presenting research and analysis

Presenting Research and Analysis

Bekki Asquith

Purpose of research

• The purpose of my research was to find out more about the people who could possibly be my target audience for this product: recipe cards.

• When my research is analysed it will give me a better idea of the viewpoint of vegetarians and will most likely determine who I aim my work at and what applies to them.

How research was conducted• I created 10 questions that I then made into a survey. I then posted this

survey on SurveyMonkey with the URL: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8B79DSP . I then posted this URL on my Facebook and Twitter pages in order to try and get people to answer the questions for me. I also asked my friends via the social networking sites by private mail etc. In the case of the survey that wasdisplayed on SurveyMonkey, 25 people answered the questions that I posted. I tweeted the URL of my survey to the Vegetarian Society and also to the Vegan Society to see if they could retweet to get people to take part also.

• Another way that I conducted research was that I printed off the survey questions and asked 11 people around my college them top gain more answers.

• I also created 5 interview questions to ask a vegetarian and also 5 to ask a meat-eater about recipe cards (design, layout, content etc), and asked two of my friends these questions.

Summary of data

The majority of people that completed question 1 of the questionnaire on SurveyMonkey were between the ages of 16 and 20. However, there were some older people, such as two people being 21 – 25, and one each for the ages of 36-40, 41 – 45 and also 46+. I think that the reason the majority of the people were of this age group is because I asked people to complete my survey via Twitter and Facebook which my friends of my age group will have seen and then done so.

This tells me that the answers to the rest of the questions of my questionnaire are likely to be from the viewpoint of 16 – 20 year olds.

I think that this age group would be a good group of people to aim my recipe cards at because we have the same way of thinking and I would be able to aim aspects of my cards to what I would like to see.

I also had an additional 10 responses to the 16-20 category and one from the 46+ category from my paper questionnaire which I collected the results for myself.

The answers to question 2 show that the majority of the people who answered my questionnaire were female, which the percentage being 68% of the total of people who answered. This tells me that the viewpoint of the answers to the rest of the questions are most likely to be of a female perspective as well as a 16 – 20 year old one. Being a female, I will be able to relate to the answers and maybe what they would be thinking and how they would like recipe cards to be presented.

From my paper questionnaire, which I collected the results for myself, there were an additional 5 responses to the male category and 6 for female.

Most of the people that answered this question were meat-eaters, there were only 2 people who were vegetarian. There was also another option that had to be specified, which one person ticked and answered; They wrote that they eat more vegetables that meat.

From the paper questionnaire, there were 10 responses in the meat-eater category and another one in the vegetarian.

The results to this question show that a majority of people do not cook for any longer that 20 minutes per day. This tells me that my idea for quick and easy to cook meals would be popular with the people who have taken part in the survey.Bearing in mind that the majority of people who took part in the survey were female, this could imply that they are working mums who might not have time to cook.

From the paper questionnaire, there was another 6 responses in the 0-5 minutes category, 4 in the 6-10 minutes category and one in the 31-60 minutes.

Most people answered the question ‘When you cook, do you use meat substitutes such as Quorn?’ with ‘No, never’. This would indicate that people are not really very interested in using Quorn ingredients in their cooking. I was planning on using Quorn in some of the recipe cards, this has convinced me not to, seeing as the ingredient is not a popular choice amongst people.

From the paper questionnaire, there was another response in the ‘Yes, always’, ‘Most of the time’ and ‘Barely ever’ categories and 8 responses in the .No, never’ category.

The results of this question tells me that the majority of people would like to see an equal balance of images and text on recipe cards. However, 24% of people would like to see mainly images, this tells me that images would be well received by the participants of this survey and so I will use images frequently but not too much and not overpowering to the text.

No one who answered this survey wanted to see mainly text so I will steer clear of using too much text on my recipe cards.

From the paper questionnaire, there were 2 responses in the ‘Mainly images’ category, 6 in the ‘Mainly text’ and 3 in the ‘Equal balance of text and images’ category.

This answers to this question tell me that people would most like to step-by-step images on the recipe cards rather than just an image of the finished product.On SurveyMonkey, I can filter the results while analyzing. This allowed me to see for example, the viewpoint of just males or females or people of a certain age group. When I filter to see the viewpoint of females who have answered this survey, I can see that the majority of females also wanted to see step by step images more.

From the [paper questionnaire, I collected 11 more responses for the ‘Step-by-step’ images only category.

Chicken dishes /Sunday roast /Pasta dishes ////////////////Pancakes //Burgers /Steak / Pizza // Chips /Puddings //

Seeing as most of the people who took the survey were female, it would seem to me that women like pasta dishes. I will bear this in mind if I decide to aim my recipe cards at women.

These screen shots show the results when filtered to the female point of view. Apart from 3, all are pasta dishes, this tells me that pasta dishes are most popular with females. This would imply that my ‘Foods from around the world’ theme could be popular here, (Italian food).

From the paper questionnaire the results were as follows: Cake //Buns //Chicken /Microwave meals /Pasta //Banana bread //Cream pie /

People here, would most like to see recipe cards with the theme of ‘Quick and easy to cook meals’ but only one more person liked this than ‘Desserts’ which was also a popular theme. The fact that the idea of quick and easy meals was the most popular, and the majority of the people who answered the survey questions being female, this would support my idea that the women who answered the survey have little time; they might be students or working mums.

The results that I collected from the paper questionnaire added another 2 responses to ‘Desserts’, another 3 to ‘Quick and easy to cook meals’, another 1 for ‘Dinner party meals’ and another 5 to the ‘Food from around the world’ category.

The option ‘appropriate to the recipe colours’ was the most popular answer; This means like a chocolate cake with ice cream would have the colours brown and white incorporated into the design. The second most popular colour scheme voted for was the pastel colours; this would indicate that the female vote and viewpoint has been influential here.

