Case Study: CookBook.

Published in

Bootcamp

6 min readJan 12, 2023

So, What is CookBook?

Cookbook is a recipe application that focuses mainly on veganism. It aims to promote veganism and makes it easy to find recipes and you can also post and share recipes that you know of on the app.

Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products — particularly in the diet — and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. An individual who follows the diet or philosophy is known as a vegan.

Why veganism? People go vegan for different reasons some are reasons the most of why people go vegan

For animals: To prevent the exploitation of animals
For health: Research shows that vegan people have a low risk of high blood pressure, also the rate of high of heart disease and diabetics is relatively low
For environment
For people: it’s very sustainable.

Why cookbook?

I know a lot of people that are trying to go vegan but the fear of if they are going to be eating well and how to understand how to make vegan food is stopping them from living their dream. Some misconceptions being vegan is difficult. For sure the vegan diet is definitely different from what most people eat which makes finding recipes more difficult than usual

Many also see veganism as boring, inaccessible, or expensive

CookBook is designed to make cooking easy for vegan people too and also to share recipes with each other ( Anyone who uses the application can see it )

Role: Designer and Researcher

Duration: 3 weeks

Category: Food and healthy feeding

Personal portfolio project

Tools used: Google meet, Figma

Responsibilities: Conducting interviews, producing paper-based and digital wireframes, high-fidelity and low-fidelity prototypes, carrying out usability tests, taking accessibility into account, and refining designs.

My design process

It's essential to show the process before getting to the final stage of the design to get a better view of it. I adhered to the critical design thinking approach to ensure that my design decisions were founded on user research and feedback.

User research

I interviewed eleven people via google meet (5) Vegan and (6)Vegan enthusiasts and I was able to gather some insight into the pain points/ problems

During my research, I was able to understand the following things

Frustration

Unable to find recipes most of the recipe applications focus on a non-vegetarian diet so it's hard to find.
Most of these applications are very hard to navigate and you can't just find vegan recipes easily

Goals/Needs

Being able to share recipes
Being able to find recipes easily
To be able to search for recipes based on ingredients
An app that actually focuses on a vegan diet.
Being able to see nutritional benefits

Notable quotes from the interviewee

“ I want to find different meals that are beneficial “
“ I am tired of eating the same thing over and over again I want varieties”

Competitive analysis

I compared different products serving the same purpose both direct and indirect competitors to know what they are doing right and also what needs improvement.

User Persona

In other to gain more insight and how to use findings to solve users' problems/pain point that has already been identified.

I deduce my findings to create two personas that represent the target market. They serve as a representation of my findings and also help me keep the users and their specific need in mind.

User stories

Based on my understanding from the research I was able to generate the following user stories.

As a user, I can sign up with my own email so I can have a profile on the platform
As an athlete, I want to have access to protein-rich recipes that correlate with my diet
As a user, I want to be able to share recipes that I know and also have access to other recipes too
As a user, I want to be able to use the platform without needing to necessarily sign up
As a user, I need access to easy-to-follow recipes so I don't get overwhelmed by information and instructions

Storyboard

I created a storyboard that visually demonstrates how the user will interact with the application

User flows

I designed a user flow to outline the steps each user must take to complete a given task.

Flow 1.

Finding recipes

Wireframes

Paper Wireframe

I sketched what I would like the application to look like and also in a way that would be easy for users to access. This is just the first step and there might still be a lot of iterations

Digital Wireframes

This visual guide represents the skeletal framework of the app. It helped me arrange the interface elements while I focused on the functionality rather than what it looked like. Moreover, the simplicity of wireframes allows me to quickly test ideas without diving into the details.

Testing

After creating the digital wireframe I wanted to test its usability and accessibility so I sent it out to people to use and I gave them a few tasks to do on the application so they could tell me what they had issues with. I did this without supervision in other to not manipulate how they interact with the application.

After the testing, I collated the result while they could do most of the tasks. They still had suggestions on how they would prefer some interfaces to be.

Final Design