One Stop Food Companion For Tracking Groceries and Making Recipes
DESIGN FOR MOBILE · personal project
INTRODUCTION
Freshly is your go-to solution for effortlessly managing groceries in and out of the kitchen. Freshly simplifies grocery management by suggesting recipes based on your available items, showing expiration dates, and sending reminders. The shared shopping list feature minimizes confusion in shared spaces, saving on groceries and reducing wastage for an organized and efficient shopping experience.
ROLE
User Experience Design
Interface Design
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Individuals today face challenges with time and patience when it comes to cooking and maintaining a healthy diet. Youngsters often struggle with tracking kitchen items and lack knowledge about recipes, leading them to opt for ordering food and spending money. There's a clear absence in effectively managing the movement of food into and out of the kitchen.
UNDERSTANDING THE COMPETITORS
Before delving into primary research, I aimed to assess the products currently available in the market. Are they providing what the user needs? Are they enough helpful to the user to keep them engaged for long term usage? In order to ascertain the goals of the app and identify the target market, we collected app reviews from users of Yummly and SideChef.
INSIGHTS
Navigation Issues
Based on secondary research, it is evident that these apps face navigation issues. Users encounter difficulty in locating various features within the app, such as a simple filter to refine recipe searches.
Lack of Customisation
Recipes lacked personalisation,failed to offer meal recommendations for specific times like breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Users skipped using the app due to the absence of consideration for available items in their kitchens.
Hard Paywall
Most of the features are available for paid member. Users lacked control due to very free few recipe options.
ONLINE SURVEYS
A total of 30 individuals participated in the survey, targeting people aged between 20 and 40 years. The survey questions primarily focused on users' visits to grocery stores, the frequency of food wastage, and the time taken to decide on meals. The target audience comprised mainly young college students residing in shared spaces, single professionals, and married working women.
INTERVIEWS
I interviewed 7 potential users to explore how they manage their dietary requirements, handle groceries, successfully regulate the flow of food in and out of the kitchen. Whether they use any tools for these tasks? Are they relying on any other methods for tracking and shopping.
Users interviewed
College students living in shared living spaces, single professionals with busy work life, working mothers with growing kids with constant food requirements.
Insights
ISSUES
No time to cook, eventually order food
Lack of recipe knowledge.
Lack of kitchen management tools often leads to items expiring, resulting waste of both food and money.
Unable to achieve a healthy diet, experiencing health issues.
They utilize pen and paper or mobile devices to jot down items and create lists.
POSITIVES
Users are willing to adopt a management tool if it effectively addresses the issues comprehensively.
Open and willing to adapt
“After cooking for one or two days a week I stop cooking and order food from outside“
“Facing several health issues, I would love to follow a healthy diet but takes a lot of time. Really hard“
“Failed to find a proper tool “
“My children are really picky, its hard to satisfy their hunger with what they want”
“Even when I try to cook, motivation declines because of missing items. The inconvenience of making repeated trips to the grocery store adds to the frustration.
EMPHATHIZING WITH TARGET USERS
These personas helped prioritize user types and generate ideas for combined solutions. Building personas directed the problem-solving process and uncovered new design opportunities.
Aparna
21 years, Student
“It gets hard to manage college schedules with arising tensions with flatmates
BIO
Aparna is a student. She has recently shifted to a new apartment with four other flatmates. This is the first time she is away from her family and has little to no knowledge of cooking and is very uncertain about how to manage her everyday diet with her busy college schedule.
GOALS
Better kitchen management among flatmates.
Stressing less on what to make each day.
Save money with better grocery shopping
FRUSTRATIONS
Limited knowledge of recipes
Different food choices
Money wastage due to expired items in the kitchen.
Jagriti
35 years, IT Professional
“Keeping up with my kid's eating tendencies is difficult with my long working hours
BIO
Jagriti is a Software Engineer. She loves to cook but due to her long working hours she is unable to give much time into cooking. She has a kid and wants to cook according to her kid’s needs after office.
GOALS
Keep up with her kid's food needs everyday
Quick recipe ideas
Continue her pursue her love for cooking
Keep a healthy balance b/w work and family
FRUSTRATIONS
Manage between family and office with limited time in hand
Long and irregular working hours
Coming up with something new for her kid to eat daily
Aditya
27 years, Marketing
“I want to have a diet plan but it's hard to keep up with healthy recipes with my hectic schedule
BIO
Aditya works in marketing and has a busy schedule round the clock. He is in Bengaluru for a year now and has noticed a decline in his health. He finds it hard to manage his food habits and wants to follow a healthy diet. However, due to his busy schedule, it's unlikely for him to plan every day. He ends up ordering food most of the time due to laziness.
GOALS
Follow a healthy diet plan everyday
Reduce time on making food efficiently
Focus on eating food according to the plan
FRUSTRATIONS
Health decline due to irregular diet
Lazy to cook, orders food mostly
Gets swayed by offers and fast food
EXPLORING SOLUTIONS
I started brainstorming on how to solve the major problems. How can we comprehensively make it seamless for the user to complete these tasks daily?
Features to be focused
Kitchen management tool
Personalised recipe ideas
Shopping List, items to be bought
Shared shopping list
Kitchen items expiration reminders
Filter option according to diet and meal type
INITIAL SKETCHES
These are the initial sketches I came up with in an attempt to solve some of the major issues mentioned by the users.
APP ARCHITECTURE
MID FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
These are the initial sketches I came up with in an attempt to solve some of the major issues mentioned by the users.
Onboarding
Main Screens
INSIGHTS & ITERATION
I started brainstorming on how to solve the major problems. How can we comprehensively make it seamless for the user to complete these tasks daily?
Likes
Expiration reminders
Shared Shopping List
Categorised shopping list
Personalised recipes for the user
Comprehensive Kitchen Management
Easy to use, better navigation
What did not work
No option to see saved recipes
Users wanted to see the Add items screen
Wanted reminders before a day or two before the items is about to expire
Questions on if dietary choices be changed later.
Confused with cross button in Shopping List. Not clear if its cancel an item or checks the item when bought.
Iterations
Added tick and cross button in Shopping List. Tick is bought and cross is cancelled
Notify others members when an item is deleted from the shared shopping list
Changing diet related options from Settings
Remove the list icon from the recipe detail page and add See List
USER FLOW
VISUAL ELEMENTS
THE DESIGN
Thank you for your time :)
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