Introducing the Recipe Fox

Recipe Fox is a recipe and meal-planning app for those of us who like to plan ahead but are also indecisive. If planning a whole week of recipes on your own is a troubling task, if you're tired of wasting money on ingredients that you use once for a recipe and never again, or if you want to meal prep easily and effectively, Recipe Fox is the App you have been needing.

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Research

  • Eliminates the need to search for recipes yourself. This app will generate recipe suggestions for you, for up to a week at a time, to maximize buying power and minimize wasted ingredients
  • Generates a list of meals that fit your criteria and have common ingredients so that ingredients do not go to waste
  • Enter basic food preferences : types/styles of foods you like, dislike, want to try, etc
  • Generate by a flavor profile
  • Enter dietary restrictions : vegetarian, gluten free, lactose intolerant, etc
  • Enter how many people a meal must feed
  • Enter how many days you would like meals generated for you
  • Ability to specify time availability; some nights you have more time to cook than others
  • Create shopping list from recipes
  • Recipe directions read aloud so you don't have to touch a screen while cooking, all recipes would have video instructions as well
  • Browse and create a favorites list that you can access and pull from at any time
  • Rating system; rate recipes after you use them and either save them to use again or not
  • Recipes will tell you how long leftovers will be good
  • Yummly Cool app... pretty much perfect. But you have to choose your recipes. My idea would generate recipes for you weekly based on entered preferences as well as history of recipes you have liked or disliked while using the app
  • Allrecipes Dinner Spinner - suggests recipes while you are in grocery store. Uses a feed and allows you to follow people. Allows you to add recipes to a shopping list. Has step-by-step video instructions.
  • Thrive Market Order high quality groceries online and discounted... order online and have all ingredients delivered weekly would be a cool feature for this app
  • Riley
  • Riley is a busy college student. She is a vegetarian, and prefers to cook in her apartment because campus does not offer many vegetarian options.
  • This app would help Riley find vegetarian friendly recipes easy, without wasting time sorting through Pinterest or Facebook every time she needs an idea for dinner.
  • Gigi
  • Gigi loves trying new and exciting recipes. She loves watch TASTY recipe videos on Facebook and frequently shares them so she has a way of finding the recipe again later. Gigi cooks for only herself so she often has lots of leftovers.
  • This app would help Gigi experience new, exciting recipes while keeping them organized and planned out. The recipe videos would be fun for Gigi to follow along to. Basing her meals for the week around recipes with common ingredients would help ensure things don't go to waste.
  • Helena
  • Helena is a mother of three. She is stuck in a routine of weekly meals that never changes. She does not have much time during the week; she gets home from work, cooks for the family, and then does homework with her kids until it is time for bed.
  • This app would allow Helena to save time during the week by pre-planning her meals and grocery shopping for the week on Sunday. It would also allow her to experiment with new recipes and break the routine by recommending recipes based on her family's preferences.
  • Alex
  • Alex is a recent college graduate living on his own and on a budget. He does not feel like he is skilled in the kitchen so he often turns to fast food or cereal. These dietary choices are leading to an unhealthy lifestyle that he wants to stop.
  • This app would help Alex keep to his budget by planning for recipes that use common ingredients; therefore, saving money on weekly groceries and preventing wasted ingredients. It would also allow him to build skills and confidence in the kitchen with easy to follow, video instructions.
  • Joe
  • Joe is very indecisive. He prefers to let other people call the shots. He is also picky and knows what he likes and dislikes.
  • This app would do all the decision making for Joe. Upon starting the app, he would fill out a simple taste type server which the app would use to begin generating recipe recommendations. After using a recipe, Joe would be prompted to either thumbs-up or thumbs-down it. The app would use this data to suggest future recipes.
  • Riley is tired of eating salads and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every night. She wants new recipes to make but does not have a lot of time on week nights to spend shopping and cooking. She needs to do her grocery shopping ahead of time and use recipes that are quick, simple, and delicious. Riley would generate a week's worth of recipes and a shopping list based on not having a lot of time.
  • Riley is a vegetarian and often finds it difficult to find new recipes that are vegetarian friendly and exciting. Riley would fill out her user preferences saying that she is a vegetarian.
  • Gigi has been craving Indian food. After much searching on pinterest, she found one good recipes, bought a lot of obscure ingredients to make it, and now she doesn't know what else to do with them. Gigi could generate a recipe list and shopping list based around Indian food. The app would generate recipes that have common ingredients so that Gigi is not left with 10 lbs of coconut flower that she will never use for anything else.
  • Gigi is follow a recipe on her phone. She hates having to stop between each step to unlock her phone for the next line of the recipe. Instead of having to unlock her phone throughout the process, Gigi could use the step-by-step video or audio instructions as she cooks. This feature would allow Gigi to work faster without stopping to wipe her hands constantly and would make the process cleaner and quicker for Gigi.
  • Helena cooks for a total of 5 people. She often has a hard time finding fun new recipes for the serving size she needs. Helena could generate lists of recipes based on how many servings she needs each nights.
  • Helena does not have a lot of time during the week; she needs to do her grocery shopping on the weekends. Helena could generate a shopping list based on her recipes for the week. This would help her get everything in one stop.
  • Alex's girlfriend is visiting, and he wants to make an amazing dinner for the two of them. He usually only cooks for himself and he is not a vegetarian. He could create a list of vegetarian recipes for two for the amount of days that she is visiting without changing his personal preferences in the app.
  • Alex is hosting a get-together at his place and wants to impress all his friends with an awesome food and snacks. Alex needs to generate a list of party hors d'oeuvres and snacks to feed 10 friends.
  • Joe hates making decisions and usually ends up making the same thing to eat everyday instead of trying to choose something new. When Joe joins the app, he would be prompted through a simple taste type survey. This survey works like a personality test and provides the app with data so that it can make suggestions without you having to decide on anything if you don't want to. Joe would put in that he has no dietary restrictions but that he is allergic to peanuts. He would rank flavors and styles based on his preferences and then generate his first week of recipes based entirely on the information from the taste type survey.
  • Joe really loved one of the recipes he was given this week. After using each recipe the app would prompt for a rating. Joe would favorite the recipe because he knows he wants to use it again and generate another week's worth of recipes around it.

