General Assembly UXDI Sydney Project 1 – Rapid Prototyping Cheryl Lee cheryl@cheryllee.com.au January 2014

The User •  James •  Lives with his wife •  Enjoys cooking- he used to cook daily when

he was single. Now married, he cooks simpler meals less frequently

•  Makes up his own recipes - finds inspiration walking around the supermarket

•  Is an iPhone user, default language is Chinese

The Problem James’ unstructured cooking style creates frustration when he is trying to replicate a previously cooked recipe as he is often guessing ingredients when shopping and guessing ingredient quantities when cooking. …“When shopping, I get confused on the amount of spices required and frustrated by the ingredients I can’t remember”…

…“After a week, I try to replicate the recipe and I can’t

remember it. I love what I’ve done previously, it’s frustrating”…

James’  unstructured  cooking  style  can  add  frustra5on  to  the  cooking  process  at  5mes.  The  lack  of  documenta5on  makes  it  hard  to  successfully  replicate  a  recipe,  leaving  him  guessing  ingredients  when  shopping  in  the  supermarket  and  guessing  ingredient  quan55es  when  cooking.        …“When  shopping,  I  get  confused  on  the  amount  of  spices  required  

and  frustrated  by  the  ingredients  I  can’t  remember”…    

…“A=er  a  week,  I  try  to  replicate  the  recipe  and  I  can’t  remember  it.  I  love  what  I’ve  done  previously,  it’s  frustraCng”…  

 Frustra5on  successful  replicate  a  recipe  combined  with  frustra5on  of  having  to  guess  ingredients  when  shoppingand  ingredient  quan55es  when  cooking.      

The Goal To reduce the frustration James associates with cooking by helping him easily record memorable cooked recipes.

The Process •  I  interviewed  my  user  to  find  out  his  interests  and  discovered  

•  Enjoys  cooking;  he  used  to  cook  daily  when    he  was  single,  now  that  he’s  married,  he’s  cooking  simpler  meals  less  frequently.  

•  The  user  likes  to  make  up  recipes  from  ingredient  inspira5on  at  the  supermarket  or  by  altering  exis5ng  recipes.  

User Interviews User Flows

The Solution An iPhone app to track successfully cooked recipes that James can confidently refer to. The recorded recipes are stored in a library and can be accessed when shopping, helping reduce the uncertainty and frustration associated with shopping.

Validation and iteration of design

•  By confirming my design with the James, I discovered my initial user flow was complicated to use and contained elements that didn’t intuitively make sense to the him.

•  Following a few iterations, my new design: –  Removed a redundant input method –  replaced complicated text input fields with basic text boxes, –  simplified the process and time required to input a recipe.

Initial Flow - pre user validation

Interactive Prototype Flow - post user validation

Sketches  

https://popapp.in/projects/52cf5e55c6043e8b06000088/preview

Future variations identified:

•  A list of experimented flavour combinations that didn’t work •  Recipe ranking system •  External recipe finder to help inspire future creations