Challenge Overview

There are millions of recipes and dozens of cuisines. We all agree that the Internet has every information you can think of, but those who use this medium on a regular basis to navigate the infinite recipes will tell you that this is not an easy or pleasant job.

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Being an affected user myself was the prompt of starting the design project.

Nonetheless, the aim was to sail the User Experience ocean, as if this was a real job.

Thus, I worked to understand if others were experiencing the same pain points as I do and how and what could be improved.

Discovery: Research

Target group: People searching for plant-based recipes online, on a regular basis

Firstly, a Research Plan was developed in order to list what the questions would be and what, in fact, I wanted to understand from the research.

Discovery: Analysis

To visualize all the gathered information, I used an affinity diagram to identify problems and opportunities. Firstly, writing down all the valuable insights I had from analyzing the interviews and them grouping them into patterns and themes.

I wrote a report, aiming to enhance the key findings and outline the first recommendations to approach each problem. 

The research revealed that search engines are by far the most convenient tool to search for recipes, but they do not offer a pleasant experience to the user.

Definition: The Users' Needs

I identified only one 'type' of user and, thus, created one persona. 

Persona: Emma

Ideation: Finding Solutions

Re-collecting the recommendations to the found key insights (on the research report), I tried to come up with more ideas to solve the existing problems.

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Resorting again to the affinity diagram method, I grouped similar ideas and outlined the strongest ones.

To explore each idea's viability I used a Prioritization Matrix [Complexity vs. Value] and chose the strongest three features to carry on for the design.

Design: Sketches & Wireframes

To further test the strongest ideas (best relation complexity-value), I sketched two:

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• Three ways to search a recipe: by saved cooks, ingredients, and adding filters

• A questionnaire (after signing up to the app) to understand users' habits, likes and dislikes.

Design: High-Fidelity & ClickablePrototype

Having now a more user-centered mockup design, after some testing with users and iteration on the design, it was time to focus on the visual of the User Interface and give to it a high-fidelity representation.