SAVR

Introducing "Design Sprint": a 5-day intensive process inspired by Google Ventures, focused on rapidly validating crucial business decisions through research, ideation, prototyping, and usability testing. The goal is to generate and assess an idea's feasibility within just 5 days. In this project, I tackled a challenge from Savr Recipes and conducted a solo design sprint to address user concerns and improve their experience.

Company Background

Savr Recipes is a new startup company that provides users with a convenient recipe application. The app has a vast recipe library and an active home chef community. Although users highly praised the quality and diversity of dishes provided by Savr Recipes, the company recently received some negative feedback regarding the difficulty of following some of its complex recipes. Users reported challenges in following cooking instructions when preparing new recipes.

Day 1: Research

Project Problem

The core problem facing SAVR Recipes is optimizing cooking instructions to make it easier and more accurate for users to follow cooking steps.

Insights

After reading the SAVR Recipes Design Sprint Challenge, I gathered the following insights:

Users are satisfied with the quality and diversity of dishes provided by the SAVR Recipes app. We need to maintain high-quality recipe standards while optimizing the cooking guides.
To address the difficulty users experience when following complex recipes, we need to improve existing cooking guides to make them more concise, intuitive, and easy to understand.
Users need real-time support and guidance during the cooking process. We can consider adding visual and interactive elements (such as video tutorials, progress tracking, and timers) to enhance the user experience.
By collecting user feedback, we can identify potential issues and continuously improve the recipes and cooking guides. We can use the app's built-in feedback system or community discussions to collect user opinions and suggestions.

Interview
(Insights)

Based on their interview reports, I've summarized some key insights.These are the various problems that users encounter when using the product and want to be solved.

HMW Problem
Statement

How can we improve the cooking instructions and real-time support features of Savr Recipes to make it easier and more confident for users to follow complex recipes?

How can we teach cooking techniques and skills within the Savr Recipes app to enable users to enjoy a pleasant cooking experience while trying new recipes and avoid generating too much pressure?

How can we continuously optimize Savr Recipes' recipes and features by collecting and integrating user feedback to meet better users' needs in learning cooking skills and following recipes?

Persona

User Experience Map

Steps:

Open the app, browse, or search for recipes of interest.
Select a recipe, and check the required ingredients and cooking steps.
Prepare ingredients and kitchenware in advance according to prompts.
Read detailed instructions for each cooking step, and view related pictures or video tutorials.
Follow the steps individually, using the built-in timer and progress tracking function.
Get real-time cooking tips and support when needed (such as through a chatbot or community discussion).
Complete cooking and enjoy delicious dishes.
Rate the recipe and provide feedback in the app.

Day 2: Sketching

Lightning Demo

In this Lightning Demo, I drew inspiration from three applications: Cookpad, Yummly, and Tasty. Here are the key elements that I learned from these apps:

Cookpad:

Community-driven cooking guides: Learn how to present cooking guides that users enjoy in a community environment and facilitate user interaction and learning.
Comment and rating system: Observe how users interact through a comment and rating system to provide feedback and share experiences.

Yummly:

Personalized recommendations: Analyze how the app provides personalized recipe suggestions based on user's tastes and preferences.
Information organization and presentation: Learn how to effectively organize and present a large amount of recipe information within the app.

Tasty:

Engaging cooking videos: Observe how cooking steps are presented in an engaging way for users to learn and reference quickly.
Multimedia elements: Learn how to use multimedia features such as videos, animations, and more to enhance user experience and engagement.

By studying these applications, I found inspiration for solutions in the design sprint and integrated these ideas to create a better user experience. This will help our target users solve pain points and achieve their goals.

Crazy 8s

In the Crazy 8 exercise, I reviewed key screens and set an 8-minute timer for myself to quickly sketch 8 different ideas aimed at improving the user's cooking experience. These ideas included personalized recipe recommendations, cooking skill assessments, and allowing users to find suitable recipes based on their tastes, skills, and needs.

Other creative ideas such as step-by-step guidance, customized recipes, cooking logs, cooking challenges, community interactions, and multimedia tutorials were also aimed at helping users learn cooking skills more effectively, overcome challenges, and stay engaged and interactive throughout the process.

3-panel Storyboard

In the 8 concepts, I chose "personalized recipe recommendations" and combined them with step-by-step guidance as the best solution. This solution sketch aims to provide a more understandable and trackable cooking experience. Through this design, I aim to make it easier for users to find recipes that fit their needs and skills and to provide better guidance during the cooking process. The following are the three sections of the solution sketch.

