SAVR RECIPES: A MODIFIED GV DESIGN SPRINT
Melanie Sanderson
helped SAVR Recipes design a better experience for its current and new users. As a UX designer of one, I followed a modified design sprint—meaning, instead of dedicating five 8-hour work days to the project with a team, I spent five 4-hour work days with me, myself, and I.
THE CHALLENGE
WHAT I DID
I ran one design sprint in one week for SAVR Recipes. I prototyped, tested, and refined a new native mobile app recipe experience based on the feedback SAVR Recipe users shared about their experience making a new recipe with the app.
DAY 1: UNDERSTANDING GOALS AND CHALLENGES
The long term goal for SAVR Recipes is that:
Home cooks can easily follow new recipes found on SAVR Recipes, create delicious dishes, and gain the confidence in themselves to continue to try new recipes or tweak the dishes in the future.
Users feel that the current instructions (which are written as text and ordered steps from start to finish) are unclear and difficult to execute. This can lead to confusion, stress, and a lack of confidence while cooking, dissatisfaction with their dish, and an overall poor experience.
MAP
Now that the end goal is identified, we can look at a basic map for this project. The key actors in this case are the home cooks (users). SAVR, among other things, offers recipe selection that a home cook looks through to find the recipe they’d like to follow, they then follow the recipe and ideally end up with a tasty dish and an enjoyable experience.
HOW MIGHT WE (HMW)...
I generated opportunities for improving the recipe following experience in HMW form (blue sticky notes in photo reference above).
After reflecting on these questions, I found that two of the HMW statements could be used as umbrella questions to the remaining five.
HMW set users up for success?
HMW avoid surprises in the kitchen?
HMW help cooks know what they’re doing?
HMW make recipes easier to follow?
HMW help users efficiently prepare dishes?
HMW minimize kitchenware use?
HMW reduce stress while cooking?
TARGET
The most important customer is the home cook. The critical moment is when the user tries to follow the recipe. How are they feeling during this process? Are they stressed? Why? Do they give up? Why? Etc.
DAY 2: SKETCHING POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
LIGHTNING DEMO
Using everything I learned the first day and inspiration from other designs, I sketched possible solutions.
INSPIRATION SOURCES + WHY:
Tasty (Recipe App)
Great concise video visuals of preparing the recipe and step-by-step preview option.
Jumprope (DIY/How To App)
Shows what users will need to complete the task.
YouTube (How To Videos)
Real time demonstration of tasks.
Lego Instruction Manual
Only images for instructions. *simplicity.
CRAZY 8s SKETCH (or in my case 10s)
MOST CRITICAL SCREEN:
The most critical screen is the screen that demonstrates the recipe (EX: Step 1 - Dice ¼ Cups of Onions w/ image or video demonstrating how to do so). This is because we were tasked with making the process of cooking meals at home easier. That means having easy or easier to follow instructions, i.e. the critical moment of the user experience. These instructions should be succinct with visuals to help guide the cook.
SOLUTION SKETCH:
A three-panel board of (1) the screen that comes before the critical screen, (2) the critical screen itself, and (3) the screen that comes after the critical screen.
DAY 3: STORYBOARDING
The user has found the recipe they would like to cook, hurray! Now, let’s get to cooking. We have an overview screen that includes an image of the dish, what the home cook will need to be successful, the instructions and the option to have a step-by-step mode that does not require scrolling up and down and simple gestures to move from step-to-step with helpful images and clear instructions.
DAY 4: PROTOTYPING
I created MVP (minimum viable product) designs in Sketch and then built clickable prototypes of each concept in Invision.
SKETCH DESIGN:
INVISION PROTOTYPE SCREEN RECORDING:
This is an iPhone X and iPhone 11 screen
THOUGHTS AND GOALS:
I hope that through testing this prototype we can see if this step-by-step mode with visuals will aid the home cook while following the recipe. Each step is completely visible on the screen in the hopes to omit the hassle of scrolling through the recipe each time you want to go to the next step. Ideally, in the final product the app would disable the screen to lock so that the only interaction with the screen the user will have is going to the next step, going back a step, looking up a word, or checking on the ingredients list.
DAY 5: TESTING + VALIDATING PROTOTYPE
I recruited 5 people who considered themselves home cooks to try out the prototype. Due to current circumstances (PANDEMIC), all but one of my interviews had to be conducted virtually, which likely impacted the experience. I asked all of the participants to imagine and pretend that they were in the kitchen ready to prepare the recipe they chose (the recipe given to them). I summarized my findings after each session. By the end of the day, I knew what was working, what wasn’t, and what I wanted to change.
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS:
“The simple instructions and images made me
feel like I could actually make a dish like that!”
1. 2 out of 5 users did not realize the Step-By-Step Mode was a button. This tells me I need to make the button stand out more and call the user to click on it.
2. 5 out of 5 users had trouble seeing the ingredients list that can be viewed during the step-by-step mode. Again, this tells me I need to improve the visibility of this option.
3. 5 out of 5 users said they liked that they had an option between the list mode and the step-by-step mode.
4. 2 out of 5 users said they like it when recipes show how long they will take, but like it even more when they show both prep and cook time.
5. 1 out of 5 users suggested that the ingredients list should be specific to the step being shown.
6. 5 out of 5 users wanted to be able to bounce around the pages more freely. For example, being able to go back to the overview page and to the step page.
7. 2 out of 5 users said they would likely only use Step-By-Step mode to gauge whether they wanted to actually follow the recipe or not.
8. 3 out of 5 users said they would use the Step-By-Step mode while preparing the recipe, but would likely refer to the overview page, just in case.
9. 5 out of 5 users liked the images of the Step-By-Step mode so they could use it as a reference to see if they were properly following the recipes.
10. 5 out of 5 users appreciated how concise and easy to follow the instructions were, they felt the recipe gave them the confidence to prepare the dish well.
FINAL DESIGN + THOUGHTS:
If I could continue to run through this project, I would have loved to have the means (and incentive for participants) to have the users demonstrate how they’d use the app in a real kitchen, in real time, preparing the dish. I feel this would give me the most true insights to how the design could be used and improved. However, the virtual testing still produced enough insights to show me how the design can change and be improved. If I could take this design even further, I would have tried to do A/B testing to see how users would respond to video demonstrations compared to the images (as shown in this design).
