Many home cooks have the challenge of balancing meal preparation with work and personal passions, hobbies, or family responsibilities. Often they wish to try new recipes but find that their limited time does not allow for experimentation and regularly find themselves making the same meals weekly.
Using the double diamond method, I conducted surveys and interviews to learn about this user challenge.
I was able to find individuals to interview based on some of the respondents. What came up frequently in these interviews is that, finding a niche ingredient was difficult and finding ways to use common ingredients that are is difficult.
I conducted a user survey to gain user insight. To reach a larger audience, I wrote a 10 question multiple choice survey and posted it on different online communities and to Facebook. I received 45 responses.
From the insights I gleaned during user surveys & research, I was able to create a persona that encapsulated many of the needs and concerns that users most often mentioned.
Meet Elliot
I love to cook but not at the expense of my time or budget.
A millenial in their late 20s/ early 30s, they share a home with their partner and work outside the home (normally). They need meal ideas that align with the inconsistent amounts of time that they have after work and chores and hobbies.
They generally buy similar foods and make the same recipes week after week.Their fast-paced work life coupled with other household chores and hobbies, makes buying new ingredients and trying new (sometimes) complicated recipes the last thing on their list of priorities.
Based on key statements I heard during the user interviews I made an affinity map and brainstormed features that would address those statements. Based on combining a MoSCoW (Must/Should/Could/Won't) Matrix and an Impact vs Effort Matrix I was able to focus on prioritizing the features that would address Elliott's needs.
The first sketches resulted in solutions that prioritized educational and skills based elements. Referring to my feature prioritizing exercise, they did not address the underlying concerns I found from my notes from user interviews or what my persona needed.
Wanted to meet Elliott where they were, not create something aspirational and ultimately unsustainable habit. The expectation was to create a tool to augment their existing system/schedule.
Based on the need to make the most direct solution for the users' needs, I pivoted to a solution that prioritized "Time" & 'Ingredients" pain points for the user.
Additionally with feedback from colleagues, competitor analysis of NYT Cooking app, Pinterest, Yummly and HelloFresh as well as, low fidelity wireframes user testing, I updated the flow to better accommodate how users might use the application and updated the visual design to accommodate that feedback.
I created a prototype and performed usability testing at the low fidelity wireframe phase as well as a higher fidelity phase (psst... you can see the prototype here). Based on the moderated low fidelity wireframe tests, I was able to update the interface of my design to remedy the points of confusion for users. Once started the visual design phase, I was performing testing and revisions simultaneously.
I was able to further develop the prototype based on usability testing on the low fidelity wireframes. Key revisions included adding more specific language around ingredients and add specific times rather than analog clocks.
Based on feedback during user testing, I was able to formulate an onboarding process that accounts for dietary restrictions. It is a portion of the screen concept that has not yet been tested. I wanted to insure based on the insights I heard during user interviews that I took into account those instances in which a user would eat avoid certain foods because of medical needs, such as diabetes, Celiac's disease or other general food allergies.
I performed moderated and unmoderated testing as the same time. I found that in moderated testing users were more willing or able to complete a task, compared to unmoderated usability testing. I was not sure if it was my own wording of the tasks, or if it was a technical issue with the unmoderated testing platform. I found in the unmoderated tests, one task in particular had a 50% bounce rate and a 23% misclick rate with the task overall having only a 17% completion rate.
Based on the feedback received from both forms of prototype testing & user research, I found a few things were very important for users.
This was a concept that I developed purely on my own so but I have recently learned about an app called Paprika that may serve a similar purpose, which would make reprioritizing MVP features or phase 2 versions very important. Based on my research for the MVP, for the next phase I would prioritize the following next:
