Is banana bread a bread? An unexpected UXR journey in cookbook design.
by Joey Stempel
After organizers announced they were putting together a company cookbook, I was quick to volunteer. As a UX Designer who loves to cook and consumes a significant amount of food media, this was too perfect of an opportunity to pass up. Only I didn’t realize just how helpful UX Research would be; by the end, I had conducted competitive research, run a card sorting exercise, and applied user-centered design principles.
In early discussions with the team, the first question to arise was: how should the cookbook be organized? Some organizers asked for a somewhat equal distribution of recipes among sections. But, as the recipes submitted by employees trickled in, creating equal-sized sections would prove to be difficult given that we did not have control over recipe types (i.e., desserts, sides, mains, etc.). I explained that sections should not be forced; rather, the content should be organized in an intuitive way, such that sections accurately describe their corresponding recipes.
It became clear that a card sorting exercise would be an extremely useful tool.
Card sorting is a fundamental user research method in which a group of participants organize topics into natural groups. This is a valuable exercise that helps produce a more logical organization of concepts, or information architecture, that matches user expectations.
I opted for an open card sort where participants (1) organize topics into groups and (2) create their own labels for those groups — rather than predetermined group labels.
With only a one-week turnaround to deliver a cookbook, I recruited 10 participants via Optimal Workshop — an online card sorting software that would help facilitate a quick and dirty analysis of this exercise’s results. Participants were given about 40 recipes to organize and label.
I was able to analyze quantitative data based on which cards were placed together most often and the most common group names.
The results, of course, did not match my expectations. I did not anticipate that 4/10 participants would place both pumpkin and banana bread in a “bread” category separate from the remaining desserts. This led to a funny debate with the UX team over whether banana and pumpkin bread are breads or desserts, and an even more philosophical discussion on what constitutes a dessert. In case you were wondering, it seemed like we reached a consensus that a dessert is a relatively sweet dish that would not also function as a nutritious breakfast. A real taxonomy exercise.
I even consulted my (pretty extensive) cookbook collection for some additional insight into the ways in which recipes can be organized; one could argue that I conducted competitive research. Some cookbook authors separate breads and savory baking from cookies and cakes. Others organize recipes by season (as in Winter, Spring), by texture (i.e., crunchy, creamy), and even by event (i.e. party time, farewell dinner). I weighed these patterns against the card sorting results when it came time to design the cookbook’s Table of Contents.
The card sorting exercise wasn’t the only driver for further consideration of user needs. Upon sifting through the dozens of recipe submissions, I discovered that about half were written using the metric system. Do I convert all recipes submitted using the metric system to that of the U.S.? My immediate thought was that converting would make the most sense, for the sake of measurement consistency. However, given that I work at an international company, with employees across the globe, I understood that it would not be appropriate to deliver a US-centric company cookbook.
What I did was make a user-centered decision that may seem counterintuitive to my initial approach. In my experience advocating for user needs and understanding audiences, these details matter — even those as seemingly small as converting grams to cups (which I did not do).
Ultimately it was a pleasant and very welcomed surprise that I was able to employ UXR practices in a nontraditional format. Though the more formal research methods like card sorting may not be the norm in the publishing industry, I would bet that there is known value in understanding user needs — or, in this case, the needs of readers. It seems that cookbook authors may be utilizing UXR exercises without even realizing.
