Bread: A Single User Journey

This isn’t a story kneading artisanal bread in a Parisian boulangerie at 04:00. This is a story about designing an experience for a single user, & how the process of learning is not so dissimilar to the design process.

Overview:

If I had to pick one thing to eat for the rest of my life, it would be bread & butter. The sort of bread filled with gaping holes, crevices, & crispy, flaky crust. Like the kind one might stumble upon at 04:00 or 05:00 in the morning, after a long night of wining, dining, dancing & all things our European friends enjoy in those hours… But that’s a story for another time.

I want to learn how to make that sort of bread: or at least approach that zenith.

Challenges:

• Defining & Overcoming Barriers to Entry
• Defining Required Skills, & then Refining Said Skills
• Entering or Engaging with the Bread-Making Community
• Knowing Bad Bread

The Team:

Jack Wangelin

What I Did:

• Research
• Analysis
• Production
• User Testing

Research:

It’s The “Whatcha-ma-call-it”

Gaining the lexicon of the baker is the place I started the research. Being able to search for what I wanted to learn about was the first step in creating a lab program to get myself started on the path to climb this mountain. For instance, in bread, the holes (& more generally, the interior textures) created by the release of carbon dioxide from yeast growth is called, “crumb.”

Once I gathered a base knowledge of how to start researching the ‘how,’ of bread baking, I started forth on the other, mammoth barrier to entry: the equipment.

Barriers To Entry

At the beginning, this all seemed straightforward, I would need an oven, a couple of baking sheets, the ingredients, some method of mixing; it all sounds so homey. It’s a bunch of bunk, I tell you. I soon discovered the overwhelming bread baker community, the wealth of recommendations, the overzealous ‘scientist bakers,’ the rare, erudite professional.

To give you a better feel of what you might need to break into a program of baking the best bread of your life: an oven, baking sheets (pizza stone preferred about 60:40), cooling racks, a sifter, a whisk, bowls, a spatula, a mixer, a dough hook, a cool dry, atmospherically calm space, a spray bottle (a basting brush can suffice), a scale, a candy thermometer (or digital), the list can go on & on, not even to mention the ingredients.

The final, & much more ephemeral variable in the best bread equation are the skills needed. These include concepts such as knowing when the dough is smooth & elastic enough while kneading, when to punch down the dough while rising, how to shape a boule, a roll, a loaf, etcetera. Not many people can describe in detail how one knows it is right, they say, “it comes with experience.”

Key Findings:

I am not going to start by making the best bread of my life.

Strategy:

The obvious need is to find a happy medium between throwing in the towel & taking out a loan. The way to prevent panic is with a MVP (in this case, minimum viable program). Focusing on getting bread on the table, that is to say, making bread. Staying engaged, making bread, & most importantly, tracking changes, is what makes it a learning program and not just a wanton lust for fresh bread. The program is about getting hands-on to learn. First make bread, then make better bread.

The basics of bread: what are the most basic ingredients in bread? Flour, water & heat. I want glorious crumb: flour, water, yeast & heat.

What makes better bread? Skill, patience, flaky, crisp crust & wonderful crumb.

Strategy Part Deux: Measurable Goals

Goal: Make bread at least three [3] times per week.

Part of this strategy is to keep myself engaged, & to keep myself learning how to make better bread. Measuring my engagement is a more easily quantified matter: How often am I making bread? How scarcely to know when I am no longer engaged? This goal is not only approachable, but achievable.

Goal: Create a journal/index of my attempts at glorious crumb. Take notes per batch.

Am I failing if my crumb does not become, “more glorious,” over time? Perhaps, but the less exposed segment of almost failure is learning. How do I know if I am learning? Mainly, by not repeating my mistakes, which I can ensure by keeping notes.

Creating a subjective comparison of crumb, perhaps developing an index of crumb towards my ultimate want, will create a record to show what I have done & hopefully learned.

Production:

Select a recipe. Get ingredients. Mix. Knead. Bake bread. Deceptively simple, like gravity.

User Testing & Iteration:

This is the part I am enjoying most so far. I get to eat hot, fresh bread (& butter). My friends get to eat bread. I get feedback. I also get criticisms. Or suggestions, perhaps advice. Whatever the case is, I have a new point to center new research around, or incorporate into my next trial.

This is where I am, now. One mistake I have made thus far is not having a structured feedback mechanism. This is in part due to the mass quantity of bread that has been produced. The recipe I am currently sticking with ends up making about two full loaves of bread (think sandwich bread loaves), however, I have been dividing the total amount in different ways to test the effect of total dough volume on crumb development. I just have too much bread to eat!

Next Steps:

Bad Bread

Gaining a better understanding of “bad bread.” I so far have not made inedible bread. Nor flat bread, which isn’t bad bread, but would not fit in the scope of this project. So, what is bad bread?

For the time being, it seems that a better method is subjective comparison of bread I have made. Structuring feedback compared to the last loaf made & tasted.

The Cup Or The Gram

Delving into the deep that is science v. your grandma. Baking is a science; your grandmother, based on statistics, is unlikely to be a food scientist, or a chemist, but likely can still make really good bread (if she does that sort of thing for you). My want is to answer which is better, volumetric or weight-based measurement? In the best-case scenario, they should be the same, but the reality of your kitchen is that the density of flour (or a number of other ingredients), even when sifted, is highly variable. Measuring based on weight should give a much more accurate meaning to the amounts of ingredients needed.

Will it be worth it to be so meticulous?

After making that decision, walking the wide forest of the quality of ingredients should be an interesting direction.

This is again square one of the Process. Research, strategize, prototype, test, iterate, deploy/present/activate/release into the wild.

The Process

When learning a new skill, or designing a piece of software, how does one know where to begin? In each case, there is a problem to be solved. Shortly thereafter, and whether one wants to learn Spanish, or is designing an app to help people create their workout regimen, the amount one does not know becomes quickly apparent. Figuring out what questions to ask; what to learn, begins the process.

Getting to know the user is the most important aspect in both processes. In learning, creating an environment conducive to the learner, & engendering the correct engagement(immersive, project based, classic methods, etc.) for that learner creates the most effective outcome.

In the same vein, selecting a target user base for an app is the difference between an effective app, & a functioning one. Users looking to build muscle mass, versus losing weight have different needs while creating a training program, & will want to set different goals.

The prototype is the result of this aim & creative thinking about what the user needs, within any constraints. The MVP is the stripped down version of this prototype, focusing on the key aspects that eliminate the barrier to entry, whether that be finding a language program that fits a certain learning style, helping to find time in a busy schedule to get to the gym, or knowing what bakers call the spaces on the inside of bread (the crumb) to ask for help.

Let me know if you can help me attain glorious crumb. Or if you liked my story, or have something I can check out. If you think I can help you, I’d be pleased to do so.