problem

I.   Persona

Who will user online recipes? Some people like cooking. Some people prefer to eat out. I wanted to find out the target user who cooks and searches for recipes online. After interviewing with 6 people, I categorized in to two groups: students and housewives. 

Krystle is a college student. She cooks for herself because she want to save money. She wants to find clear and simple instruction so that she can make a quick, easy and proper meal. 

On the other hand, Marina is a housewife who cooks for her family in weekdays. She wants to keep her family healthy with nutritional meals. She buys ingredients or supplies at least once a week.

II.   User Journey

When I interviewed with users, I asked them the following questions to get to know their behaviors and needs for recipes. I found out people who cook do really value recipes. They want a simple recipe with good food quality and clear instruction. 

In the other situation, they find recipes by what they have in the fridge, or depending on how easily they can get the ingredients. 

• Main Questions

1. Describe the last time you used recipes.
2. Why do you use recipes?
3. How do you use recipes?
4. How do you decide which recipes to use?
5. What do you value in recipes?

• Additional Questions

1. Why do you like to cook?
2. How often you cook?
3. How to you decide what to cook?
4. What’s the cooking process?

III.   Pain Points

In current design, users have to open every links, read each page's description, then decide which recipes to use. They do not have a easy way to filter the recipes because: 

1. Ineffective Thumbnails: All interviews will look at the thumbnails. They said good pictures will give an exact idea of the content of the meal and encourage them to click. In current design, the thumbnails are too small, do not convey clear messages. 
2. Useless description: 5 out of 6 interviewers skip the description and open the website directly. That is, the description doesn’t provide user effective information.  

IV.   Idea Generation

To meet user needs, I listed all the components in a recipe and group them into four categories that users value:
Attractiveness, Health/Freshness, Convenience, Difficulty. It helped me to figure out what are important to user. 

V. Wireframe

VI.   Prototype

VII. Key Features

According to user needs, the new interface combines different stages of cooking — recipe searching, grocery shopping, video walkthrough — into a single page of search result. The new design not only offers more visual clarity, but an effective sorting engine that would allow user to immediately find the recipe that fit most to their needs — whether it be calories, preparation time, number of ingredients or difficulty.

VIII.   Business Model

IX. Data Flow Chart 

X. Result and Reflection

• I applied for UX intern; However it turned out I got a Full-time offer.

Overall, I had a lot of fun in this case study. Honestly, I did not read recipes; therefore, it was quite hard to me to have the insight in the beginning. Fortunately, after interviewing with people who have more experience in cooking, I gained lots of useful information (motivations, goals, needs, features in recipes, and so on). 

What I enjoyed the most is when I saw their sparkling eyes and enthusiasm in their voice, talking about their passion for cooking. That’s astonishingly beautiful. No matter is for self achievement or love for family and friends, I was inspired by them and wanted to build up a simple solution for them.

This case study changed my impression on cooking and let me appreciate the beauty of cooking. Cooking a meal is one of the most personal and intimate things you can do for someone. Cooking is also a chance to go on a new experience with someone.

Thank you for time and consideration. Hope you enjoy it too.