Users input their taste preferences, ingredients, and cooking skill level in the app. This helps the app understand their needs and preferences.
The app recommends suitable recipes based on the user's input. These recommendations will be presented in images and short descriptions, which users can quickly browse and find recipes that interest them.
Users will enter the detailed recipe page when they select a recommended recipe. On this page, they can view detailed information for each step, including required ingredients, cooking steps, and estimated time. Users can check off each step as they complete it to track progress. Additionally, users can save the recipe and rate it on this page.

Day 3: Decide

Reflection

On day 3 of the design sprint, I needed to consider whether the design solution was feasible. I carefully examined each of my ideas and evaluated their pros and cons. To determine the best solution, I considered the following three points:

User needs: I deeply thought about which solution best meets the users' needs and expectations. Which solution would better satisfy users' needs when they are looking for personalized recipe recommendations and simple cooking step-by-step guidance?

Feasibility: Considering the development team's skills and resources, which solution is more easily implementable? Are the technologies and tools required to implement the solution readily available?

Innovation: Which solution has higher innovation and differentiation in the existing market? Does it provide unique value to users that make our product stand out in the competition?

Storyboard

The combination of "personalized recipe recommendation" and step-by-step guidance has a certain degree of innovation in the existing market and can provide unique value to users. After determining the solution, I created a storyboard to demonstrate how users interact with the interface, what the interaction results are, and what the user will do next. This storyboard will be a reference for my future design and a blueprint for future prototypes.

In this storyboard, I designed a fun and practical user experience to help users discover recipes that match their preferences and easily learn and master cooking skills.

Day 4: Prototype

Process

On the fourth day of the design sprint, I completed a prototype that included all the pages I designed in the previous storyboard, such as the home page, recipe detail page, cooking step page, comments and rating page, and user profile page. This prototype aims to provide users with a practical and engaging cooking experience that allows them to find suitable recipes based on their tastes and skill levels.

During prototyping, I focused on creating a clean and intuitive user interface and ensured each feature was easy to use. At the same time, I also paid attention to users' needs to provide personalized recipe recommendations and guidance.

Here is the prototype and link.

https://www.figma.com/proto/ELsHJoHlRlBYdU2fSmYMVB/Untitled?page-id=0%3A1&node-id=4-246&viewport=-1031%2C-54%2C0.25&scaling=scale-down&starting-point-node-id=4%3A246&show-proto-sidebar=1

I completed the prototype to create a product that could be tested quickly to collect user feedback in real-world scenarios. The goal of testing the prototype is to verify whether our design meets user needs, addresses their problems, and provides a delightful user experience.

To prepare for testing the prototype on day five, I have some ideas and objectives in mind:

Are users satisfied with the features and interface in the prototype?
Which features or interfaces need improvement to provide a better user experience?
Are there any potential issues or needs I may have overlooked during the design process?

Collecting this feedback will help me optimize the prototype and provide users with a more complete and efficient cooking experience.

Day 5: Validate

During the final day of the UX design sprint, I interviewed five users to test our cooking app prototype. These five users have varying cooking skills and needs, and their feedback helps me optimize and improve the product design.

Throughout the interview and testing process, I observed users interacting with the prototype to understand their needs and pain points. I documented their performance and feedback to make appropriate adjustments during the design process.

User A: A young cooking enthusiast who enjoys trying new recipes but could be more confident in their cooking skills. They hope the app can provide more detailed step-by-step guidance and real-time feedback.

User B: A homemaker with cooking experience who hopes the app can offer more ingredient substitution options and usability improvements to better adapt to their family's needs.

User C: A cooking hobbyist who enjoys sharing cooking insights with others. They focus on community interaction features and hope to interact and learn from other users within the app.

User D: A UX designer wanted the app to provide convenient how-to's and easy-to-understand video content so they could quickly learn cooking skills in a short period.

User E: A confident advanced user who focuses on the rating system and operability, hoping to choose suitable recipes based on their taste and requirements.

Testing

I had in-depth conversations with users of different backgrounds and needs during the interview and testing process. This allowed us to understand better the problems and challenges they encounter when using a cooking app. Observing users' actual operation of the prototype and collecting their feedback helped me understand which aspects needed improvement to provide a better experience for users.

Experience

Based on the feedback from the five users, I have summarized the following key findings:

Users hope the app provides a built-in timer for more convenient cooking time tracking.
The app must offer more ingredient substitution options for users to adjust according to their needs.
Adding real-time feedback features, such as reminder notifications, can help users better control their cooking progress.
The rating system should differentiate between recipe operability and final taste, allowing users to choose suitable recipes based on their needs and preferences.
Adding community interaction features will enable users to share their cooking experiences, insights, and skills.
Consider adding voice operation features for easier app usage in busy kitchen environments.

Through the interviews and tests, I have gained insights into users' needs and pain points when using the cooking app. This information will help me improve and optimize the app design, providing a better user experience.