BON
This is a personal project aimed at inspiring students and young adults to cook at home. Relating to their daily frustrations about the energy to cook, time in hand, dishes in the sink and groceries at home - Bon suggests recipes and ideas based on the need of the hour. With each recipe there are complimentary tips and tricks to simplify the cooking experience.
Tools
Set up
👩💻 Individual project
⏳ 1 month
🗓 October, 2020
Personal motive
My love for food. Learning and using Figma for the first time. An attempt at tackling a daily life frustration for myself and others in the same boat.
My Roles
User Research, Journey Mapping, Ideation,
UX UI Design, Wire-framing, Prototyping, User Testing, Visual Design
Had a long day?
Time crunch?
Piled up dishes?
What’s in your fridge?
Whatever the case may be, we have got you covered.
Browse through recipes based on your need of the hour.
Triggering ideas.
Sharing hacks.
Simplifying recipes.
Inspiring you.
Recipes simplified. Substitutes for ingredients and missing equipment. All in just a few clicks!
Type or Click!
Tell us what you have.
We’ll think for you.
Grocery usage optimised. Suggestions based on ingredients you already have and need to utilise.
INITIAL PROBLEM
How to organise groceries and plan meals
for the week?
This idea started with a personal frustration of not being able to manage groceries and cooking with my college routine. Living as a vegetarian in a small French town, takeaway meals often weren’t a choice. I was definitely biased towards the pain points which led me to initiate the user research process.
USER RESEARCH
106 surveys and 9 interviews later..
I sent out the survey to all the young adults in my network who need to cook as part of their regular routine. Surprise surprise! After going through the survey responses I discovered bigger problems than managing groceries. And the project took a different turn.
Friends, colleagues and college students who participated in the interviews. In hindsight, I would balance the gender ratio of users. Additionally, I would profile users based on their cooking habits and have an equal quota for each profile type.
USER JOURNEY
Mapping the experience
It was important to synthesise the interviews and map out the user's journey for a week's time. The highs and lows further clarified the focus areas.
INSIGHTS
Where does the problem lie?
Deciding what to cook is the biggest struggle.
The ratio of time spent in cooking versus eating is unfair.
Don’t have the same amount of energy to cook everyday.
Doing the dishes after cooking is tedious.
Often missing or wasting groceries.
End up skipping meals because of time constraints or laziness.
REVISED PROBLEM
Finding easy meal ideas based on the need of the hour
The priority of pain points changed based on surveys and were filtered after interviews. So I summarised the overlapping problems and narrowed them down to four main issues which should be tackled. These eventually turned into the key features for the application.
CORE LEARNING
Design for users’ needs not personal frustrations.
However obvious this sounds, I am glad I learnt it first hand through this process. It is easy to deviate from the real user needs when you have strong ideas and personal opinions dominating the design decisions.
TARGET USERS’ MINDSET
“Don’t enjoy cooking but it is a need for survival”
Students, young adults or individuals living away from home, obliged to cook for themselves and have a hectic schedule. They live on a monthly budget. Cooking feels like a tedious task, even stressful at times. They need easier ways out to manage their day efficiently.
DESIGN CHALLENGE
How to simplify the cooking experience for students or young adults and inspire them to cook at home?
DESIGN PROCESS
First hand experiments
Warming up for the creativity session started in the kitchen. Empathising with the problem and understanding the true sense of "1 hour to cook 10 mins to eat?!".
Testing the extremes. Wide range of recipes, each demanding varying amounts of physical energy, preparation time, number of utensils and ingredients, of course. These observations helped me link the factors that ultimately decide what to cook? I logged the time taken to prepare each and realised how the process becomes much faster and efficient with just small hacks and tips.
IDEATION
Keeping it raw
Letting the first layer of ideas flow on paper. Although grocery wasn’t the main issue it potentially decided what the user will ultimately cook while equally considering other pain points. Exploring, rethinking, redefining, moving forward. This accelerated the process of making decisions and changes.
WIREFRAMING
From scribbles to screens
Information hierarchy, defining the navigation and user flows.
VISUALISATION
Design decisions
A comforting, warm colour scheme to make it appetising.
'‘Bon' = Bon, the application = Bon app
Which is also the colloquial form of saying Bon Appétit. A cultural reference and influence :)
VISUALISAITION
Layering the information
The goal was to inspire, to trigger ideas. Not to follow a hard and fast recipe. Instructions are for guidance. For most people even a gist is enough. Tweak your meal based on what you like and have in stock. Knowing the users mindset, their need is to reduce effort and not to make cooking tedious.
For some seeing a photo or title is enough to know what they can possibly cook while others might need complete guidance. Hence the strategy of hinting ideas at each level so they don’t spend unnecessary time browsing through the application.
DISCOVERING FEATURES
Enhancing the experience
Tips and Tricks for learning hacks, finding substitutes or affordable alternatives for groceries and equipment.
Search engine with filters relevant to student needs.
Surprise me option for generating suggestions.
Reminders to "Start preparing your meal", "It's time for lunch"or "Turn off the oven". Edit titles basedon your need and schedule. Insights said eating healthy is not about the nutritional value. For themit means at least eating regularly and not skipping meals.
USER TESTING
Validating with users
I went back to the some of the users I interviewed, for testing the Figma prototype.
The goal was to observe the following :
Is the vocabulary clear?
Are the interactive elements ergonomically designed?
Are the users able to navigate through the application?
Which part of the solution appealed to them the most?
Would they really use it? What is the added value?
WHAT I LEARNT
User feedback
The vocabulary was clear in most places. They suggested I should re-frame the titles under the ‘TIME’ category.
Navigation was intuitive. But I observed the fat finger syndrome while testing, have to rework on the spacing.
The camera feature for groceries was highly appreciated. Over all the application was visually pleasing.
They could see themselves using the product.
Tips and Tricks is exactly what they need in recipes today.
Would have liked to see videos or photos for instructions instead of text.
INNOVATION ROADMAP
Feature upgrades
Planning: An upgraded version with features for grocery planning based on the users' cooking patterns.
Integrating links: To view relevant recipes on Pinterest, Youtube videos, Google, etc.
Community: Providing a platform for people to promote their recipes respecting the existing format. Indirectly contributing to the app data base.
Contextual and specific suggestions: Detailed user profile with specifications like allergies, preferences in cuisine, availability of ingredients based on your location, local and seasonal. This will help in providing more relevant suggestions for the users.
AI magic: Collaborating with AI models for creating advanced suggestions and content for the users.
Sources : Visuals and information taken from Pinterest and further edited. iPhone mockup from ui8.