Connecting people through food — a UX case study
This project started with a conversation. Our team spoke about the relationships we missed due to the pandemic. We then started talking about the role food played in our relationships. We spoke about how we connect with others through sharing a meal. Even if they might live across the planet.
This space resonated with us. We chose to set out and reclaim those memories of food and friendship. We saw an opportunity in that people are currently looking for a way to maintain their relationships despite the pandemic. They want to continue to connect with others while exploring new cultures and cuisines through meals together.
Research
To learn more about this space, we spoke to real people. In total, we spoke with seven people. Some cooked for a living and some cooked to live.
We interviewed them about their experiences around food and friendship. We asked them about how they planned their meals and what their favorite food memories were. And what made those memories special?
What We Heard
Throughout our interviews, we noticed three themes.
First, everyone reported that food played a role in their favorite memories in some way. Whether it was a dinner party or cooking something new with their friends. Connecting through food was a reoccurring part of our research.
Then, we noticed that people found out about new recipes through their friends. The process of finding new things to cook was organic, fluid, and social.
Finally, people were searching for ways to make new and better food.
Persona
We created a persona to humanize the different pieces of data we received from our interviews. The persona would focus our solution on one person who reflected our ideal user.
Meet Joyce. She recently moved from Los Angeles to New York City. She is outgoing, lively, and adventurous. She likes to share lunch with her girlfriends and host potluck dinners. Back in LA, she had a busy social life, and now she is looking for ways to link up with her friends back home.
And meet James. He lives in Los Angeles, and he and Joyce have been friends forever. James is quiet, soft-spoken, and focused. He is passionate about cooking, and he would spend many hours on a recipe. He values spending time with a tight group of friends.
Journey
We visualized how Joyce would go about making dinner after a long day of work. The line in the center shows how Joyce is feeling as makes dinner. Our goal was to understand where Joyce might be struggling in that process. We found three opportunities.
First, Joyce becomes frustrated as soon as she comes home. She’s tired and annoyed. She’s not looking forward to eating dinner alone, and she’s bored with her meal options.
Then, she chooses a dinner recipe. Halfway through the recipe, she realizes that it is more difficult than she thought. Soon, she gets overwhelmed.
Finally, she calls James, and he helps her through the recipe. They hang out on the phone while she finishes making dinner. Afterward, Joyce thinks about how she would love to share a meal with James. But he lives across the country.
We wanted to build a product that would bridge the physical distance between Joyce and James. Could we give Joyce and James the chance to share a meal in each other’s company again?
The Solution
Let me introduce you to Julienne. A shared cooking experience on an iOS mobile app. With Julienne, Joyce can spend time with James while cooking a delicious recipe. Joyce can also bookmark her favorite recipes and share them with James.
A note about the name: Julienning is the name for a french knife cut where the food item is sliced into thin strips. Julienne can also sound like a friends name. It captured our goal to bring people closer together through food.
Now that we had discovered an opportunity in the real world, we were ready to design a solution. Our research gave us a clear idea about what we should be building.
We ran a design workshop with our team to sketch ideas for our solution. The workshop consisted of creating as many ideas as we can for a set amount of time. Once the time was up, we had to put down our pencils. Our goal was to see what our design would look like from our different perspectives. We found this to be a great way to generate as many ideas.
Since Joyce would be using Julienne while cooking, the less she had to touch the screen, the better. To address this, we began designing an experience around voice commands. Yet, we didn’t understand the technology well enough, and it would have been beyond the scope of this project.
Instead, we designed the cooking experience to use timed content. We would simplify a recipe to step-by-step instructions. Each step would be shown for the average amount of time needed. Joyce would move through the recipe by following along with each step. When time runs out, the app will transition to the next instruction. If Joyce is behind, she can tap the screen to pause the recipe until she catches up.
Design
First Prototype
Using our best sketches, we built a bare-bones prototype. We mapped out how Joyce would use Julienne into three tasks.
First, Joyce would schedule a cooking date with James for later in the week.
Then, Joyce would join the scheduled event with James.
Finally, Joyce and James would move through the recipe together and complete.
Testing
We presented our design to five people, and we asked them to move through these tasks. Our goal was to find out what wasn’t working in our design and how we could address it.
What We Discovered
Test participants found the design to be intuitive and thoughtful.
While the prototype tested well, our results did show us that we had had two issues.
First, the design of the dashboard did not direct our user to host an event. We had prioritized secondary features and left out the main call to action. As a result, users had to click around at random to complete the first task.
Second, there was confusion during the cooking experience itself. We had simplified the interface to the point that people expected it to be more limited than it was. For example, we allowed people to call a friend through the app. This way they can speak with each other while cooking the same recipe.
Final Design
Our test results led to our final design. We began by addressing the main issues we discovered.
First, we redesigned the main screen with a clear path to set up an event. Joyce would now create an event in a few taps.
Then we started a new user off with a tutorial to get them acquainted with the recipe screen. Before starting, Joyce would see a notification that Julienne is about to call James. This way she would know they’re entering a call.
In our final design, we developed a look and feel for Julienne. We ran another design workshop to generate visual directions for the app. Our final style guide referenced an upscale.
The Second Test
We then tested our final design with five new participants. The results showed that our iterations were successful. People moved through the app with ease and had plenty of positive feedback to share.
Merci beaucoup!
We designed Julienne to bring people closer despite any physical distance.
Moving Forward
Our results showed that our naming convention was still a little confusing. To address these issues, we would change the wordage and language.
Give people access to Julienne through their Google accounts. Julienne would use a Google login API.
Adding a voice command feature makes the cooking process hands-free.
Team
I did this project in collaboration with Mel Padilla and Jaime Huang.
