An application that is meant to supplement how home cooks introduce novel recipes and preparations into their weekly meals.
A project in which I acted in a UX researcher & designer capacity.
UX Architect | UI Designer
Researching how homecooks introduce new preparations in their meal plans
Based on user surveys, interviews, and competitor analysis, I developed the user persona of Elliott. Elliott is a millennial in their late 20s/ early 30s. They share a home with their partner and work outside the home (typically). Their needs and goals with meal preparation were the need for meal ideas that align with the varying amounts of time after work and chores and hobbies. They generally buy similar ingredients week after week last thing and make the same recipes. Their fast-paced work life, coupled with other household chores and hobbies, makes buying new ingredients and trying new (sometimes) complicated recipes is last on their list of priorities. I performed competitor analyses looking at Pinterest, NYT Cooking, Yummly, and HelloFresh; users mentioned comparable services during user interviews. I also performed task analyses, which compared how a user may complete looking through potential meal preparations vs. my proposed solution. I could pivot to creating a solution that prioritized Elliott's existing time & ingredient constraints. Ultimately, I wanted to meet Elliott where they were, not create something aspirational and ultimately unsustainable. The expectation was to develop a tool to augment their existing schedule and behaviors.
Based on the feedback received from moderated testing and research, I found a few things that were very important for my user:
Through conducting user research, I set out to understand:
How do users introduce novel recipes in their weekly meal preparation?
Starting with surveys, I was able to find users to interview. Based on my user surveys, I learned a few things about my user.
Finding a niche ingredient is challenging, and finding ways to use the ingredients in abundance is difficult. I gleaned insights during qualitative user surveys & user interviews; I created a persona that encapsulated many of the needs and concerns that users most often mentioned.
"I love to cook but not at the expense of my time or budget."
Initial ideation occurred during affinity mapping, a process by which I found underlying themes in survey results. My solution sketches prioritized educational and skills-based elements.
But they did not address the underlying concerns I found from my notes from user interviews or what my persona needed. To discern which features would best serve Elliott's needs, based on the MoSCoW (Must/Should/Could/Won't) method and a 2x2 matrix that mapped along user impact with development effort axis.
I performed competitor analyses looking at Pinterest, NYT Cooking, Yummly, and HelloFresh; these are comparable services users mentioned during user interviews. I performed a task analysis, which compared how a user may complete looking through potential meal preparations vs. my proposed solution. Based on competitor analysis and task analysis, I could pivot to creating a solution that prioritized Elliott's existing time & ingredient constraints. Ultimately, I wanted to meet Elliott where they were, not create something aspirational and ultimately unsustainable. The expectation was to develop a tool to augment their existing schedule and behaviors.
Based on my competitor and task analyses, I created a user flow that would allow me to work through the user’s perspective so that I can better understand the screens and components that best suit a user’s decisions as well as figuring out where decisions/option points sit in their experience. With feedback from my instructor and low fidelity wireframes user testing, I updated the flow to accommodate better how users might use the application. Following usability testing on the mid-fidelity prototype, I was able to develop the prototype further. Include more specific language around ingredients and add specific time language rather than analog clocks.
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