THERE?
Recipe apps are highly demanded due to the change of behaviour after covid-19 pandemic. With the help of current products, around 50% of Britons still consider themselves as a bad cook.
Other findings about the market:
- The number of recipe apps will be doubled by the end of 2028 compared to that of 2021.
- The number of meals eaten at home has risen by 20% in the past year
- 44% of Britons would like to improve their cooking skills
DEFINING THE TARGET USERS
Users, who want to be better cooks or working in the catering industry, desire a recipe app that include detailed explanations of cooking skills and dish inspirations.
Key insights from user interviews:
- Recipe apps remain high demand as 50% of the interviewees use recipe apps when cooking at home
- More than 50% of interviewees want more cooking tips in the recipe app
Through user interviews, I defined the target user and also came up with a user journey showing the changes of emotions and thoughts when people cook at home using a recipe app.
I further analysed several recipe apps on the market and only one of them provides cooking tips and theories. Most of them apparently do not satisfy the needs of users who crave to be a good cook.
IDEATING A POSSIBLE SOLUTION
I ideated a recipe app which focuses more on cooking tips and science of cooking with features that help user shortening the time of trial and error.
Possible features:
- Cook mode with detailed cooking tips and scientific theories. It helps users to become more knowledgeable about cooking. Knowing the reasons behind each actions is better than following steps in a recipe brainlessly.
- Personal note for reviewing purpose. Users can jot down their mistakes and revisit their notes anytime they like. It avoid them making the same mistakes.
STRUCTING THE MVP
Having a brief in my mind, I worked out the low-fidelity wireframes and they show how contents will be structured on certain core pages.
I further created a high-fidelity wireframe based on the UI component kit for the usability test.
I chose orange as the primary colour of the app as it’s always associated with optimism and enthusiasm. These are what I hope the users to have when they are browsing the app.
TESTING THE DESIGN SOLUITION
A user friction was discovered in the usability test as one of the test recorded a misclick rate of 44.1% and a direct sucess rate of 60%.
Participants struggled to carry out one of the task which required them to switch the content shown on the homepage (From “Trending” to “Science of Cooking”, see below). They had no idea that the recipes shown on the homepages were trending items before they managed to click the 'fire' icon and look at the expanded view.
I changed the heading of the landing page to address the user friction.
I changed the heading from 'Hi Anna' (name of the user) to 'Trending.' This indicates to the users that the items shown on the homepage are the trending recipes in the app. Additionally, I added an icon at the end of the heading, which is the same as the button on the bottom right corner. This signifies to the users that the purpose of the button is to switch the contents of the homepage.
Iterated some design elements based on my obersavtion and users' feedback in order to optimise the usability and enhance the visual.
I changed the layout of the cards by moving all the words below the images to cause less confusion as they were overlapped with the background photos before. Also, I took away the star ratings as they may vary depending on the number of users who commented on the recipes. Instead, providing the numbers of users who bookmarked the recipes can accurately reflect how popular the recipes are.
Before changes, the arrow on the top left caused confusion as users quitted the cook mode instead of going back to previous step by clicking it. I added a progess bar to show which step the users at and indicate that users can swipe right or left to go back and forth. Also, the cook mode will now take up the full length of the screen. Thus, users won't be distracted by anything in the background.
THE FINAL DESIGN
This is how the MVP looks like after implementing all the changes.
I am satisfied with having a 100% completion rate for all tasks that tested the core features of the app. Following the iterations, the fundamentals of the app are sound and ready to be built upon further. Going forward, I have to work on the onboarding process, profile and bookmark pages with extensive researches to be done.
