A pocket digital cooking assistant
FridgeKnow
Key features:
Manage ingredients;
Recommend the culinary video;
Recognize grocery receipts;
Generate the cooking calendar.
Initial Story
After moving to Canada last year, I switched from eating FAFH (Food-Away-From-Home) to cooking at home in order to live a more frugal lifestyle. Undeniably, I was not handling it well and discovered that the majority of my time was spent considering processes, such as looking up recipes.
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Finding a fantastic recipe but lacking one or two ingredients presents a conundrum for me, prompting me to add the missing ingredients after class and making me think about it. What if the recipes could be appeared on the screen based on what I have in the refrigerator? That would be my cooking saviour!
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I conducted informal interviews with my friends to learn what frustrates them about cooking at home. In a similar vein, considering and preparing the ingredient takes the longest. This served as the initial impetus for crafting this project.
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From the initial inspiration, I started secondary research to validate the notion, alongside user questionnaires to confirm this concept.
This chart caught my attention since it demonstrated the consistent increase in "food at home" statistics data from 2018 to 2022. Despite how swiftly our society has developed and how many high-tech and novel products have been introduced to the market, cooking has always been a basic requirement. To verify that the prompt concept was worthwhile to be created, I continuously conducted a survey and invited 20 participants to complete it. Here is the link for finding reports.
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After all of this thorough preparation, I ultimately decided to begin the project and give it the name FridgeKnow. Let's move on to the project overview in the next section.
01 Project Overview
Name: FridgeKnow
Goal: Fridgeknow's goal is to assist everyone in being a family cook with ease.
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This project will take three months ( link to timetable) to implement, from the definition, and design to the testing processes. At the end of the project, I will formulate the prototype and written reflection as the final deliverable.
02 Project define
A. Problems definition
To figure out what frustrated people's cooking processes and what they expect from recipes application, I surveyed 20 participants who mostly prepare food at home. Here are the problems I identified in light of the findings.
1. The utilization of ingredients is not fully taken advantage of in people's everyday cooking, resulting in food waste and money waste.
2. When opening the freezer and seeing different items lying about, many feel uncertain about choosing what to prepare.
3. People will lose interest once the recipe libraries aren't updated enough in some recipe applications.
B. Comparative analysis
The market for recipe apps was estimated to be worth USD 342.10 million in 2020 and is anticipated to rise to USD 1,098.22 million by 2028, at a CAGR of 13.24% from 2021 to 2028.
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Proposing the Interest in Cooking Among the Users is a Major Factor Contributing to the Market Growth. Consumers' propensity drives the market for healthy food and its high costs. Additionally, growing awareness of recipe apps among those who enjoy cooking will fuel the demand for recipe apps throughout the anticipated period. The market is comprehensively evaluated in studying the global recipe apps industry. The research thoroughly analyzes the key market segments, trends, drivers, obstacles, competitive environment, and elements that are significantly influencing the market.
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Mealime, BudgetBytes, and Supercook are the three recipe applications I primarily compare. Particularly to identify the problems they resolved and their unique selling proposition. The objective of competitor analysis is to identify FridgeKnow's distinctive selling point.
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Some findings: I found it difficult to locate a recipe application with an easy-to-use interface and a large enough collection of recipes for everyday use. Some recipe apps can't be updated promptly, and some recipes are only digital instructions that can't be dynamically adjusted to match my ingredients.
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The problem it solves
It lowers the threshold to cooking professionally and provides convenience to the cooking preparation process.
Keywords
Delicious recipes; Personalized meal plans; Smart grocery list.
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The problem it solves
It helps those who need to save money and pursue a healthy diet in the meantime.
Keywords
Easy recipes; Limited budget; Simple ingredients.
The problem it solves
It improves the utilization rate of the ingredient in the home and avoids food waste.
Keywords
Recipe search engine, Cooking websites, Cook at home
B. Target Users
Based on the research about the competitors of those recipes application, I positioned the target users who prefer cooking at home rather than taking food outside, mainly between 25-50, and are sensitive about money and value a nutritious diet. Also, they care about the issue of food waste. IT professionals, students, graduates who just have a job, and white-collar workers of all stripes will be the primary target. Homemakers, families with multiple children, and seniors are the secondary target demographic.
C. Persona
To illustrate the key audience of my product and to enable potential stakeholders to gain more sympathy for the target issues, I decided to build personas.
After I combined the main findings from the interviews and surveys in addition to the other second research, I summarised the insights I obtained that might influence the future design and created two personas.
03 Project design
A. Lo-Fi prototype
B. Branding building
C. Wireframe
D. Hi-fi Prototype
There are four key features, and the onboarding page will be presented in this section.
Experience the entire prototype!
03 Reflection and feedbak
My first solo project, FridgeKnow, gave me the opportunity to fully immerse myself in the world of UX design, starting with the problem statement and ending with the completed prototype. Here are some thoughts I self-reflect on FridgeKnow:
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1. Get the paperwork prepared before starting. "Paperwork" here refers to the strategy that was documented based on research. Some research works prior to design are difficult to convey their significance, and we are more prone to become unintentionally immersed in the visual aspect, such as design and prototype. But before we begin the project, it is important to settle on the goal and the product's features. It is simple to speak, but challenging to put words into action. It's crucial to prioritize the strategy before the design.
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2. Test, test, test. Iteration is the ongoing process of the project, regardless of its maturity or if it is only the deliverable for a college programme. According to my past experience, I nearly always discover some significant or minor optimization throughout the test and prototype phases. Additionally, the test results from my peers and users gave me some excellent guidance.
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3. Imitate, practice, and creativity. Honestly, I would not say my project is super creative or innovative since I scanned and downloaded loads of similar applications along with screenshots of some fantastic UI and pasted them to my board for inspiration. All this imitation pushed my design further effective and produced noticeable advancement. In the end, I could propose some innovative thoughts on the UI and UX.
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FridgeKnow also motivates me to keep pushing toward a profession in user experience design. UX design places more emphasis on thinking and systems than just aesthetics, giving users a more convenient environment.