EZ COOK
EZ COOK provides users the opportunity to explore diverse cuisines from all over the world through its’ intuitive recipe database which provides not only cooking instructions, but information of ethnic ingredients and where to buy them.
MY ROLE
Ideal Thinking, Researcher, Interviewer, UX Designer, UI Designer.
PROJECT TIMELINE
WHY THIS SUBJECT
I am always a cooking lover, but I only can cook Chinese food. I am very happy by seeing people enjoy eating my food. After I married to my husband who is from both Portuguese and Mexican cultures, in order to contributes some more diverse food on the dining table, I started eager to explore more home dishes that from other cultures. However, I am unconfident to try due to my lack knowledge of foreign ingredients and zero experience of cooking them. Therefore, I want to design EZ COOK.
RESEARCH
People feel gated from certain food since cultural foods can have less known ingredients.
People like to bring joy to their friends by cooking delicious food to share with them.
People who likes to cook usually enjoy exploring supermarkets.
Most people lost their cooking passion and confidence after they fail a few cooking experiences.
After Covid started, due to safety reasons and people’s general financial situation declining, more and more people started cooking more at home, and eat less outside.
People want to maintain a healthy diet, so they tend to cook at home.
People are eager to go out of their way to cook food from different cultures.
People are often struggling to cook a foreign cuisine.
DEFINE PROBLEM
Many people really enjoy cooking; however, people are limited to the culinary information unique to their upbringing. People who wish to experience other cultures’ cuisine need to order food delivery or travel to restaurants. The natural barrier of not knowing the nuances of other cultures cooking practices acts as a gateway for people to be able to expand their culinary abilities.
MY GOAL
To provide cooking lovers diverse recipes that are authentic, easy to understand, and execute.
PERSONA
BRAINSTORMING-CRAZY 8'
APP Main Features:
People want to maintain a healthy diet, so they tend to cook at home.
People are eager to go out of their way to cook food from different cultures.
People are often struggling to cook a foreign cuisine.
COMPETITORS
Pros:
Clear navigation and layout design.
Cover photos are visually pleasing.
Dinner Spinner helps users decide their next dish.
Cons:
Only available in English.
Can’t leave message to reviewers.
No additional information about the ingredients.
No shopping location suggestions are limited.
Pros:
Clear navigation and layout design.
Cover photos are visually pleasing.
Dinner Spinner helps users decide their next dish.
Cons:
Only available in English.
Can’t leave message to reviewers.
No additional information about the ingredients.
HEURISTIC EVALUATION
STUDY CONCLUSION
Clear and consistent navigation and layout design.
Good quality photos.
Support multiple languages.
Interaction feature with commenters.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
STORY BOARD
TASK FLOW 1
Grace want to cook for her Kenyan friend, so she search for Kenyan food and want to find the one has the best reviews, then check the information of “smoked paprika” and find the nearest selling location.
TASK FLOW 2
Find the stuffed mushroom recipe from vegetarian category, then upload your work, leave comments and five stars review.
TASK FLOW 3
Find the orange chicken recipe in my collection page and add top 3 ingredients to shopping cart.
LOW-FI WIREFRAMES
MEDIUM-FI WIREFRAMES
USER TESTING
TESTING CONCLUSION
Overall, all my candidates are very interested in my app. They went through 3 tasks very quick which means my layout design are not too difficult for users to execute. After reading the notes I took from them, I decided to make few changes.
