About Recipeace

Recipeace is a low-fidelity mobile cooking app I co-designed while at UC Berkeley’s UX/UI Bootcamp. Created with a team, the app helps users find recipes tailored to their specific dietary needs.

Project Proposal

The goal of Recipeace is to create a cooking app that empathizes with and caters to those with dietary restrictions and allergy preferences so that they can find recipes to cook according to their dietary needs, as well as save and organize those recipes within the same app. The target audience of the app is mainly vegans, users with a plethora of other dietary preferences, and users who are interested in changing their diet.

Initial User Interviews

An interview plan was drafted to understand what difficulties people with dietary restrictions face. When talking to five potential users, the following insights were obtained:

Most of them prefer to cook at home rather than going out to a restaurant
Dietary restrictions include: lactose-intolerance, vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, kosher, and allergies to shellfish
Google and social media is how they typically find recipes. Some have tried to use apps but were unsatisfied
When keeping a record of recipes, they generally found it hard to keep track of where they had them saved

User Insight Statement

Users with dietary restrictions, such as those following a vegetarian, gluten-free, or kosher diet, experience difficulty in finding a diverse range of recipes that cater to their unique dietary needs. This limitation results in repetitive meal preparation due to the lack of recipes that one with these needs can find.

Problem Statement

Individuals with dietary restrictions based on health and cultural factors often struggle to find recipes that meet their needs. Users need a better way to find and organize new and unique recipes that cater to their needs. Users will ultimately need to be able to discover a broader range of recipes, which will help expand their culinary abilities and give them more enjoyable food experiences.

User Persona

User Journey Map

UX Scenario:

Janet is in the mood to cook and wants to try new food options that meet her specific dietary needs. She wants to be able to find recipes that meet these restrictions and keep them organized in a nice way.

Unfortunately, Janet realizes that there are few online resources that will show her new recipes and keep them bookmarked. Eventually, she comes across an app that lets her enter her dietary preferences and displays a feed of different users recipes that they posted to the app.

After bookmarking a few recipes, Janet now has her own cookbook within the Recipeace app and can refer back to it whenever she wants to cook something new and fresh.

Primary Goals:

To easily find and share vegetarian, gluten-free, and kosher food recipes
Find a place where she can organize her favorite foods and recipes

Storyboard

Competitor Analysis

Our two direct competitors were Pepper and Yummly, mobile apps where users can find and bookmark an assortment of food recipes. Our two indirect competitors were Google and Instagram, sites where users can find and save recipes posted by users and/or or other companies.

Our key takeaways from our competitors was that users who used these services needed to find ways to store their recipes in an organized location. We wanted to offer not only this desired organization, but also give users methods of coming across new recipes that meet their preferences.

Defined User Flow and Testing Plan

The objective for the user test was to ensure the user was able to complete these three main tasks:

Bookmarking a recipe and viewing it in the Profile tab from the home screen
Utilize the Search function to find a recipe and bookmark it
Bookmarking a recipe off of the Explore tab

First Iterations of Wireframes

User Data

Based on the first user tests, the following iterations needed to be made:

Adding a settings feature to change preferences
Showing a response when searching for a recipe

Second Set of Iterations

Example: Change the top bar to include a settings feature and incorporate a logo

Iterated Wireframe Design: includes settings icon and logo

(Home Screen)

Final Low Fidelity Prototype Demo

Reflection

During my time at UC Berkeley’s UX/UI Bootcamp, I had the opportunity to work on my first major group project, which was a transformative learning experience. Collaborating closely with a small, dedicated team, we focused on developing a prototype for an app designed to help users manage and meet their specific dietary needs. This project not only allowed me to deepen my understanding of user-centered design principles but also taught me the importance of effective communication, teamwork, and the iterative design process. It was incredibly rewarding to see our ideas come to life in our first major project.

Ty Cueva 2024

Case Study: Recipeace