Pickle

Creating a fun recipe app that inspires users to eliminate their food waste by incorporating ways to preserve ingredients.

ROLE

UX/UI Designer

CLIENT

Personal

DATE

Aug 2022 (80 hrs)

TYPE

Mobile (iOS)

Food waste is a loss of time & money 💸

Do you ever open your fridge and have no idea what to cook? You need to either finish off some ingredients or figure out how to preserve them so you don't end up throwing them away? We've all been there. 

Pickle not only gives you different ideas for what to cook, but it suggests recipes based on similar ingredients so that you don't waste food. It is founded on the ideas of simplicity and flexibility–even showing you substitutes so you never have to worry about not having the right ingredients.

THE CHALLENGE

People don't always know what to do to finish and reuse leftovers.

THE OPPORTUNITY

An app that gives users smart & easy recipes incorporating leftover tips.

Final Prototype

Initial assumptions

♻️ More and more people are aware of and care about sustainable practices.

Our wasteful habits need to change if we want to maintain a healthy world. The younger generations are more prone to advocate for sustainability.

🍅 People try to finish their food in order to avoid throwing it away.

Throwing away food is only a waste of money and time, therefore it's in everyone's interest to keep food.

🤔 People don't know the best ways to preserve their ingredients.

People are not necessarily aware of different methods available to reuse ingredients which leads to frustration in trying to finish things and unnecessary waste.

Understanding the Recipe app market

I conducted some competitive analyses of food recipe apps and food sustainability-related apps. Below are the conclusions from each.

So, who will be using the feature?

I started my research by conducting a survey as well as 1:1 interviews with five participants. I included two screening questions for both, which asked users if they cooked at home, and whether they tried to finish/reuse ingredients as much as possible.

47.4%

Of users strongly agree with this statement: "I care about preserving food. (Example: freezing things before they go bad)."

31.6% moderately agree

57.9%

Of users strongly agree with this statement: "I am interested in new ideas about how to use or preserve ingredients I have so I don't have to throw them away."

36.8% moderately agree

What are Sarah and Anna's pain points?

Through the interviews, I was able to identify common pain points that users have when it comes to cooking. Based on these learnings I was able to narrow down key features that would differentiate my recipe app.

01 / Wasting too much time going grocery shopping.

Most users emphasized that while they enjoy cooking itself, they don't like to spend time at the grocery store.

02 / Not knowing the best way to use leftover ingredients.

Not all users meal prep, or know exactly how to make their ingredients last longer, which can be frustrating.

03 / New recipes that require very specific ingredients.

Users are less prone to trying new recipes if they have to buy ingredients they don't know how to reuse.

04 / Having an extra task after cooking is a deterrant.

Incorporating the leftover tips into the recipe feels like it's part of the recipe rather than an extra thing to do.

The user journey

I created two different user flows showing Sarah's and Anna's journey through the app. Sarah's flow focuses on planning a quick and easy dinner based on ingredients she wants to finish, while Anna's flow focuses on her meal prep plan for the week.

Designing the brand

I wanted the app to be easy to navigate and fun to use. I decided to use some quirky graphics and a playful secondary color palette. 

Usability testing

I conducted usability testing on five new candidates. I asked them to walk me through a few different scenarios and then asked what their overall impressions were, whether anything was unclear to them at any moment and if there was anything else they wish they could do.

Insights (click to view full affinity map)

How can it be improved based on user feedback?

Below you can find some of the revisions based on the usability testing insights.

Adding an extra onboarding screen to clarify the use of "Pantry" feature.

During the usability testing, I noticed it wasn’t immediately obvious to users that in order to see what recipes they can make, they needed to input pantry items.

Adding a “See Recipes” sticky button to the Pantry feature.

In order to further emphasize the function of the pantry, I added a sticky “See Recipes” button so users understand that inputting their ingredients will show them possible recipes.

A visual guide to show users the substitute ingredients feature.

In my usability testing, I realized most users did not know that some ingredients can be tapped on in order to see substitutes. So while they loved the feature, I needed to make it more obvious.

Integrating “Leftover Tips” into an accordion component.

In the original prototype, the “Leftover Tips” were written out in the middle of the recipe but based on user feedback, I decided to make it into an accordion component so users can decide if they want to see the tips or not.

A “Select Leftover Ingredients” feature at the end of recipes.

Users wanted more specificity when it comes to which ingredients are leftover, so, by selecting what they have left at the end, they can see recipes that use the same or similar ingredients.

The Solution 💡

Problem 01

Not being able to make recipes due to diet, allergy or utensil constraints.

Solution

Selecting preferences that filter recipes based on their specific user needs.

Users can input their preferences when they are onboarding and they can change them on their account page.

Problem 02

Not knowing what to cook and but not wanting to go grocery shopping.

Solution

Inputting existing ingredients into the pantry feature to see recipe possibilities.

Users can search through the all the recipe possibilities and filter for specificity.

Problem 03

Not knowing how to best reuse or preserve leftover ingredients.

Solution

Filtering for specific ingredients on the explore page and viewing recipes and leftover tips tabs for results.

The user can either choose to make a recipe based on the leftovers or learn how to preserve the ingredients.

Problem 04

New recipes that are inflexible and need very specific ingredients that might not be reused.

Solution

Showing ingredient substitutes within the recipe so users can adapt to what they already have.

Users can tap on the ingredients in the recipes and see what other options they have and how that specific ingredient can be preserved.

Problem 05

Having to do extra work to use up or preserve all ingredients after making a recipe.

Solution

Integrating leftover tips within the recipe and selecting leftover ingredients at the end to see new recipe ideas.

User can see leftover tips while making a recipe so that it feels part of the process. At the end they can also see new recipe ideas using their leftovers.

Final thoughts

Learnings

🔍 Discerning the most common and repetitive user pains.

Since this project is an end-to-end app, I needed to truly narrow down on the most important issues that users had. The research phase was particularly long because I aimed to get as much feedback and perspectives as I could. This helped me find patterns and ultimately focus on solving for the most pressing user pains.

💯 Focusing on solving for quality, not quantity.

Due to the limited timeline of the project, I needed to concentrate on solving one issue and solving it well. The actual scope of the project is much larger and time-consuming than what I focused on, but the goal was for my work to be thorough and delightful for the end user.

Next Steps

🛠 Building out the meal plan flow.

The next phase of the project would consist in building the meal plan flow that was part of my second persona. 

✏️ More usability testing.

I would proceed by testing the meal plan flow on users in order to identify possible issues. 

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