TasteBuds
Helping students find recipes with ease
INTRODUCTION
Project Details
Role
Product Design, User Research, Ideation/Synthesis Lead
Timeline
April - May 2023 (6 week sprint)
Tools
Figma, Qualtrics, Notion
Team
Overview
Background
Cooking can be a challenging task, especially when one needs to find creative ways to use ingredients lying around.
For students who have to juggle multiple commitments, factors such as time, budget, and cooking skills can make it difficult to utilize their food options in the best possible manner.
Problem Statement
Challenge
How might we create a solution that helps students manage and use available food in creative ways based on their needs?
Solution
TasteBuds – a mobile application to help students who are new to cooking utilize their food options in the best possible manner.
1. Time
2. Budget
3. Search
4. Waste
5. Energy
How much time can people allot for cooking during the week?
Would users like features to personalize their financial needs?
Where do most people find recipes? What’s the easiest way to find recipes?
Would users like features to personalize their financial needs?
How might we suggest recipes based on a user’s mood that day?
Survey
Our survey was distributed via Qualtrics with insights from 126 participants.
Based on the survey responses, we found some key insights that were important in helping us narrow the scope of our project.
Insight #1
Students mostly consider time and budgeting when it came to cooking each week & do not prioritize waste prevention or enjoyment.
20% label budget as a first priority.
45% label time as a first priority.
Because the priority of some cooking factors were so low, our team focused on addressing the more relevant factors of time and budgeting in our app’s features.
Insight #3
Many people rarely try new recipes.
The orange graph depicts that the way people find recipes is evenly spread over a wide variety of different sources, with no one particular source being more popular than the others. The green graph demonstrates that people try new recipes fairly infrequently, with more than 90% of people trying new recipes at most 3 times a month.
These two insights combined made it clear that there is no centralized resource for finding recipes. This was a particularly important finding, because it proved that our app had the opportunity to compete as a resource for students to locate recipes.
Interviews
While the survey gave us important information, we needed clarification to further understand our insights. We conducted 12 interviews with participants who matched our target population of college students. Here are some key quotes from these interviews:
“I always find great and easy recipes from social media, like TikTok and Instagram, but never go back to look at them since I don’t have a way to track it.”
“It’s always really hard to balance school work and taking care of myself, and I tend to find less time for myself nowadays.”
USER RESEARCH
Research Goals
We conducted user surveys and interviews to find where people had the most meal finding & cooking difficulty in their day-to-day lives.
We initially had a surplus of ideas, so we picked 5 topics that we wanted to gather more information about.
“I remember cooking with my mom and learning all sorts of recipes and tricks. But now school drains me and I stick to typical meals that aren’t very exciting anymore.”
Insight #2
Currently there is no centralized source to find recipes.
SYNTHESIS & IDEATION
Our next major step was to synthesize all this data we gathered.
Affinity Mapping
Based on our key research insights, we synthesized different How Might We (HMW) statements to address users’ needs.
We had many different ideas, so we narrowed our focus to:
1
2
User Persona
At this point, we had no idea what direction to go in. We revisited our research and identified the most important frustrations we wanted to focus on: students’ low energy levels and their frustrations with accessing ingredients.
The user persona helped us narrow our scope and anchor us back into understanding who this app is made for.
3
4
HMW help people to search for recipes while using ingredients they already have?
HMW allow students to explore new ideas in an easy and efficient way?
HMW take into account a user’s energy levels when creating meals?
Final Problem Statement
From the process of synthesizing all of our research, we honed onto one FINAL problem statement:
How might we create a centralized resource where people can find recipes based on energy levels and pantry ingredients?
Sketches & Wireframes
Based on our user research insights and our final problem statement, we drew up some sketches and wireframes. These designs focused on 4 functions:
Personalization for food discovery based on mood & energy level
Receipt scanner to store ingredients in a virtual pantry
Filter functions to easily find recipes that match energy levels and time
Saving recipes from other applications like Tiktok, Instagram Reels
1
2
3
MID-FIDELITY
After synthesizing our user-research, we moved on to iterating our designs in the Mid-Fidelity phase. In this phase our team used our sketches and wireframes to design prototypes based on the user-research insights.
Through iterative design and usability testing, we narrowed down our major features into two major user flows, which encompassed most of our features:
1. Manage Ingredients
Where users can keep track of ingredients that they have & ingredients that they need to purchase
1. Receipt Scanner
4. Shopping List
2. Filter Recipes
Where users can optimize their recipes on the homepage, using interactive and extensive filters
Using our central problem statement of “How might we create a centralized resource where people can find recipes based on energy levels and pantry ingredients?” we used insights from the user research and integrated them into app features:
2. Virtual Pantry
3. Recipe Filters
To quickly archive grocery ingredients from a receipt, and manage which items they want saved in their pantry or not.
