Recipe Genie
The Why Behind Recipe Genie
Meet Recipe Genie, the app revolutionizing recipe management and cooking. Fueled by the need for optimizing existing ingredients and facilitating efficient, cost-effective, meal prep in our fast-paced world, our team conjured up the magic of Recipe Genie.
My Role
UX Researcher
UX Designer
Team
Ciana Froemming
Ann Troung
Maneli Aygani
Ben Larson
Olivia Oseid
Tools
Figma
Google Suite
Problem
Busy people who regularly cook dinner for themselves and/or their family need a resource that can provide recipes using the food they have readily available.
Solution
Recipe Genie offers a customizable meal planner using existing ingredients, an explore page for new recipes, a shopping list, and a place to save favorites, streamlining meal preparation and saving time and money.
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Goal 1
Revolutionize recipe management
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Goal 2
Elevate the cooking experience
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Goal 3
Simplify meal planning through a customizable meal planner that uses existing ingredients
User Interviews
We interviewed five individuals who cook nightly to understand their meal prep, shopping habits, and pain points. Each individual was asked the same 20 questions, divided into three topics.
Topics:
Identify the app’s target users.
Assess how users currently analyze ingredient information & its importance to them.
Understand the time & effort invested in their dinner preparations.
User Pain Points
Doesn’t always have all necessary ingredients for desired recipe
Struggles to think of new recipes
Feels like planning dinner every night is an obligation
Dislikes grocery shopping for only 1-2 items
Dislikes the preparation process due to the amount of time and effort it takes
Kevin F.
“I don't like coming up with new meal ideas because it's hard to think of them.”
We conducted a survey to understand how people plan nightly meals, focusing on their preferences and habits. This data helped us create Recipe Genie and tailor it to the users needs for better meal planning.
Survey
We found it most interesting that 66.7% stated that they spend 1-2 hours cooking dinner nightly. Our goal is to reduce this time to less than and hour.
66.7% also said they frequently improvise their dinner meals without prior planning. Our goal is to ease meal planning for busy individuals by offering recipes tailored to their available ingredients, thus reducing the burden of meal preparation.
How might we create a recipe app for busy users to effortlessly find recipes, reducing last-minute meal planning stress?
From User Insights to Feature Prioritization
Following user research insights, we utilized the "I Like, I Wish, What If…" exercise to brainstorm tailored app features for meal planning and cooking.
We then condensed our ideas into a prioritization matrix, pinpointing two features for Recipe Genie's development focus.
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I wish I could find recipes that aligned with ingredients in my house.
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What if recipes could build a tailored shopping list.
A Visual Narrative
Based on our user research, including individuals like Lauren who has a busy life and is looking for effortless meal planning, we developed a storyboard to visually demonstrate how Recipe Genie caters to dinner planners.
Hand drawn by team member Menali Aygani
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Lauren is on her way home from work and still needs to cook dinner for her family.
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She looks into the fridge but can’t think of what to make with the ingredients she has.
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She remembers a coworker telling her about Recipe Genie.
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She downloads Recipe Genie and enters in what ingredients she has available.
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She finds a quick recipe and cooks it for her family.
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They all enjoy the meal and Lauren sees more recipes she can make in the future with what she has!
Flow to Delicious Recipes
Drawing from our storyboard, we crafted a user flow to enhance our understanding of the app's functionality. This user flow will serve as the foundation of our sketching blueprint, guiding the development process.
Sketches
My initial sketches shaped by user needs offer a visual representation of Recipe Genie’s user interface and design concepts.
Wireframes
Recipe Genie's wireframes feature three significant updates from the initial sketches, enhancing user-friendliness while considering UI preferences and Gestalt principles.
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Added bottom navigation bar
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Reformatted recipe ingredients & directions display
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Added categories to “Shopping List” & “Discover Recipes”
The First Taste Test
Five individuals completed three tasks during the usability test to ensure that Recipe Genie offers a smooth and enjoyable user experience while uncovering potential pain points.
Usability Test Tasks
Set up an account
Sign in as an existing user
Search for a recipe using existing ingredients & add it to “Saved Recipes”
Feedback from the First Taste Test
4/5 users
said the sign in button and email button on the Sign In page was not clearly clickable.
3/5 users
said there should be a “forgot password” button on the Sign Up page.
Iterations
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Enhanced Sign In page buttons with distinct colors and drop shadows for improved clickability
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Added a “forgot password” button on the Sign Up page
Almost Ready to Dish Out
Final Taste Test
We tested our high-fidelity prototype with five users to ensure Recipe Genie's ease of use and enhance meal prepping, dinner ideas, and ingredient utilization.
Three out of the five users indicated that the Gmail sign up process was confusing.
We decided to revamp this page to help users have a better experience when signing in with their Gmail account.
Cassie P.
“I love that I can find recipes that use ingredients I already have at home!”
Maddie H.
“This app would save me so much time and money. It’s the perfect meal planning app!”
Future Wishes
With a deeper understanding of WCAG guidelines, I aim to revisit the app's color palette.
Additionally, my enhanced understanding of breadcrumbs prompts me to increase their visibility and refine the "back" button's appearance and labeling. These changes will be informed by user research for improved app navigation.
The Last Bite
This project was a fun challenge, collaborating with a team to develop an app from concept to reality. Mistakes were made, but they became valuable learning experiences. For instance, mastering component creation in Figma was initially trial and error, but Recipe Genie introduced me to this essential skill, which has now become second nature.
Guided by our mission to revolutionize recipe management, we refined features, such as using existing ingredients, through iterative processes driven by user feedback.
Moving forward, we aim to meet evolving user needs, making meal planning and cooking accessible and enjoyable for all. The goal would be to implement an AI feature that customizes a recipe for you by scanning your fridge and pantry.