Savr
Savr is a start-up that provides recipes for home-cooked meals. While users are impressed with the quality of the recipes, they also left plenty of negative reviews.
The goal of the project is to promote better overall home cooking experience that allows users to follow a recipe accurately and easily.
My Role
Research analysis, concept development, rapid prototyping, usability testing and design recommendations
Process
Google Venture Design Sprint - Map, Sketch, Decide, Prototype and Test
Day 1 - Map
Research Finding
Identify common pain points and goals from existing research of user interview and persona …
Goals:
Follow recipes easily and confidently as expected
Make the experience enjoyable & challenging, not stressful & chaotic
An overview to lay it all out and pre-prep steps ahead of time
Pain points:
Recipe complexity is not a right fit
Timing in each step is off
Unfamiliar with a technique, cooking equipment or ingredient
There is no confirmation to make sure it’s on the right track
Don’t know how to salvage from mistakes
The result is far from the expectation
User Flow
Explore design opportunities through laying out the optimal user flow to identify …
the possible user actions and consequent results
the information/tools users need during the overall process
all potential roadblocks that hinder the positive experience
Day 2 - Sketch
Critical Step
Conduct competitor study and determine the focus of design exploration …
Upon examining competitors, the recipe filtering process is too general and doesn’t include some of the critical elements that users desperately need in order to prepare a home-cooked meal and have a joyful experience. It still leaves users with an incredible amount of recipes to choose from and requires them to do more investigation into each recipe.
Direction - focus on a more customized filtering process to select an appropriate recipe based on their taste preference, diet restriction or simply the equipment, ingredients, & time they have.
Crazy 8 Exploration
8 ideas in 8 minutes, focused on generating ideas …
Day 3 - Decide
Solution
Choose a concept for further explorations in design details …
Provide users with the choices of single-criterion and advance search
Present suggested preferences of each category(Cuisine, diet, time …) in icons with text
Horizontal swipe to make a selection on a list of suggested preferences in icons
Tape to select and highlight the desired selection with its category area faded to allow easier viewing of all chosen preferences
Allow text box input areas for preferences like related elements to “avoid” or “include”
Storyboard
The sequence of screen shots in which users filter and search for recipes …
Day 4 - Prototype
Rapid Prototyping
B&W clickable prototypes created to test for usability testing …
Day 5 - Test
Summary
Summary of testing results and potential improvements …
Testing Findings
Of the 5 testing participants, all are seasoned cooks and have their own distinguished way of finding recipes - with recipes they go to, only look for new recipes occasionally.
Most participants filter recipes through enticing images, review ratings or desired criterion, and then read through ingredient list and cooking process to make sure it’s a right fit.
The “I am looking for …” CTA button doesn’t explain its nature of multiple-criteria search intuitively.
Some participants expect to select a category and refine their search with more criteria later, similar to most online shopping experience.
Side-swipe motion to view the selections in each category translates well and everyone gets it.
For some, the “+” button is not perceived as an intuitive step of the process for some to “add” an ingredient to “Avoid” or “Include” list.
Most participants like the overview with selected criteria highlighted and the flexibility to change selections.
Display search results with criteria in breadcrumb text to remind users of their selections.
Lessons learned
Study the conventional search process of online retailers - choose a starting point then refine the search filter selections. This is what most users are familiar with and may decrease the learning curve and improve the on-boarding experience.
Rephrase “I am looking for …” button to better explain its function of advanced/multiple-criteria search.
Explore possible alternatives more intuitive than the “+” button to add elements to the criteria.