Allrecipes' Dinner Spinner Case Study
Affiliation
Brainstation - Final Project
User Experience Course
Duration
2 months
Role
User Researcher, UI/UX Design
MY ROLE
Interviewer
User Research
UI/UX Design
TOOLS
Adobe XD (High Fidelity)
WeTransfer's Paper (Low Fidelity)
METHOD
Field Research
Brainstorming
Project Background
Do you ever look through your pantry and fridge wondering what you could possibly make with what seems to be an impossible mystery basket off of "Chopped"?
For our final course project, instead of reinventing the wheel by creating a new application, I chose to tackle a redesign of one of my favourite food-focused social applications - Allrecipes.
Challenge
How might we build users' confidence levels when it comes to cooking at home using the Allrecipes' Dinner Spinner app?
Outcome
Incorporate a new functionality that allows users to select ingredients on hand to curate recipes.
Introduce more intuitive filters that tailor to users' acquired taste and dietary restrictions.
Understanding
Allrecipes' Dinner Spinner
Allrecipes’ Dinner Spinner is a food-focused social application with recipes posted by members of the Allrecipes' community of 30 million home cooks. The app includes step-by-step cooking videos and search functionality that allows users to filter recipe collections using specific ingredients, preparation methods and cooking styles.
The app's main features include:
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User’s Home Feed
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Dinner Spinner
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Favourites and Collections
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Shopping List
Direct Users' Feedbacks on Allrecipes' Dinner Spinner App
Allrecipes' Dinner Spinner has over 65,000 reviews on the Google Play Store. Direct feedback from the customers' reviews was used as a starting point to understand users' pain points when it comes to using the app.
Insight #1
“... my only complaint is the filters. When I’m searching for a recipe, I would like more filters for dish type as well as or instead of just ingredients”
Insight #2
“The only thing I’ve found that I wish this app has was a “browse by category” like the website does.”
Insight #3
“... I have a hard time finding the recipe on the day I decide to cook.”
Indirect Competitive Analysis
With an abundance of other food apps on the market, I chose to conduct an indirect competitive analysis with another source for home cooks to get their recipes from - cookbooks. This research method exploited a valuable opportunity to look at a different, non-competitor perspective to redesign of the Allrecipes app. I gathered the insights of two cookbooks I own - Chrissy Teigen's "Craving" and Jamie Oliver's "Meals in Minutes: A Revolutionary Approach to Cooking Good Food Fast".
Chrissy Teigen’s Cravings
There are a total of 172 customer reviews, 6% with reviews with three and fewer stars and 94% with four to five stars on Amazon Canada
Jamie Oliver’s Meals in Minutes: A Revolutionary Approach to Cooking Good Food Fast
There are a total of 60 customer reviews, 18% with reviews with three and fewer stars on Amazon Canada.
Insight #2
Insight #1
“... easy to follow and full of stuff that I want to eat. And what’s even better, the majority of ingredients are things you would normally have.”
“The recipes are really easy to follow and use items that you probably have in your kitchen already (so you don’t have to go buy 100 things at the grocery store).”
Insight #2
“From ingredients that are not easily accessible to requirements for equipment that I don’t have it was a disappointment. I really expected that I would be able to create meals with a few simple ingredients and make more time for myself and have meals up quicker”
Insight #1
“It is very hard to use due to how it blends all of the steps into one. A book that is meant for quick and easy meals shouldn’t have such convoluted instructions”
Radar Plot
Using Amazon's filtered reviews functionality, I was able to see which words have been used most frequently across the reviews left by other customers for the two cookbooks. The words were then used to develop a radar plot, which compared the heuristic results of the two books.
The visualization demonstrates that Jamie Oliver's cookbook fell below its competitor on common ingredients, common cooking techniques, easy to follow, and inspiration to cook.
Primary Research: Interviews
To clearly understand users’ needs and goals when it comes to home cooking, I conducted further user interviews with eight individuals with different levels of cooking experience - the spectrum includes from almost next to no experience in cooking to an avid foodie.
I aggregated the interview responses into keywords and reorganized them into four distinctions:
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Availability of ingredients
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Time
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Cooking Techniques
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Level of Confidence/Experience
Time
Complex recipes require more time
Time consuming to cook at home
Time constraints due to busy schedule
Availability of Ingredients
Buying the correct ingredients
International cuisine recipes require uncommon ingredients
Do not have ingredients readily available at home
Cooking Techniques
Difficult cooking and preparation tehcniques
Not confident when food is ready
Some recipes require exact ratio of ingredients and cooking time
Level of Confidence
/Experience
Unable to follow vague recipe instruction
"Not a good cook" mentality
Difficult recipes discourage from attempting to cook at home
Define
Point of View Statements & 'How Might We' Questions
Prior to defining a meaningful and actionable problem statement, customers' insights and needs were consolidated on one tabulated format from each research method. I then developed the Point of View (POV) and How Might We (HMW) questions to narrow down the challenge when it comes to cooking at home.
