Context:
A UX design side project of my own creation
Team:
Solo, under mentorship
Role:
UX/UI Designer
Timeline:
2 Week sprint
Deliverables:
Survey building and reporting, user persona, wireframes, interactive prototypes, high fidelity designs
THE COOK'S CATALOG
A UX Case Study + UI Design
The Cook’s Catalog is a recipe aggregator, catalog and ingredient-based search engine. It helps busy home cooks find meals they can make with the ingredients they have on hand.
Research
Challenges
• Relevant recipes are difficult to find online
• Recipes include unsuitable ingredients
• Cooking blogs are ad-heavy and personalized
Solutions
The idea was to build a platform to aggregate recipes into a simple structure without ads or personal stories and create a way for users to search recipes based on specific ingredients they have on hand and by dietary needs.These challenges were validated as real issues by this user research.
Methodology
Using Google Forms, Reddit, and my own network, I built and shared a survey to learn more about home cooks. I aimed to discover their wants, needs, and frustrations with the current landscape of online recipe tools.
Key Findings
Top obstacles encountered when searching online:
• Require ingredients I don’t have
• Too many ads on websites/blogs
• Don’t know exactly what to look for
About the respondents:
• Mostly millenial couples with no children
• Mostly use phone to follow along with recipes
• Dietary needs are very important to be able to search/filter by
• Most use Pinterest currently for finding and saving recipes
Read all of the survey responses here (outside link). Using information gleaned from the survey, I was able to build two user personas based on real data. One persona is a single man, cooking oftern and for one. The persona featured below is a woman who is part of a couple that splits cooking responsibilities.
Empathize
Users
Ideate
Action Plan
Create a web platform
to aggregate recipe content. Make it easy for users to search for inspiration and ideas relevant to their unique needs.
Include a robust filtering component
to the search. Allow users to curate their own recipe feeds based on specific criteria.
Build a product around a central goal
of searching for recipes based on specific ingredients. Only display de-personalized recipe content.
Design
Overview
• Seamless cross-device experience
• Instagram + Pinterest + Ecommerce
• No inline display or affiliate ads