The paper questionnaire added another 1 response to the ‘Pastel colours’, another 6 to ‘Bright primary colours’, another 3 to ‘Regal colours’ and also another one to ‘Colourful but toned’. This would tell us, that seeing as the majority of people who took the paper questionnaire were aged 16-20, their preferred colour scheme for the recipe cards would be the bright primary colours.

This next set of answers shows the answers just of females who took the survey, seeing as they were the larger percentage. It is also of vegetarians, so the answers that are presented here are of a female vegetarian point of view. This should help me with my analysis and deciding on what I should do for my recipe cards, as I would know what vegetarian women would like to see and have on a recipe. There were only 2 vegetarians who answered the questionnaire and they both happened to be female, so this does not give me much of an idea of a vegetarian viewpoint, however my interview and paper surveys will help me out more with getting this idea and basing my recipe cards on that.

These 2 vegetarians do not spend much time cooking a day. Given that they are female, they could be working mums or busy career driven women who do not have time to cook very often. This would imply that my idea for ‘Quick and easy to cook’ meals would be popular with these people.

The answers to this question tell me that Quorn is popular with vegetarians and also their food and cooking. I can factor this into the recipes that I will put onto my cards. The vegetarians that answered this question must like something in their meals rather than just vegetables to make them more filling or maybe just to make them more interesting.

The vegetarians seem to prefer an equal balance of text and images on a recipe card rather than more images or more text. This was the overall view of all of the people who answered the question as well. So I will be incorporating this information when I make my recipe cards.

The 2 female vegetarians that took part in the survey said that they would like to see step-by-step images rather than just a finished product only image. This is probably to make the recipe card more interesting and also easy to follow. Sometimes, vegetarian recipes can be quite complicated so step-by-step help would be appreciated by the reader/user. This would indicate that the people who chose the option of step-by-step images would like the method and ingredients to be written out in a simple way and a way that is easy to read.

Both of the female vegetarians chose Spaghetti Bolognese as their favourite dish to cook. This would indicate that Quorn had been used instead of meat beef/turkey mince etc. Seeing as both vegetarians chose this as their favourite dish to cook, this could imply that this is a popular dish amongst vegetarians. I would like to incorporate this into my work and maybe create a Spaghetti Bolognese recipe. This could be made as part of the ‘Foods from around the world’ theme or the ‘Quick and easy to cook meals’.

Both of the vegetarians chose the ‘Quick and easy to cook meals’ theme for the recipe cards. This again, indicates that vegetarian recipes can be too complex sometimes and people would like simple and basic recipes to cook from. The ‘Quick and easy to cook meals’ theme was the most popular overall so I think that this will be the one that I use for my recipe cards.

Both of the vegetarians that took part in my survey chose the colour theme: ‘Appropriate to the recipe colours’ as the design that they would like to see on recipe cards that they use. This was the most popular choice overall also, so I think that this will be the colour theme that I choose for the design of my cards.

Interviews• I conducted 2 sets of interview questions: one set to be asked to a

vegetarian and the other to be asked to a meat-eater.

Interview with a vegetarian: Interviewee: Nicole Wood• 1. What is the main reason that you became a vegetarian? • “I don’t like the idea of eating something’s insides…haha.”• 2. What is your favourite vegetarian meal and why? • “Hmm stir fry with Quorn pieces because it’s healthy.”• 3. What kinds of vegetarian meals would you like to see recipe cards

for?• “Just more vegetarian meal ideas in general, there’s not much choice.”• 4. How would you like the content of a recipe card to be laid out? • “Something that’s easy to understand.”

• Interview with a meat-eater: Interviewee: Hannah Harkus• 1. What kinds of foods do you eat the most? • “I eat a lot of savoury foods and I find myself eating chips many days

of the week.”• 2. How complex do you like the recipes to be that you cook from?• “I like them to be simple because I get lost with what I’m doing a lot

of the time.”• 3. What kinds of colours attract your attention the most?• “Bright ones; reds and blues.”• 4. What flavourings do you like in your food?• “I eat a lot of garlic, but I like cheese.”• 5. How appealing would different shaped cards or patterns be to

you on a recipe card? • “They would definitely appeal to me and it would make the cards

interesting and fun to use.”

• Seeing as my recipe cards will be aimed at vegetarians, then I should really take note from the questions and answers from the interview with a vegetarian.

• The interviewee said that her favourite vegetarian dish was stir-fry with Quorn pieces. She said that this was because it was healthy. The idea of Quorn is being introduced again here and seems to be popular with vegetarians. This makes me think that vegetarians would eat meat if it wasn’t a living animal/thing. This makes me think that vegetarians are a socially conscious type A group of people. The reason that the interviewee said they enjoyed stir-fry with Quorn pieces was because it was a healthy meal. ‘Being healthy’ is a popular reason among vegetarians to become a vegetarian and eat that way.

• The interviewee said that they would like to see more ideas for vegetarian meals in general and that there is not much choice. This would be a good grounds to put the Vegetarian Society URL and a way to find extra information and recipes onto the recipe cards.

• She also said that she would like the content of the recipe card to be laid out in a simple way that was easy to understand which I think in the main theme throughout all of my research.

Audience Profile

• Socially conscious type A • ABC1• I would like to aim my recipe cards at a female audience

although they would be applicable to males as well. I will be aiming my products more this way because the majority of people who answered the questions in my survey were female and I now have their viewpoint recorded. The ages that I would like to aim my product at are teenagers/students who do not have much time to cook for themselves and also older women such as working mums who also do not have a great amount of time to cook or to find new interesting vegetarian recipes.

Conclusion