Background

As the UK's longest established independent cookery school, Tante Marie Culinary Academy has developed an internationally-acclaimed reputation for excellence. In 2015, the Academy took the opportunity using technology to manage the recipe programmes and create mobile cookbook for they students.

Problem

The students has learned lot of recepies and techniques durnng the course, but Tante Marie would like support the ex-students every time.

Students have a problem for finding a recipes that matches their free time to cook it because in most times there is busy and they do not have the time to buy the ingredients or they could not know from where they can buy it.

Solution

The app can provide a lot of recipes that can match the users free time by a feature that shows the time and difficulty of each recipe to make users choose the best recipes for them at a day.

User Research

I conducted interviews and created empathy maps to understand the users I'm designing for and their needs. A primary user group identified through research was working ex-student who want to use an app that can be a resource for recipes and explain it in easy way step by step with a short videos to make it clear later.

Problem Statement

Out target group are ex-student womans with busy working life. They need an app to be a source for cooking a new easy recipes with a short explanation. They don't prefer to watch long videos or read blogs to prepare meals.

Analysis

A review of a few competitors' products gave us more information and opportunities to develope a usefull mobile app.

Creating Ideas

After a quick ideation exercise to come up with ideas for how to address gaps identified in the competitive audit. My focus was specifically the searching and filtering process. At the food recipes the goal was to present the individual steps concise and clear.

Wireframes

After ideating and drafting some paper wireframes, I created the initial design sketches for the mobile app. These designs focused on make the screens easy to browse and has all information that user need.

Low-Fidelity Prototype

Using the completed set of digital wireframes, I created a low-fidelity prototype. The primary user flow I connected was searching a food recipes and make it step by step, so the prototype could be used in a usability study.

Usability Test

• Type: Not modorated usability study
• Location: UK
• Participants: 5 people
• Lenght: 0 - 30 mins

What we needed to improve:

• We add an opportunity to the users to select view. They can choose between the list or grid view of the recipes and it help them to find easier they beloved meals.
• Users were in trap, how to find the basic reciepes what is required for the main meal. We added a link with a pop-up to explain how the user can prepare it.
• Users want to use the searching feature by an easy to use filter. Therfore we added filter to advanced searching feature at home screen to be obvious for users.

Mockups

High-fidelity prototype

The high-fidelity prototype followed the same user flow as the low-fidelity prototype, including design changes made after the usability study.

Accessibility Considerations

• Emphasized labels for interactive elements are easy to identify
• It has been used headings with different sized text for clear visual hierarchy.
• Initial focus of the home screen has been aligned for the basic function
• Recent reciepes help define the secondary task or action for the user

Design System

Information Architecture

To build a sucessfull app, it was important to plan and buld up the information architecture of the pages. The sitemap guides the organisational structure of each screen's design to ensure a cohesive and consistent experience across devices. The plan also incudes the screens of the second phase what will be added to the app in the near future.

Output

Users applauded the capabilities and user-friendly layout of the new application after its successful introduction. According to reports, more than 60 percent of ex-students who have completed the course use it every day.