Process Flow

Wireframes

User Testing

Script
  • You're indecisive and not sure what you want. Let the app suggest a week's worth of recipes for you.
  • You're a new user and don't have preferences set so the app doesn't know what to recommend to you. Fill out your preferences. Fill out dietary, allergies, and tastes however you like. You like all cuisines.
  • View the recipes that have been suggested for you and start using this recipe box today.
  • You've decided that you hate Greek food. Remove it from your preferences so the app does not recommend Greek recipes to you anymore.
  • You're craving Thai food. Find a cool Thai Recipe to try.
  • You're excited about the Thai Red Curry you found. Create a collection of recipes for the week that are similar to your curry recipe so that you don't waste ingredients.
  • You're cooking for yourself and a friend next week. Your friend is a vegetarian and you have no idea what you can make that they will eat. Create a week's worth of recipes that are vegetarian friendly for you and your friend.
  • It's Thursday night and time to make dinner. Find what you will be making tonight.
  • Follow the app's prompts through the recipe.
  • You have a bag of coconut flour in your pantry that you used once. Now your not sure what else to do with it. Create a list of recipes that use coconut flower.
Revised Script
  • You're new to the app. Fill out your preferences to get started.
  • Create your first recipes box, view what has been suggested for you. If you like the recipes, save them. If not, shuffle them and then save.
  • You're craving Thai Food. Find a cool Thai recipe
  • You see two that you like. Save one for another day.
  • Create a new box with the other one you liked.
  • You're cooking for yourself and a friend who is vegetarian next week. Create a new box of vegetarian recipes
  • Figure out what you're making for dinner tonight.
  • Check what's in the queue for later this week.
  • Follow the instructions to make your meal for tonight.
  • Find that recipe you saved earlier and make a new box with it.
Results Round 1
  • Step 1, 2 and 3- Create a box as a new user & set up preferences. Use recipe box. Pretty smooth. Rating cuisines should be set up differently. long list, maybe love it/hate it/ wanna try it could scroll with you. If you're not using a preference, you should be able to turn it off. Let users know you don't need to fill out each field for cuisines.
  • Step 4 - Edit your preferences. Gear Icon makes sense. Easy to find and edit. "Cuisines" was confusing for one use, but made sense to others.
  • Step 5 and 6 - Search for Thai food and create recipe box from it. Search is easy and intuitive. Click on a recipe to get options of what to do with it works. But maybe recipe should open its own screen - view whole recipe and then choose what to do with it. But keep the quick options at search results as well. Differentiating search and create new box features needs some thought. Should user always search first? or does there need to be a more obvious way to start creating a new box from scratch? maybe a "quick start” for creating recipes based purely on your predefined preferences.
  • Step 7 - create box that is vegetarian friendly even tho it is not one of *your* preferences. This one is tough. It's not intuitive to go to the weird person icon to get to all your recipe boxes and create a new one from there. New button on home screen should work to add a new box. Process of creating a box should be tweaked. Search could make more use of the filters and then create a box from there. or search within create a new box?
  • Step 8 and Step 9 - Find today's recipe, follow it, rate it. Progress bar at top of home screen could be a calendar view week that is clickable so you can click through to see what else is in line for the week. should still show progress - which ones have been completed and which ones have not.
  • Step 10 - Create by ingredient.Users all tried to search through search page first. Way of creating a box needs to be tweaked.
  • Overall: nav bar icons can be confusing. Shopping list seems maybe unnecessary in the nav. Should just be part of each recipe box. Person icon is weird. Rework the nav… Gear makes sense.
Results Round 2
  • Preferences - make clear that you don't need to fill out all options for cuisine
  • Search for vegetarian recipes rather than going through new box and editing preferences there
  • use a clickable progress bar for the week of recipes so user can click through the days to see othe recipes.
  • Person icon is confusing
  • all users go to search first to initiate making a new box
  • bring all buttons down to bottum nav
  • ability to browse recipes is important to some users
  • list days under calendar dates
Results Round 3
  • ability to shuffle recipes before saving would be good
  • add words under nav buttons
  • move home icon to left of nav or center
  • slider between recipes and lists needs to be seperated

Branding

Prototype

Recipe Fox Clickthrough from Jackie Valori on Vimeo.