cookbook
Your AI-powered sous chef for effortless meal planning and cooking
A mobile application enabling users to effortlessly plan and budget their grocery shopping, explore personalized recipes that align with their dietary preferences, and create a calendar of weekly meals. Our intuitive interface makes it easy to rate recipes, ensuring users always enjoy delicious meals that suit their taste, while our AI technology provides intelligent recommendations for an enhanced culinary experience.
problem
It's hard for busy individuals to tackle meal planning, grocery shopping, and finding suitable recipes, resulting in kitchen stress and inefficiency.
After conducting some initial research, I found that 72% of respondents in a survey reported feeling stressed in the kitchen due to the overwhelming task of meal planning, while 68% expressed frustration in finding recipes that align with their dietary preferences. Additionally, the survey found that 79% of participants admitted to wasting groceries and ingredients due to inadequate planning, further highlighting the inefficiency in the kitchen. These compelling statistics reinforce the notion that busy individuals face significant hurdles in effectively managing their meals, underlining the need for a solution that simplifies and streamlines the meal planning process.
solution
Create an application that simplifies meal planning and kitchen management for busy individuals.
design goals
it was imperative for our team to establish clear design goals early on, ensuring they directly addressed the problem at hand. By strategically defining our design goals, we aimed to create an intuitive and seamless user experience that effectively tackles the challenges faced by our target audience. Our focus was on crafting solutions that simplified meal planning and kitchen management, alleviating stress and inefficiency for busy individuals. Through thoughtful design choices and user-centric approaches, we aimed to empower users in their journey towards healthier habits and a more enjoyable culinary experience.
1. Who are our users?
People who need assistance with planning and cooking food (busy college students, single parents, etc)
2. What are the goals of the design?
Task-based goals: Help users plan and budget their grocery shopping, plan their meals, and explore their dietary preferences. Usability-based goals: useful, learnable
3. What are the artifacts of the interaction?
Calendar of weekly meals
Ratable recipe for each meal
Grocery list for the week/two weeks
Food/allergy and budget preference settings
Possible AI chat helper
focus groups
Our goals for our focus groups were to uncover pain points we hadn’t already considered and to find out what features potential users would look for in our app so that we could design based on our user’s actual needs. We recruited participants through personal connections in classes, friendships, and residences. Our focus groups were conducted in person and on Zoom and consisted of a facilitator, who recorded the session and led the conversation between 3 participants.
Question 1:
What problems do you currently face with grocery shopping? What works well?
They find that grocery shopping is difficult at times, especially when school work gets difficult and busy, due to time commitment and the required mental faculties for it. They also mentioned that they do not know what to buy or what amounts to buy groceries in, so their food will either not last long enough or expire. Participants 1 and 2 stated that the grocery store locations are too far from their apartments, so they cannot routinely buy groceries as much as they should.
Focus Group 2 found that Costco/buying in bulk with a shared roommate often resulted in the best shopping results, which is to split the costs at the end of the shopping period. However, some participants did not like sharing groceries due to differences in eating habits with other roommates and spending unnecessary money on things they would not use.
Question 2:
What problems do you currently face with cooking?
Cooking is difficult to do when there is a lot of school work, but it's the cheapest option for students to get food. Our groups stated that they did not have the right ingredients at the right time, so it was hard to find recipes that they could make with what they had. As a result, some of our participants resorted to going on a university meal plan or eating out more often. Participant 3 lives with his family, so he did not face any problems with cooking as a family but did agree that he did not always have the ingredients he needed for his own meals.
Question 3:
Do you struggle with coming up with a variety of balanced meals? If so, why?
In general, our participants found that they do not have a variety in their diet, which mostly consisted of staple foods like pasta and rice and meat or vegetables. Participant 6 stated that Trader Joe's frozen meals help with variety, since he does not have to buy the ingredients to cook. There was a split consensus on whether the participants felt bothered by the lack of variety in their diet.
Question 4:
In the last week, how often did you cook vs. ordering takeout/delivery? (if it applies) Is there a reason for why you did not cook every day?
Since they don’t have the time to be cooking so often, participants in Focus Group 2 found that UberEats was their preferred option, especially with offers, as it is so convenient. The participants in this group eat out more often than they cook, but Group 1 rarely ate out unless it was on the meal plan. Participants 3 and 5 rarely eat out as they are living with family, unless the family orders takeout.
process
How can we effectively include AI into our mobile application to make the process of cooking and grocery shopping easier?
