Project overview
February 2021 – May 2021
Role
UX Research, UX Design, UI Design, Graphic Design
Tools
Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop
Team:
Beatriz Zaragoza (UX Researcher | Digital Maker | Transport Engineer), Lara Delvi (UX / UI Designer) and Silvia Selas (Photographer and UX / UI Designer
Which of you have been affected by the pandemic in your cooking habits? Well, the truth is that some studies say that the effect of the pandemic has been very significant:
64% say they have been affected, and 73% say they cook more than before.
Teleworking is one of the main reasons, in addition to closures and restrictions in restaurants, has been the increase in teleworking and semi-presential models, which have gone from 3% to 40% in Spain in the last year, and that has opened this window of opportunity that we decided to investigate.
So we focused our research on what the experience of cooking had been like during and after confinement, knowing that:
people were forced to cook more, with what that could bring.
Introduction
We started researching the problem and developed a solution based on Design Thinking.
We set to work and launched a research plan, in which we interviewed 16 teleworkers aged 25 to 45 to find out how the pandemic had affected their cooking, what it meant to them to eat well, how and where they got their inspiration, how they organised their meals and their weekly shopping, and to discover the difficulties they encountered when cooking.
Findings
The main findings were:
- They want to eat a varied, balanced and healthy diet to feel good.
- Interest in easy and video recipes
- and an increasing use of social media such as Instagram and TikTok for inspiration and recipes
- Perception that cooking well is difficult and time consuming
User Persona
Costumer Journey
We wanted to focus on the Pain Points to find the spaces of opportunity and to give value to Monica and we realised two important points:
- that she spends a lot of time searching for new, attractive and healthy recipes.
- She has little time or desire to dedicate to cooking.
Insights
Now we want to show you our main INSIGHTS, in which we would like to highlight that people want to cook in little TIME, that they like to eat tasty and healthy food and therefore want to increase their MOTIVATION and that they want to increase their ORGANISATION in order to have more leisure time for themselves and their family.
Research Plan
Through all this previous research we decided to create Monica. She's 32 years old, teleworks from home and lives with her partner. She's always concerned about eating healthily and taking care of her body, because she gained a few kilos after her forties and realised that she had to change her lifestyle. She loves to organise her meals during the week so that she can eat a variety of foods, but every time she goes to the market she feels that her shopping trolley contains the same old food, so she tries to search the internet for new recipes that give her fresh and simple ideas. Some days Monica feels frustrated because she doesn't like cooking very much and she doesn't want to spend too much time on it either, as her working day has a tight schedule
In our Customer Journey we wanted to highlight 5 phases. We start at the moment when Monica is hungry and opens her fridge to see what she has, but due to lack of inspiration she decides to grab her mobile phone to look for quick and easy ideas. Monica feels she is spending a lot of time looking for recipes and gets frustrated at not finding something appetising, but in the end she decides to make a new recipe with great enthusiasm as she has all the ingredients she needs to make it. She cooks and tries to follow the recipe on her mobile phone but she gets stressed because she can't get it right and it takes too long. In the end Monica has not enjoyed the moment because she has to eat quickly to go back to work and she has not been able to socialise with her partner.
Benchmark
Based on Monica's needs and her paint points, we analysed the main healthy recipe apps on the market: Cookidoo, Noodle, MyRealFood.
All of them with functionalities to elaborate recipes, plan menus and shopping, we could say that they fulfil some needs but for Monica they still seem a bit boring.
We also looked at social networks like TikTok and Instagram that produce an engagement effect on Monica when looking for recipes, and that are made by real people like you, like her.
That's why we drew these conclusions, why not make a mix and get something motivating for her when it comes to cooking?
Challenge
What is Funcook?
It's a social network of short videos of healthy recipes. With this app you can get organised with a weekly planner and a shopping list to cook your recipes.
Dynamic Recipes to eat better
Plan your week and your Shopping without stress
The coolest Cooking SOCIAL NETWORK
Funcook
The main function is to be able to quickly and amusingly inspire content through short, practical videos from users and with intuitive navigation based on swipes (like Tinder). In addition, the search engine by ingredient or category, together with sections designed for users based on their tastes, complete the possibilities for exploring recipes.
The following full functionality of a weekly planner helps those who want to cook fast, tasty and healthy meals in a practical way to organise themselves and the shopping list function to buy the ingredients and cook their recipes and...
But it is also a global community, the healthy cooking social network where you can share your achievements, support each other in groups, or upload your own recipes.
Using a design system ensures the consistency of our products and now we are going to tell you a little bit about what we based our own Design System on.
When making decisions related to the management of design systems, we are guided by a set of principles that are shared by all members of the team. Thanks to them we manage to lay the foundations of what we consider to be a good product.
As a fundamental part of the design process we made a moodboard of images for a quick visualisation, as a rain of inputs that helped us to prepare the ideation phase and from there to be able to draw inspiration to create our identity.
Typography and Colors
The fonts we liked were the logo font, Lemon/Milk, which we also used for the titles, and AvantGarde for the texts, which is also a modern rounded sans serif font but very easy to read.
For the colours, we opted for a yellow to represent joy, freshness and fun, and as a second colour we chose a fuchsia red to give it contrast and a touch of dynamism, motivation and modernity.
Each button variant has a particular function and its design signals that function to the user. It is therefore very important that the different variants are implemented consistently across products, so that they message the correct actions.
Some of the secondary resources we have used to support the design are illustrations and linear icons.
All components align to an 8dp square baseline grid. It is a good basic unit to work with. The numbers 4 and 8 multiply easily, provide flexible and consistent, but sufficiently distinct, steps between them.
Desing System
We wanted our app to convey fun, inspiration, fresh ideas, motivation to cook, to be modern, fresh and jovial, and to be able to convey community, to connect with other people. Simplicity, functionality and minimalism guided our UI design efforts. Our inspiration board also served as a useful tool in creating our colour palette and style guide.
