Recreate: A Passion Project
Creating a native iOS app centered around restaurant recipes
By Christine Chin
Project Overview
I worked on a team with two other UX designers to pursue our passion for food and create a solution to a problem we discover. There were very few limitations since we’ve already learned many UX research and design techniques. It was up to our team to decide which principles to apply to best suit our proposed solution. After analyzing our assumptions, creating problem statements, and speaking with users, we decided our solution would be an app that is centered around recipes of restaurant dishes: Recreate.
In addition to creating our own app, we were advised to seek a brand that would be a great potential partnership. Therefore, we selected Wine n Dine, an iOS app that is a social experience centered on visual menus of restaurant dishes.
My roles
Lead Product & Visual Designer; Scrum Lead
Timeframe
2 Weeks
Links to more information
To view the Spec Doc our team created, click here.
To view the PDF overview of Recreate, click here.
Problem Statement
People have dishes that they love from their dining-out experiences, but can’t always afford or have time to eat outside. Others are inspired by delicious restaurant dishes and are curious to explore new recipes. As a result, they turn to cooking at home, but lack direction on how to cook the foods that they crave.
How might we enable people with varying cooking expertise replicate their desired restaurant dishes?
Opportunity
Since our potential brand partnership Wine n Dine is already centered around restaurant dishes people try, Recreate can either partner with or integrate into the existing Wine n Dine app.
- Partnership: Adding a button on Wine n Dine that links dishes to the Recreate app so users can view them
- Integration: Incorporate (Recreate) recipes on their app so users can cook their desired dishes
Our Core Values
Discover, Inspire, Empower
Recreate aims to deliver a social experience where our community can share, learn, and produce new recipes. Our platform exists as a new way to give people food and cooking inspiration, fostering the discovery process. In addition, we strive to assist users as they foster and grow their cooking skills, no matter their level.
These tenants are the driving force behind Recreate. We believe these values define our uniqueness compared to our competitors. We are proud of our core values.
Research
Screener Survey Findings
Our team created a screener survey that received 16 participants in one day. Since our time was limited, we had to set up user interviews within the next day in order to stay on our timeline. We asked 10 questions related to participants’ cooking and dining out habits; what we found helped us validate our problem statement and identify our target demographics.
- 100% of participants have craved a dish they ate from a restaurant
- 81% have tried to create that dish at home
Additionally, most of our participants (12/16) identified themselves as either beginner to intermediate cooks.
User Interviews
We interviewed 6 users that we identified from our screener survey.
Key Insights:
- Participants prioritized convenience and cost efficiency as main reasons for cooking at home
- Enjoy the cooking process, trying new things and experimenting on recipes
- Frustrated by food prep process, recipes calling for obscure ingredients that only get used in one dish, making a mistake while cooking and starting over
When looking for recipes, users prioritize:
- 100%: Good reviews
- 100%: Detailed instructions
- 67%: Prefer video demonstrations
- 50%: Pictures and website quality
- 50%: Authenticity
Personas
Using the insights we gathered from our screener survey and user interviews, we crafted personas that would be considered our target audience.
Additional Research
Other forms of research techniques our team applied were competitive & comparative feature analyses, a MoSCow map, and features prioritization. More information can be found by clicking either of the links provided above (Links to more information).
Design
Design Studio
Our team held a design studio where we all separately sketched screens we envisioned in our app using features selected from our features prioritization. Then, when we came back together, we incorporated all of our ideas into a mid-fidelity wireframes using the Sketch app.
Mid-fidelity Wireframes
As the lead product designer, I created the first screen (the homepage) to set a standard look for our app. Since we are students working on a project, we thought it would be beneficial for the other two team members to take a stab at practicing their skills in Sketch. After the screens were created, I compiled them into a single Sketch file, ensured there was consistency across all screens, and built out a prototype in InVision.
High-fidelity Wireframes
Since we were in the second week of our project and had less than 4 days to create and test a hi-fidelity prototype, I took the reigns on product design and created the high-fidelity wireframes (below).
Overall, we found our high-fidelity prototype to have better results than our mid-fidelity because of the 100% direct path completion rate and the average time of task completion decreased across the board.
Key Changes
Using the insights gathered in Usability Test Round 2, my team and I decided on a few changes to apply to the second iteration of our high-fidelity prototype.
- Searchbar and logo made more prominent on homepage
- Switched the locations of the activity feed and add recipe buttons on the tab bar to emphasize our add recipe feature
- Added a button linking to Wine n Dine on restaurant pages to depict a possible partnership
- Enlarged and bolded text on recipe pages
Prototype
“I love the social activity of sharing recipes, combined with recipes of restaurant dishes. Feels like Yelp and Allrecipes on steroids!” - User
View our second iteration of our high-fidelity prototype here.
