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SousChef

A comprehensive food site

SousChef_Desktop_Mockup.png
SousChef_Mobile_Mockup.png

About the project

SousChef is a website that gives users recipes based on the ingredients they already have, while allowing them to keep track of their groceries. Think of it as your personal kitchen assistant.

Context

  • Solo designer

  • Interaction Design class project

  • September - December 2022 (14 weeks)

PROBLEM

Initial thinking

Busy people are unable to quickly find recipes that they have all the ingredients for.

How might we make recipe searching easier and quicker?

Many forget about the groceries they have, especially perishables, resulting in food waste.

How might we help people keep track of what ingredients they have?

User interviews

To gain more perspective on my identified problems, I conducted 4 semi-structured interviews with 18-24 year-olds who cook and go grocery shopping often. And I learned a lot from them!

Goals

  • Identify various goals & values for cooking

  • Understand the average process of grocery shopping and subsequent organization

  • Uncover pain points to be addressed

Primary questions

  • Why do you cook?

  • Is there anything that gets in your way or slows you down during the cooking process?

  • How do you usually determine what to cook? When do you make that decision?

  • Could you tell me about the last time you went grocery shopping? Walk me through your process.

Key insights

Efficiency

  • Want to do things the quickest and easiest way, especially when busy

  • Occasionally use grocery delivery apps to avoid commute and save time

  • Low effort for high reward

Poor memory

  • No one actually keeps track of their ingredients– it’s all a mental note

  • Will sometimes forget which perishable groceries have been bought, eventually resulting in them going bad

Intent

  • Many only cook out of necessity

  • Groceries are chosen based on diets and goals (e.g. pescatarian, high-protein)

  • If meals are planned at all, they are decided anywhere from a week before to the day of

Pain points

  • Consistent food waste means financial losses that build up over time

  • Being too busy to decide what to cook

  • Uncertainty regarding what to do with certain ingredients

Benchmarking

Using my browser's developer tools, I analyzed the desktop and mobile pages for Bon Appétit, Kitchn, Epicurious, and BigOven. I was then able to establish baselines and identify areas of improvement that I would keep in mind for my own site design. I also got a good idea of how these sites were using their color palettes and type hierarchies, and I gained inspiration for features I could include.

Final Presentation (1).png
Final Presentation.png

PROCESS

Sitemap

SousChef_Sitemap.png

Sketches

Wireframes1.png
Wireframes4.png
Wireframes.png
Wireframes2.png
Wireframes6.png
Wireframes5.png

Wireframes

SousChef_Desktop_Wireframes.png

SOLUTION

Workflow 1

Add ingredients, both manually and using the receipt scanner

Workflow 2

Find and save recipes based on the user’s ingredients

Workflow 3

Use features on the recipe page to update ingredients

Desktop prototype

Mobile prototype

REFLECTION

Takeaways

This was my first project working with both desktop and mobile displays. (Yay...?) There were definitely challenges along the way, but those became learning moments for me. Here's what I've learned:

​

  1. I am not the (only) user. This whole project started because of a problem I myself experienced quite often: forgetting about the produce in my fridge and letting it go bad. So naturally, while I was designing SousChef, I had my own ideas and solutions. But by taking the time to understand multiple perspectives during the interview process, I gained a lot of valuable insight into different users' pain points and values, which helped me identify others' main problems and develop effective solutions to their problems.

  2. Less is more... sometimes. I've always heard that "less is more" in design. I mean it makes sense-- the user has less to look through, so they reach their end goal more efficiently. So, I've adapted the principle of assuming everything is visual noise from the start and cutting out unnecessary elements. However, while testing the workflows with my classmates, I realized that I was actually getting rid of features that were important signifiers. So yes, quantity over quality, but users should also be given enough context to be able to navigate a site with ease.

  3. This is not the end of SousChef. I've asked for and received constructive criticism throughout the entire process of designing this site, including after my final presentation. Feedback is a form of motivation to me, so I will continue iterating on this prototype and who knows, maybe even bring SousChef to a reality someday.

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