Building a Native iOS App
Problem
People don’t always make nutritiously informed choice when they eat and drink out. As we continue to experience a growing trend of people cooking at home in order to eat healthy, what tasty meals can “at home chefs” make with their existing ingredients?
Opportunity
We choose to develop a native app for the James Beard Foundation because they have an existing arsenal of top chefs, curated recipes and well known reputation. Currently, there is no existing app for the James Beard Foundation. By creating an app we can increase their audience awareness. Also we can include functions such as voice commands, notifications and location. With a mobile app, user can look up recipes anywhere they are.
Why JBF?
The James Beard Foundation is a charity organization well connected within the food industry, with a core mission to educate the public on nutritious and sustainable eating.
Current/Past Food Conference
2015 Rethinking the Future of Food
2014 Health & Food: Is Better Food The Prescription For a Healthier America?
2013 The Paradox of Appetite: Hungering for Change
Competitive Analysis
Began the process by looking into existing food apps. The goal was to identify what features should be included in JBF app.
We further investigated donation website- Feeding America and City Harvest; in order to understand how people donate online.
While researching donation website, we came across the commitment curve. The commitment curve shows the goals of non profit organization. For the purpose of the app we wanted the user to be informed, educated and eventually commit to participate in JBF through donations, attendance of events and/or become a member of JBF community.
We created a survey to gain an understanding of how people search for recipes and why they cook at home (if they do).
Interview 7 people was able to pull three distinct personas.
Interviews showed that people search for recipes on laptop/desktop because it is easier to use than the mobile app. But once a recipe is found, they would search for the recipe on the mobile app in order to view the recipe on their phones while cooking. This validated that there was a need for a better search function on mobile apps.
Personas
Key Findings:
- Buys groceries first then searches for recipes- search based on ingredients
- Cooks meals that are 30 mins or less- search based on time
- Potentially become a member of JBF- spread awareness of JBF through social media
Key Findings:
- Finds recipes based on seasonal ingredients- search seasonal
- Knowledgable of chef- chef profile, search based on chef
- Potential to attend events hosted by JBF featuring chefs
Key Findings
- Dietary restrictions — filter diet restriction- vegetarian, nut allergies, gluten
- Does not like complicated recipes- filter difficulty
- Potential to attend JBF food conferences
Feature Prioritization
From the features identified we applied these findings to our designs
Key Findings:
- Navigation change from top area to hamburger menu to bottom global navigation
- Page name confusion- JBF logo changed to page name
- Slide bar indicators deleted
- Update to HIG standards
Prototype
https://projects.invisionapp.com/share/CH3OF663E#/screens
Next Steps
Short Term:
- More user testing
- Interviews with JBF stakeholders
Long Term:
- Build out audio controls
- Analyze donation process & checkout page
- Wireframe user profile page
- Shopping list & favorited recipes
Reflections
Overall this has been an awesome project to work on. As a foodie I enjoyed learning more about the James Beard Foundation and how they support the culinary arts. I was disappointed that we weren’t able to get in contact with the foundation, we received a response three days before the project to due. The group dynamics were good, we communicated well with one another and was able to resolve any problem quickly. We did run into trouble with inVision for a bit, but MOST of those issues have been fixed.
