A desktop application that simplifies the meal planning process for college students.
For the final project of my Digital Product Design class, I had the opportunity to design a product that addressed a problem of my choosing. I decided to tackle the challenge of cooking meals, specifically for college students who are living on their own for the first time.
User Research
Prototyping
User Testing
March 2021 - April 2021
Figma
College students need an easy way to access step-by-step recipes so they can create healthy meals.
College Cookbook, a desktop application that simplifies the meal planning process by highlighting the cook time, ingredients, and directions for hundreds of recipes.
The full interactive prototype can be found here.
Users can search through a number of different recipes. Each recipe lists its cooking time, ingredients, and step-by-step directions.
Users add and manage ingredients they need to purchase. Grocery lists can be shared through email, messages, Airdrop, and notes.
Users save their favorite recipes for access in the future.
In order to better understand the problem space, I conducted two user interviews with undergraduate students at the University of Michigan. I wanted to learn about the challenges students experience in regards to cooking meals and how these are currently addressed. I discovered 2 main issues:
Meals take time to plan
Many students don't always have enough time to cook meals for themselves.
It is difficult to find easy recipes
Students often have trouble finding simple recipes that are easy to follow along.
Using the insights I gathered from my interviews, I developed the following user personas.
I reframed my insights into the following HMW statement to help generate possible solutions.
"How might we design a product that helps students cook meals?"
I brainstormed a number of possible features that could be included in my solution.
Since this project was for my Digital Product Design course, I challenged myself to design for a new platform. As a result, I chose to create a desktop application.
I created low-fidelity wireframes for the application. My goal was to ensure that users could plan meals by browsing through recipes and adding ingredients to their cart.
I expanded on my initial wireframes by building and incorporating a design system. I tested this iteration with 3 students.
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I chose a vibrant orange to evoke energy and happiness. I wanted to make sure the brand was attention-grabbing, yet welcoming.
Using my high-fidelity iteration, I conducted formal usability tests with 3 users. My goal was to understand how users navigate the product and assess its overall usability.
I was able to gather a lot of positive feedback on my prototype from each user. All 3 users found my product to be helpful and believed it was something they would use. Based on their responses, I identified two areas for improvement:
Chance "Grocery Cart" wording
Users felt the term "grocery cart" was misleading. They assumed this feature would lead to a purchase.
Change delete icon
Users had trouble finding the icon to delete ingredients from the grocery list.
Overall, this project was a great opportunity for me to exercise my digital product design skills. I am very proud of the outcome and had a lot of fun designing the product end-to-end.
In the future, I would love to expand the features of this product, possibly exploring the idea of a meal planning calendar. It would also be interesting to integrate a grocery delivery service, making it even easier for users to cook meals at home.