By incorporating AI technologies, we can provide users with a range of convenient features that simplify the process and save time. Valuable functionality we can include in the AI-powered mobile application is the ability for users to request recipe recommendations for specific dishes such as sandwiches. By leveraging AI algorithms and a comprehensive recipe database, users can simply ask the AI to provide them with sandwich recipes, and the application will intelligently generate multiple options tailored to their preferences and dietary requirements. The AI can take into account factors such as preferred bread types, protein choices, condiments, and additional ingredients to suggest a variety of delicious and customized sandwich recipes. This feature not only saves users time and effort in searching for recipes manually but also offers them a diverse range of options to explore, ensuring their cooking experience remains exciting and enjoyable.
low-fidelity
wireframes
Begin by thoroughly analyzing the user research findings to gain valuable insights into the target audience's needs, pain points, and preferences related to cooking and grocery shopping. With this understanding, initiate the creation of low-fidelity wireframes that focus on simplicity and intuitive interactions. Start by sketching out the basic layout, considering the core features such as recipe recommendations, personalized grocery lists, and chatbot support. Place these features strategically within the wireframes, ensuring a seamless user flow with clear navigation paths and visual cues. Iteration is key during this stage.
Task 1:
AI search for a recipe using specific ingredients, then leave a review for the recipe
Task 2:
Input schedule into the app and receive an AI-generated grocery and cooking schedule back
wizard of oz
To evaluate user interactions and gather insights on the user experience, we employed the Wizard of Oz method during our research study. In Task 1, participants were asked to engage with the application by utilizing the AI search feature to find a recipe using specific ingredients. In Task 2, participants were requested to input their schedule into the application, expecting an AI-generated grocery and cooking schedule in return. In both tasks, the process was facilitated by human operators who manually generated responses based on the participants' input. By employing the Wizard of Oz method, we were able to gather valuable insights into participants' preferences, expectations, and challenges related to AI-driven recipe search, review submission, and scheduling capabilities within the application.
Joy points:
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AI chat seemed cool, all positive because it helped cut down on time looking for recipes I like
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Looking at one day at a time on the schedule was helpful and less cluttered
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Adding an event was simple and understandable
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Was easy to find the grocery list since it was on the homepage
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It was really cool that dietary restriction can play a major role in the user experience
Pain points:
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Leaving a review should be easier, currently ambiguous where to do so.
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The add button was not at the bottom of the screen, not intuitive (schedule)
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Main schedule was visually cluttered and hard to use
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“I can’t find a way to move back from individual day view to my view for the week”
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It may feel that certain settings are hidden inside the profile
prototype
Meal planning and cooking needs brought by a cutting-edge AI-driven mobile application, offering an intuitive and seamless experience for culinary adventures.
Through an iterative research and design process, we successfully developed a prototype for our AI-driven mobile application, catering to users' meal planning and cooking needs. Our journey began with an in-depth understanding of user preferences and pain points, obtained through user research and feedback collection. By empathizing with our target audience, we identified the key features and functionality required to create a seamless and intuitive experience. Leveraging the insights gained, we meticulously crafted wireframes and conducted multiple rounds of usability testing to refine the user interface and interactions. The research findings guided us in making informed design decisions, ensuring that the prototype addressed user needs effectively. As a result, our prototype showcases a streamlined and engaging experience, allowing users to effortlessly plan meals, discover personalized recipes, and enjoy the convenience of AI-driven assistance.
experiment design form
In our experiment, we compared two different design styles for our app interface to determine the preferred design for our target audience and their general aesthetic preference. We focused on tasks related to profile editing, recipe search, grocery list customization, and schedule management. Using a within-subject study with eight participants, we alternated the order of prototype presentation to minimize ordering effects. Participants navigated through the prototypes while thinking aloud, and their screen recordings were analyzed along with anonymous surveys to assess usability, difficulties, and preferences. The collected data was analyzed and compared using Google Forms and Sheets, allowing us to identify the design style that achieved our goals of intuitiveness, usability, and appeal.
Google Form/Response
Version A vs. B
Version A
Version B
Results
high-fidelity
wireframes
We went through an iterative research and design process to create a prototype for our AI-powered mobile app, specifically designed for meal planning and cooking. By understanding user preferences and pain points, conducting usability testing, and refining the design, we developed a streamlined and engaging experience. The prototype enables users to easily plan meals, explore personalized recipes, and benefit from AI-driven assistance.
