Let’s Bake?

An app designed to alleviate baked-good related inertia

The Challenge

To design an app for the user to solve a food-related problem in a 1 week design sprint

By conducting user interviews, ideation, prototyping, user testing

As part of General Assembly’s UXDI Course

The User

Through an initial interview with classmate and keen British Bake Off enthusiast Jon, I pinpointed an interesting area to explore around his regular searches for new recipes to make for himself and as gifts for others.

In an attempt to save users time wasted on looking through recipes that they will not be able to make, I designed an app that filters by ingredients and equipment, so that the user can get on with their primary goal — getting stuck into a bake.

Learning Overview

• To put the users needs first, not becoming too invested in exciting initial ideas that don’t quite deal with the user’s actual pain points
• This fed into development of Experience Mapping — after initial feedback I reiterated this twice in order to ensure it focussed on what we were sure were the users pain points, reducing the amount of assumptions made
• Sketching was a challenge at first — I adapted by simplifying the screens in order to meet the main goal — communicating the design in user testing
• Basic prototyping skills — I picked up how to add hotspots and transitions quickly
• User testing — it was a challenge to stay neutral — through each interview I learnt to prompt less and simply watch what they naturally gravitate towards

Solution?

Marvel Prototype of ‘Let’s Bake’

The Process

Discovery

Through initial interviews with the user it became clear that a big part of their baking process was searching for recipes, for instance by typing in dishes they’d seen on Bake Off, and bookmarking them for later use at the weekend.

Baking had become a lifeline during lockdown — a way to destress from a week at work, as well as a way to support others by delivering tasty gifts to them as it “puts a smile on their face” and made them feel less alone.

A diversion down the wrong path…

Initially I got personally attached to the idea of the user losing key recipes that they want to make again — however after further user interviews it became clear that this was not a problem that needed solving — the user already had their own solutions (bookmarks, journals).

When recipes require expensive equipment that I haven’t got or obscure ingredients, I don’t bother with them

Therefore I pivoted to a definitive pain point — scrolling through potential recipes only to discover they required expensive new equipment (think dry ice, biscuit guns) or hard to acquire ingredients (think saffron, kabocha pumpkin). This led me to a more definitive…

Problem Statement

Jon needs a way to filter recipes by ingredients and equipment needed, in order to prevent wasting time with recipes he cannot make

Experience Map

Ideation

• Initial ideas included taking pictures of equipment / ingredients, but realistically the tech isn’t there yet
• ‘Tinder for cakes’? Is that something? Probably not
• I settled on search filter functionality — this seemed key in solving the actual problem

Some (very) rough sketches to get some ideas together

Storyboard

Situation: Jon likes to find baking recipes online to make for his friends and family

Problem: He often looks up recipes for items he would like to bake only to find it requires equipment he doesn’t have and ingredients he cannot find

Solution: A baking recipe app with search functionality that can filter by equipment and ingredients

Outcome: Jon can quickly and easily find baking recipes that he can make with the equipment that he already has

When looking for recipes, precious time is saved and disappointment averted by using a filtered search app

User Flow

This is what I thought the app’s ‘happy path’ should look like to best solve the problem

User Testing

“I can’t find the search bar?”

“I guess this means favourite? Or like ‘surprise and gives you a random recipe?”

“Erm is this the search? Oh, it’s help”

Some of the changes made after rounds of testing with users

The search function and navigation were essential features to fix for the viability of the app.

During further testing, some desirable features came to light that could be adding in future to supplement app’s core functionality. These included:

• Storing user preferences in order to show them more personalised recipes the more they use the app
• The ability to specify grams / pounds of ingredients to be more precise when searching for recipes. e.g. If they only have 100g of flour left, a recipe that needs 200g won’t be much good

Will it store my preferences so it will start showing me more of what I like? E.g. recipes with salted caramel

Can I add how many g or lbs of flour I have?

Next Steps

More testing is needed to refine the search process and ensure there is no confusion — as time saving is the primary function of the app it is essential that it is quick to pick up and learn.

I will ideate some solutions to add the ability to input precise grams / ounces — the challenge will be keeping the simplicity while adding more nuanced functions.

Testing in the field (in messy kitchens for example) would be useful to observe the practical use of the app.

At the moment, the concept remains under-proofed — but perhaps with further changes it could be worthy of a ‘Star Baker’ award.