To store all of the user’s ingredients, where they can delete or add items.
Allow users to filter recipes on the homepage for dietary restrictions, recipe type, etc.
Recipes will state which items a user has and does not have. The user can decide to add an item that they do not have into a shopping list.
Discovering Pain Points & Solutions
Issues with the Mid-Fi designs arose from consecutive iterations and user testing. By using insights from usability testing in tandem with referring back to initial user-research insights, we addressed issues with our mid-fidelity designs by finding that:
or
Quick vs In-depth Filter:
Whether or not we should cater towards users who prefer quick/simple preset filters to find recipes or more extensive/in-depth filters
Pain Point
Pain Point
Solution
Users preferred both filter options, giving them the option to choose which filter type best suits them in the given moment
&
Central User-Flow:
Our designs lacked a central user-flow that connected our various features, so we began to consider having a central navigation button
Cognitive Overload:
Solution
We designated the receipt scanner as the central user-flow of the app, as it keeps track of user’s ingredients, powering the rest of the app. By putting the scanner in the center, it incentivizes users to regularly refresh their pantry items
Solution
We reduced the amount of information on the recipe screen based on what users found the most relevant
We aimed to cut any unnecessary features that were not supported by our initial user research. Through this phase, our team learned how to maximize the quality of usability testing insights by using research techniques to construct powerful and non-biased questionnaires. We also learned methods of how to iterate our designs by using comparative analysis for features and UI, usability testing for optimizing user flows, or referring to user research to ensure we solve our initial problem statement.
Pain Point
Our designs contained too many features on a single page, causing cognitive overload for the user
HIGH-FIDELITY
Design System
Our first step in creating our high-fidelity prototypes was to finalize the design system. A key thing to note is our decision to assign green as our primary color instead of orange for better visual accessibility. We chose a modern and approachable font to make the app a welcoming space for users who may be weary of trying new recipes.
Colors
Recipe Card
Font
TasteBuds
Helping students find recipes with ease
The mood personalization feature allows users to choose a selection of personalized “mood” filters that fit their current cooking style.
This feature filters types of recipes on the homepage. Each mood filter is based on user research insights:
Hurried Chef = Time constraints
Tired Chef = Energy levels
Inspired Chef = New Recipes
Normal Chef = Saved Recipes
Receipt Scanner
The receipt scanner feature allows the user to take a picture of their grocery receipt. The products listed are then transferred into the user’s virtual pantry.
Users can manage what items they want saved into their virtual pantry
These items are visible when checking what ingredients you have in a certain recipe
Mood Personalization
Within a recipe, ingredients are sorted based on what the user does vs. does not have. For ingredients users don’t have, users have 2 options:
View alternative options, OR
Add them to a shopping list page which is linked to the pantry
Within the shopping list, users can:
Checkmark items off the list which adds them to the pantry
View estimated prices for the items
Pantry
The pantry sorts items based on their food category. Within the pantry, users can:
Edit, add, or delete items
Manually add new items
Access their virtual Shopping List
Shopping List
The Shopping List includes what items the user needs to purchase along with the amount needed for a specific recipe. Within the Shopping List, users can:
Filter items on the list by recipe or by ingredient
Delete unnecessary items
Change serving sizes for specific recipes, which in turn edits the estimated price & amount listed
Filter Search
The Filter Search feature allows users to find recipes specific to their needs. Users can filter based on:
Time, Difficulty, Dietary Restrictions & Recipe Type: pre-set options and availability to customize
Budget: Slider for easier & quicker use
Suggested inputs based on search history
App Extension on TikTok
Users can add recipes from other apps like TikTok onto TasteBuds. Thus, TasteBuds becomes the user’s centralized resource for recipes.
Recipe is added to the Saved tab on TasteBuds
Easily find recipe by searching through saved recipes
REFLECTION
Next Steps
Standardize UI, such as icons
Conduct more rounds of user testing and user interviews for current features and future features
Explore a “creator” side of the app that allows users to create and publish their own recipes in addition to exploring others’ recipes
What We Learned
The importance of revisiting our user persona and How Might We Statements throughout the design process
High level Figma wireframing & prototyping
Integration of synthesized research to our visual designs to enhance our user experience and journey