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A one-person design sprint for a cooking recipe app called SAVR Recipes
Key Skills
Mapping, user stories, user flow, sketching, wire flows, wireframing, usability testing.
Tools
Figma, Marvel
Timeline
1 week
Design Team
Solo Product Designer
What is a Design Sprint?
A Design Sprint is like all-in-one heaven for your next great business idea. This timeboxed, self-contained process allows a group of people (in this case it’s only me!) the opportunity to consider an existing problem or a new idea, gather insights on current users, prototype ideas, and validate them all within about 5 days.
Challenge
SAVR recipes is a new startup with many recipes in the library with tips and tricks for at-home chefs. They have an active community where users rate and review the recipe for other users.
They have faced a challenge in the recent future regarding their recipe steps and more advanced techniques. Many users find their instruction puzzling so they end up disappointed with the end product. Most of the feedback is related to timing, step sequence, new or hard cooking techniques, etc.
Constraints
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The instruction of the recipe should be in writing form.
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It should be a native mobile app because the mobile phone is a famous household device.
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While designing, focus on the challenges while users prepare the recipe rather than how they find the recipe.
DAY 1 Understand the Users
For the first day, the target was to understand the challenges and pick a reasonable piece that I can solve in just 5 days.
Interviews and persona
I reviewed the interview and personas that were already given to me. Here are some of the quotes and highlights from them.
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Later that day trying to understand more about user problems. (Stick those notes to the wall!)
Insights
Came up with some of the common themes here.
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Users like to be prepared ahead before following a recipe.
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Users want the whole experience to be joyful and educative.
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Users want more education regarding new or more advanced cooking techniques.
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Users want to know the exact time a particular recipe needs.
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Users want detailed visualization of how each step would turn out during the process of cooking.
Map
This is the journey map of Maaaaaaaaaaaaax.
HMWs
With the key insights and user map, I created HMW questions. That will help our user Max (pretend) to gain the best experience while cooking at home.
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How might we make the whole experience of cooking much more relaxed and fun for MAX?
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How might we show MAX how the food looks like in Between the cooking process?
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How might we tell MAX some tips and tricks in the recipe while MAX is cooking?
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How might we make sure that MAX is all ready to start the cooking process?
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How might we teach a more advanced cooking technique between cooking so MAX does not have to open Youtube?
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How might we tell MAX the actual cooking time so he will good at time managing?
DAY 2 Sketch Some Ideas
On Tuesday, till afternoon I look for the competitors and did a lightning demo. Learn about some of the existing products and get some inspiration. And by the evening my mind was full of ideas. But I have to put them on paper so started sketching.
Lightening demo
The 3 apps that I found were Tasty, Yummly, and Dinner spinner. Below are some like dislike and takeaways that I found very interesting.
Sketches
The best exercise to draw your design ideas is crazy 8's. In that, I have to create solution sketches in 8 min. Below is my couple of sketches and crazy 8 sketches. As someone who loves cooking apps while Working on a new recipe, I like the tricks and tip section. I also enjoy looking at different people's take on the same dish with some pictures.
For my 8 designs, I experimented with the layout and configuration of screens. I knew that I wanted to incorporate the next step with Ingredients while working on the current step into my design but deciding where those elements lived was much easier said than done. another thing I noticed during the research part was that some users were unfamiliar about the ingredients and I want to solve that problem with my design as well.
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Solidified a Solution
The most critical screen is the one the user finds the next step while working on the current step. This is because I want users to be prepare while they are already working on their current steps. Instead of waiting, they will be preparing for the next step.
To solve this I decide to go with Button which has a message that tells users that if they want to see steps and ingredients tap here. And by tapping that button new page will show them all the steps and ingredients.
A three-panel board of (A) the screen that comes before the critical screen, (B) the critical screen itself, and (C) the screen that comes after the critical screen.
DAY 3 Storyboarding
Day 3 was started with me diving deeper into my day 2 sketches. and working on the user story. I spent the early day deciding where my storyboard should begin. I referred back to the Sketches and my notes. I decided to quit worrying about the onboarding phase, or the process of choosing a recipe.
DAY 4 Prototyping
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
I began with wireframes and added branded details, visuals, a personal favorite recipe, and hotspots to create a realistic prototype for user testing.
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My Inspiration for color and typography was a pic that I saw which has Cardboard cover and typewriting front.
DAY 5 Testing and Validation
The big day is here! I ask 5 people that I know love to cook to do the usability test. Gave them a brief Introduction and few tasks to perform. All the tests were in person.
Below are the task, they have to perform.
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Onboarding the app.
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what do you think when they first saw the recipe page?
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How will you prepare yourself in advance?
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let's say you don't know any ingredients? what will you do?
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What you will do if you want to check the next step while you are on the current step?
Summary of findings
" The flow of the app is natural. I don't have to guess the next step. it's already there."
"features like tools and more pics are new to me. Those are really helpful when u are cooking something new."
1. 2 out of 5 testers suggested going back and clicking on the direction button after the ingredient page is too complicated. so I put the "make it" button that will float on the screen while the user is checking the ingredients.
2. The "+" icon next to each ingredient meant if the user does not have that they can put that item to cart and later buy it. But 4 out of 5 testers were not sure why it is there. So I change the icon to
3. All testers were not sure if they want to see any ingredients where they suppose to click. so I made a hoover effect on each ingredient picture.
4. 4 out of 5 testers like the step-by-step process of direction. they like the "tips" on each step.
5. 2 out of 5 testers like the picture of each step. They told me it's what makes them confident that they are on a right track.
6. All the testers really enjoyed the onboarding experience.
7. 4 out of 5 users find it difficult where they have to click to see the tools. So to solve that I create a button that says "Tools" with the hoovering effect on it.
8. 3 out of 5 testers like the idea of a list of all the steps and ingredients while they are in the middle of steps. So they can check the next steps, current step as well as the finished steps.
9. 2 out of 5 testers like the cooking time, prep time, and total time.
10. 4 out of 5 testers simple and minimalistic look for the app. It reminds them of an old cooking book with a cardboard cover and typewriting font. (That was what I am going with anyway!)
Conclusion
I enjoyed the overall design sprint experience. I believe it will be much more fun and educative when a group of people works in a design sprint instead of one.
If I could continue to run through this project, I would have loved to see how the users use the app while they actually use the app while they are in the kitchen cooking. I think that will give me the most useful insights to improve my design. I would love to do some testing on video instruction v/s text or picture instruction. It will be really interesting to see what users prefer while they cook or follow recipes.