Project Overview
Problem
Our project aims to identify the core challenges in meal planning, such as dietary restrictions, goal setting, cooking experience, time constraints, and lack of meal ideas. By understanding why people cook or meal prep and their dietary goals, we seek to develop strategies to help users stay consistent with their meal planning efforts and improve overall health.
Solution
The project successfully identified key issues in meal planning and uncovered significant insights which lead to the development of specific features for the app. The focus on eating right, dietary customization, cooking for different skill levels, and planning ahead addresses the essential aspects of meal planning.
Impact
Emphasizing the importance of providing for oneself and others, the project highlights the confidence that comes from well-prepared meals. By understanding the value of shared meals and quality cooking experiences, it aims to improve overall health and wellbeing, fostering fulfillment and connection through consistent and enjoyable meal planning.
DEFINE
The search for a problem...
When we started to think about what actually makes meal planning difficult, we were overwhelmed with all the many reasons.
To help narrow down those reasons, we put together a quick proto-style journey map. This helped identify potential pain points.
DISCOVER
User Interviews
A few insights—
Survey Data
The survey responses revealed user habits and daily routines. They also uncovered many surprising pain points, providing valuable insights into the challenges users face and highlighting areas needing more attention.
33.3% said two meals
94.4% said yes
Affinity Diagram: Part 1
Full image here.
Affinity Diagram: Part 2 ...solving humanity’s problems
We decided to really get to the root source of the problem by narrowing our search and getting more specific. We focused on identifying a lead problem out of the five major pain points on the left. Full image here.
Root frustration level on a scale of 1 (it doesn’t bother me) to 10 (it really is a problem)
Could users have a secondary problem? — The below graph shows the correlating pain point relationship with people who rate "lack of time" as 7 or higher.
Our users were unable to stick to their meal plans because of a perceived frustration with "lack of time".
This explained why users had so very many complaints. If a user also has problems with "lack of experience", they can incur many other correlating issues.
For example:
inexperienced time awareness can lead to simply not scheduling enough time to prepare a recipe
not knowing how to complete complex steps in a recipe can make everything take longer
or perhaps choosing a recipe that was too advanced in the first place
DEVELOP
User Persona
Our final user persona had two main goals: to learn / gain experience with cooking and having enough time to cook when she got home from a busy day. Full image can be found here.
User Scenario
Empathy Mapping
After gathering our final data, we decided to create an empathy map to gain a deeper insight into our users. The empathy map helped us represent a group of users and gain better insight on that particular segment. Full image: here.
DEVELOP
Feature Priortization
Core features would encourage:
Assuming connectivity with existing resources and recipe databases already in place online:
Important:
Sync with Calendar
Recipes with 7 ingredients only
Feedback from users
After cooked
How long it took (Did it match the time suggested) ← For use later
Would you cook again?
Previously cooked and enjoyed
Saved meals (done and tried)
Suggested time / my time
Keeping track + progress
Bonus:
Spice it up (Section for when users have time)
Tips (Sharp knives & Correct tools)
Level up after shown commitment/progress
Survey View A or View B
Toggle option for following recipes (step by step/full view)
Ideation
First, we decided to brainstorm top ideas we wished and liked about existing apps. From there, we decided to vote on the feature we liked the most. Our group decided to write down the top features we wanted our app to have.
DEVELOP
Prototyping
The user flow created the path our user would take to complete a task on the app. The user flow takes them from their entry point through a set of steps towards a successful outcome and final action.
Our app, “The Recipe Plan” guides users throughout the app in a very simple, easy way, which would allow users to get creative with their meal planning as well as make it completely custom based on their needs. Full image here.
Low Fidelity Wireframes — Link to InVision prototype.
DEVELOP
Usability Test: Part 1
For our user testing, our goal was simple: what were the users looking for when they opened the app and how would they navigate through it? What interested users the most?
Was it learning about new recipes, learning the onboarding, viewing step-by-step guides?
So, we let them just move around the app without giving them instructions and took notes on their behavior.
From there, we instructed them on 3 tasks:
Signing up/logging in through onboarding
Find recipes using the main ingredient search
Reading a recipe from start to finish
Key Learning from Usability Tests
DELIVER
Iterate and Usability Test: Part 2
The user flow created the path our user would take to complete a task on the app. The user flow takes them from their entry point through a set of steps towards a successful outcome and final action.
Our app, “The Recipe Plan” guides users throughout the app in a very simple, easy way, which would allow users to get creative with their meal planning as well as make it completely custom based on their needs. Full image here.
High Fidelity Wireframes — Link to InVision prototype.
High Fidelity Test Plan
For our user testing, our goals remained simple: what were the users looking for when they opened the app and how would they navigate through it?
With the new high fidelity wireframes, what interested users the most now?
Was it learning about new recipes, learning the onboarding, viewing step-by-step guides, or something else?
Again, we let them move around the app without giving them many instructions and took notes on their behavior.
From there, we instructed them on 4 tasks:
Signing up/logging in through onboarding
Find recipes using the main ingredient search
Reading a recipe from start to finish.
Go to your plan from any page and view your achievements
Final Thoughts and Future Opportunities
On completion of our project, we feel confident that we were able to successfully identify a significant user problem in meal planning.
After following the research data and thoroughly eliminating our confirmation bias, we were able to find to surprising user insights and offer very specific features and functions through our app The Recipe Plan.
Discovering why people value time together through shared meals and quality cooking experiences, reminds and teaches us that a meal means more than we thought.
Eating right, cooking well, sharing time, planning ahead.
At their root these are all ways to provide. Whether it is providing for one’s self, a partner, a friend, or a child.
We all gain from confidently well prepared meals.
Future development of the grocery list feature could be monetized by linking directly to delivery services and/or grocery retailers. Accessing existing API’s would create a ‘buy now’ or ‘have this list delivered’ option with the click of a button.
Detailed development of the profile customization including dietary restrictions, allergens and other filters would ensure better user success when selecting and trying new recipes.
Increased gamification would encourage the educational aspect of users trying new experiences or repeating others for improvements. This would also increase app retention.
