Cloud Cook
Mobile App | Product Design| 2022
Project Details
Goal:
To encourage young people to cook for themselves & create an excellent social environment for them
Role:
Researcher & UX/UI Designer
Deliverables:
Questionnaire
User Interview
User Flow
Sketches
Wireframes & Mockups
Hi-Fi Prototype
Software:
Adobe Photoshop
Sketch
Protopie
Google Forms
1. Overview
The Challenge: How to solve the food hygiene problem in the case of weak policy supervision & enhance social experience for young people living alone?
Nowadays, while the number of young people living alone in major cities is booming in China, their diet and social problem is increasingly severe. They rarely cook so that takeaways account for a large part of their daily diet. However, as Chinese takeaway industry is growing in an abnormally high speed, the food safety problem is getting out of hand. At the same time, because these young people have just entered society and lack social experience, they are facing enormous social pressure. Nevertheless, while they are becoming more and more sensitive, the cities with high-rise apartment don't give them a chance to build strong social relationships.
My Goal: To encourage young people to cook for themselves & create an excellent social environment for them
Since the existing policy supervision is still weak, it is difficult to solve the food hygiene problem of takeaways directly. After digging deep into this area, I found one of the initial issues of takeaways is the inability to see raw materials, cooking processes and the actual cooking environment. Therefore, I believe cooking for themselves at home will make sense. At the same time, I also want to build an excellent platform for the youth to promote communication.
Solution: A one-stop online cooking sharing platform to guide novice cooks and help foodies exchange cooking expertise
I created Cloud Cook, a mobile app, as the solution. This is a User Generated Content (UGC) platform for people to discover recipes, buy raw materials, share cooking experience and make friends.
2. User Research
Primary research: How to identify a specific group of target users from a ton of young people?
Based on the previous second-hand research, I further conducted primary research on young people within the target range. The primary means used in this stage is interview. And I totally interviewed 24 people with different cooking experience and cooking frequency.
Who is my primary users?
Based on the previous second-hand research, I further conducted primary research on young people within the target range. The primary means used in this stage is interview. And I totally interviewed 24 people with different cooking experience and cooking frequency.
If there are any other stakeholders could be involved in this ecosystem to provide resources & get return so that it can build a win-win situation?
During the interview process, I found another group of people who love food and cooking. I call them foodies. Foodies don't make up a large percentage of the population, but they have a fair amount of culinary experience and are happy to share. They are ideal users on both social and dietary levels. So I made foodies another target audience for the product.
3. Explore in the Market
China's first-tier and second-tier cities will be the target market.
Based on the previous research, I learned that young people in first-tier and second-tier cities are facing greater life pressure so they have higher social needs. At the same time, takeaways are widely available in and around these cities, but their sanitation is not good, so young people here are also in urgent need of new diet patterns. Therefore, I set the first - and second-tier cities as my target market.
Competitive analysis： What are my competitors doing?
To clear the functions of existing competitors and position my product. I conducted a co-design among target users to analyze the existing applications which aim to teach users to cook, provide users with online shopping service and build a social platform for users to communicate. There are seven chosen applications.
This chart shows in the existing market competitive products, a majority of applications doesn't have accurate customized service. There is also a lack of management of the social platform. At the same time, the online-mart is lack of localization and timeliness. In that sense, there is a huge market potential as none of the competitive products have solved these issues.
4. UX Design
I designed the information architecture to clarify the product logic and lay the foundation for the subsequent design.
All the previous analysis made me realize that this would be a relatively complicated product. To help users better find information and accomplish tasks, and to better organize products effectively and sustainably, I mapped the information architecture. Among them, I used red to identify the features of this product that are different from the mainstream competing products on the market.
I drew the wireframe to clarify the visual image of the product and consider the primary function of the product.
Based on previous design guidelines, the product emphasizes discovery, sharing, and communication. Therefore, to better define the product attributes and clear the product image, I drew the wireframe of the main pages. The Discover page is the homepage of this APP, five tabs buttons are displayed at the bottom of the sidebar. All of them consist of the core functions of this Product.
During the interview process, I found another group of people who love food and cooking. I call them foodies. Foodies don't make up a large percentage of the population, but they have a fair amount of culinary experience and are happy to share. They are ideal users on both social and dietary levels. So I made foodies another target audience for the product.
Here are two personas with their storyboards and user flows so that you can see how this product works.
FYI. Kevin is a novice cook & Rose is a foodie
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5. Iteration
I conducted a usability test and got the real feedback from my target users to iterate the product in several main features.
- Encourage users to use high-quality pictures to demonstrate recipes
- One-stop service to buy raw materials by the number of diners
- The input box on the bottom stimulates communication
- Up and Down mechanism to sort comments
- Two ways to save, add to My Favorite Menus or Created Menus
- Primary CTA to Add a Thread
- Encourage using pictures to convey information and interest users
- Organize threads in different ways according to the number of pictures
- Filter comments in the threads in different ways
- Look through others' moments, menus and uploaded for convenience
6. Reflection
During usability testing, users gave me feedback so that I would like to design the product for multiple platforms.
In the process of usability testing, some users mentioned their experiences while using similar products. They often use their ingredients or have no spare hands to carry their mobile phones while cooking. So, I hope to expand this product to more platforms.Apple Watch could librete users' hands to cook and don't have to worry screen to be solied. Tablet could provide users with bigger screen for more information and more detailed pictures so that they can put the device far from water and fire.
