Omelet Design

The intention-based design approach

Making an omelet could be easier. There are thousands of online videos and cookbooks to help you with a task like this, yet people still find it difficult to start or to know exactly what to do.

While it sounds like a simple task, the tools and information you are given are often inexact or don’t fit your situation. You’re missing the right ingredients, you don’t have the right type of equipment, or you don’t understand the technique to make something.

Taking what I call an intention-based design approach to this problem will shed light on both the structure of the problem and the solution.

Intention-based design at its best breaks down a problem into stages. It looks at the issues you face, the needs that you have, and the type of tools or technology required to help you solve your problem or complete your task.

Let’s break it down like this.

1. Before you start cooking, do you have the right equipment to cook the omelet?
+ If the answer is no then a good solution should provide you with a list of places in your neighborhood that can sell you the right pieces of equipment.

2. Do you have the right ingredients to cook the omelet?
+ First, you need a list of ingredients (most cookbooks provide this)
+ Then, if you don’t have them, you need a list of places in your neighborhood where you can buy the right ingredients.

3. Do you know the right technique to cook the omelet?
+ If the answer is no to this question then you should have a simple video that shows you the right technique for combining the ingredients and cooking the omelet.

Now that we’ve broken down the structure of the problem, we have to look at what currently exists to solve the three parts of the problem outlined above.

The primary cookery education tools — cookbooks and online videos — solve only the third part of the problem (technique). They do not really touch on the first two parts of the problem, and if they do they do not provide you with a solution of where to get these items.

By contrast, a cookery solution designed through an intention-based design approach would provide answers to all parts of the problem and would sequence the answers so that you have all the things you need to make a delicious omelet and avoid the frustration of having the wrong equipment, the wrong ingredients, or a lack of understanding of the technique.

By missing important parts of a problem, solutions can often make simple things much harder. As designers, it’s important to articulate all aspects of the problem, as well as our users’ intent, before coming up with a solution. The intention-based design approach I use breaks down the problem and connects the parts of a user’s journey to create a cohesive whole experience that provides the right information, tools, and advice just when a person needs them most.