Cooking Dual
As more upperclassmen in universities and new graduates who just started their career in the USA begin to learn cooking at home after moving away from the campus, Cooking Dual, as a unique recipe app, can help novice users collaborate with another person, who they are familiar with, to get started with cooking.
Role
Timeline
Right tool for the right time
For upperclassmen in colleges and recent graduates (20-25) in the USA who have started working and moved away from the campus, cooking for themselves has become a new challenge, especially after the pandemic, as there has been a significant increase in the number of people choosing to work from and cook at home. Furthermore, according to my initial research, for cooking novices, the cooking together leads to better experiences than cooking alone. Plus, it is also reported that current recipe apps are difficult to follow and don't guide cooperation.
So, how might we make it easier for upperclassmen in colleges and recent graduates (20-25) in the USA who just moved away from the campus to get started with cooking and collaborating in the kitchen?
Learn! Design! Iterate!
Get users' voices involved
Challenge
The biggest challenge of this research is that the problem we are addressing is mainly based on users' personalized, difficult-to-quantify behaviors and habits.
What is the recipe in cooking?
Bring the "chefs" in
Used "Wizard of Oz" method to control the low-fi prototype created based on research result and record how users interact with my prototype to collaborate in kitchen.
Tested with 3 groups of participants of different relationship (student friends, couple, new roommates)
"Cooking Fool" to Cooking Dual
Based on observations from testing and users feedback, I conducted an iteration and created a high-fidelity prototype.
Separated text and video recipe
In the initial design, Cooking Dual had separate recipe systems for text and video to cater to different user needs. However, the test participants found the interface confusing to operate during testing.
Integrated text and video tutorial recipe
In the iterated version, the text and video recipe systems were integrated. Additionally, to simplify user interaction, only the current sub-step (e.g. 1.2) within step (e.g. Step 1 Debonding) would be displayed when the video is toggled to play. However, when the playing is paused, the video will become a thumbnail, and all sub-steps within the current step would be displayed to allow users to have a macro understanding of the entire step.
All in one bucket
In the initial design, I didn't fully break away from the framework of existing recipe application and still kept all kinds of information for a step including the prompts, ingredients, and instructions together on one page. Multiple testers found it confusing to follow what to do next.
One move after another
In the iterated version, to reduce noise, I split the prompts and preparations into modals before each step starts.
Make choices by guts!?
In the initial design of the chef-claiming page (choosing who is going to take the lead in each step), only textual description of each step was provided to users, which caused less experienced testers to hesitate when making choices.
Make choices according to difficulty level and visuals!
In the iterated version, each step includes a video thumbnail and its difficulty level now. This allows even beginners with zero experience about cooking to make choices confidently.
What makes Cooking Dual Special?
“We don’t have to be great to start, but, we have to start to be great”
Cooking Dual allows two users to choose steps to play the roles of chef and assistant and provides collaboration-related guidance along the experience. This helps users to build confidence and understand their interests and strengths as they get started with cooking.
Witnessing the footsteps of becoming a chef together！
Users can add skills they wish to keep developing as vision boards for themselves. Duringthe cooking process, the assistant receives reminder to help taking photos for the chef whenever the current step involves a target skill for the"chef". The photos would be automatically sent to the chef's corresponding vision board for later decoration or modification. In this way, collaborators would progress through mutual witnessing.
Truly for beginners!
Novices often feel lost when looking at traditional recipes (applications), much like looking at a jumble of parts for the newly purchased jigsaw puzzles without knowing how to assemble them together. Cooking Dual provides users with guidance that integrates text, visuals, and videos, breaking down the comprehensive content of each step into sub-steps, which makes cooking as easy as assembling LEGO. Besides, before each step, preparation and behavioral instructions would be presented to help users work with manageable number of stuffs at one time and develop good cooking habits, ensuring a smooth experience both before and after cooking.
Here we start, chef
Cooking Dual would help!
In the final testing, all testers (novice cooks) successfully completed the dishes, with 80% of participants providing positive feedback for Cooking Dual on their collaborative experience, expressing a desire to continue cooking together next time.