Feedback from Allrecipes' Dinner Spinner
Users find it frustrating that there are only three spinners and unnatural filter functionalities
Insights
Users require more intuitive filters to narrow down recipes
Feedback from two cookbooks
Customers do not want to spend too much time or effort in choosing recipes
Customers find it disappointing when ingredients were not easily accessible or common
User Interviews
Interviewees find it frustrating to purchase correct ingredients from recipes
Interviewees appreciate ingredients are accessible and common in Canadian grocery stores
Interviewees are conscience of wasting food
POV
Users need a way to narrow the recipe search because they find it frustrating when recipes do not match their dietary restrictions
Users need recipes that allow them to incorporate common ingredients because they find it frustrating to prepare recipes with ingredients that are not readily available
Interviewees need a tool to find practical recipes to follow because they are more confident and motivated when it comes to cooking at home
HMW
How might we optimize the filter options that will generate recipes that match users' dietary restrictions and acquired taste?
How might we ensure generated recipes incorporate common ingredients?
How might we build interviewees' confidence level when it comes to cooking at home?
After forming the POV and HMW statements from the initial search of user interviews, I went back and asked interviewees to rate their level of confidence when it comes to cooking at home. From this investigation, it was interesting to hear individuals' motives to cook at home, especially those with lower confidence levels in their cooking skills. The interviewees' confidence level was mapped out with the association of their pain points and their motives to cook at home on a linear trend. By doing so, it painted the correlation between the interviewees' confidence level and their prominent pain point, and their main motives when it comes to cooking at home.
Confidence Level of Cooking at Home
Negar P.
Vaughn K
Stephen P.
Mohammad B.
John B.
Diana S.
Adrian L.
Confidence Level of Cooking at Home Associated with Interviewees' Pain Points
Interviewees with a rate of 5 and less have pain points that fall within the first few steps in the meal preparation process, which includes time, a set of ingredients, and concise cooking directions. On the latter, the more confident home cooks are experiencing their pain points when it comes to tackling more complicated recipes.
Negar P.
Vaughn K
Stephen P.
Mohammad B.
John B.
Diana S.
Adrian L.
Complex recipes that require a lot of time
International cuisines requires unique and uncommon ingredients
Time-consuming.
Ratio and proportions of various ingredients is not easy to figure out when it comes to cooking at home.
Buying the correct ingredients
Unable to follow vague instruction
Complex recipes that require a lot of time
From the collection of research, I chose to focus on building users' confidence levels when it comes to cooking at home. By creating a more intuitive dinner spinner functionality on Allrecipes' app, it can most definitely help curate inspiration and motivation for home cooks.
1.
Functionality that allows users to select their ingredients in their own kitchen cabinet or fridge to curate recipes
2.
Introduce more intuitive filters to generate recipes that tailor to users' acquired taste and dietary needs
Negar P.
Vaughn K
Stephen P.
Mohammad B.
John B.
Diana S.
Adrian L.
Cook for significant others, such as family and friends
To experience cultures and learn about people's heritage and background through food.
Healthier lifestyle choices and save money.
Create a social gathering at home. Encourages meaningful conversations at home.
To impress others with homemade meals.
Save money instead of going out.
More time at home with love ones.
Confidence Level of Cooking at Home Associated with Interviewees' Motives to Cook at Home
When interviewees were asked what their main motives were when it came to cooking at home, most of the responses were emotionally driven - associating with a familial and social experience, regardless of their cooking experience.
Personas
Based on the findings from the interviews and secondary research, I created two personas to guide the ideation phase of the redesign.
Ideation
Following the research and discovery phases, I mapped out the existing and new user flow when the user accesses the dinner spinner functionality. I used this as a guide to producing the low and mid-fidelity prototypes.
Existing User Flow of Allrecipes Dinner Spinner Function
Revised User Flow of Allrecipes Dinner Spinner Function
Low-Fidelity Prototype
In the low-fidelity sketches, I preliminarily incorporated an accordion-style navigation for the filters. The filters would enable the users to select from:
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Courses
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Cuisines
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Cooking time
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Dietary needs
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Allergies
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Cooking Techniques
High-Fidelity Prototype
In the low-fidelity wire-framing stage, I applied the feedback from the low-fidelity sketches to create mid-fidelity prototypes. Three interviewees completed one-on-one usability tests and noted that it is an abundant amount of “tabs” to keep track of on one frame.
Using the feedback, I wanted to foster more welcoming touchpoints that will enable the app to generate recipes per the user’s selections. I divided and allocated the categories into three screens. The first screen encourages users to input ingredients on hand or ingredients of interest. On the second screen, the user may narrow down recipes by selecting courses, cuisines, and cooking time of their interest. On the third screen, users can further narrow down recipes by selecting dietary needs, allergies, and cooking techniques.
With three interchangeable decks, it enables the user to input ingredients on hand or of interest and selects their choices from each category.
Intuitive filters enable the user to select multiple choices per category as per their interest and acquired tastes. Simultaneously, the number of matched recipes refresh as per user's selections.
The filter function is readily available for the user to add, alter, or remove filters to refine their search.
Users are welcome to input ingredients on hand or ingredients of interest. Simultaneously, the number of matched recipes refresh as per user's inputs.
