Project Goal
As a person with food allergies finding recipes is hard when your broke. I want to find a free app that shows me recipes I can have, Without being expensive or overly complex, and allows for quick searches. I can then use these recipes when shopping or meal peeping without feeling overwhelmed.
Creative Direction
Art Direction
UX/UI Design
Project Timeline: 5 Weeks
Project Applications
Problem Table
Scenario
A Person is allergic to multiple things and is trying to find an app to make meal prep easier.
Person Is on a budget and can’t afford most allergy-free cookbooks
A single mom with a child with food allergies. She works long hours as a student nurse.
Need
Easy to make recipes that cater to their nutritional needs.
Needs a free or very low cost app to help choose healthy meals.
Needs a quick and affordable way to find healthy recipes for her child, while on break at work
Pain Point
most recipe apps don’t sort by food allergy
A distiled list of possible recipes they could make with their allergins in mind
Many cook books are too expensive or other existing apps don't have a way to sort by food allergens
Outcome
Has a recipe they can easily implement into their meal plans that is nutritious and allergen-free
a great relaxing trip to morn their lost pet and bt
Many cook books are too expensive or other existing apps don't have a way to sort by food allergens
Market Research
Food Network Kitchen
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Allows one to save and organize recipes they find
Allows for searching of recipes with input of ingredients someone already has on hand
Provides step by step instructions with pictures and video options to provide an easy to follow directions
Has video classes built in to see favorite cooking channel stars cook various recipes
Able to create shopping lists with ingredients for each recipe
Is free
Has kid friendly and vegetarian search options
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Does not have an allergy free search option
Some aspects like the food network videos need you to be somewhat familiar with the food channel to know what shows are good vs others
No simple way to adjust serving sizes
Yummly
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Simple and easy to understand UI
Can search by specific ingredients to find more recipes
Allows for the ability of saving recipes for later use
HAs visual and written instructions on how to complete recipes
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Even though UI is simple and easy to understand, there might be a small learning curve as they only use symbols for bottom UI.
Search function is limited.
Does not have a video walkthrough of each recipe.
Does not have an allergen search/ filter option.
User Persona
Devin | 26 male, College Athlete
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Devin is currently a student at Washington state university. He is constantly on the move with school, work, social life and his running schedule keeping him busy. Devin also has quiet a few food allergies which cause him to make most of his meals for himself rather than go out to eat. However recently he’s been preparing for some big track races as he qualified for state competitions. Therefore he has even less time for meal prep. He is looking for an app that will give him recipes that are easy to make and cater to his wide range of food allergies.
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In search of an app that combines simple easy to follow recipes with his special dietary needs. In the past he’s found recipe apps, but none that cater to his food allergies specifically. Or most of these higher searching function apps are blocked behind expensive pay walls that don’t fit into his current college budget.
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They are in search of an app that will give them healthy easy to make recipes that can be filtered or searched with the food allergies they currently have.
Ideally they would also like an app that walks them through how to make things simply and have the functionality to save recipes for later usage.
The app also needs to be intuitive and simple to use as to provide a smoother experience as the rest of their life is so chaotic.
“As a collage athlete I wish there was an app that would provide me with quick and healthy recipes that cater to my nutritional needs and take into account my laundry list of food allergies.”
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He will most likely discover this app while looking on Apple’s best-selling app list or looking for recipe apps via Pinterest or the internet.
He might also discover this app through fellow students and friends who are also on a similar budget and who also have lots of food allergies.
He could also discover this app from his primary care provider as they would be aware of tools that could help their patients with food allergies.
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They hate when apps are overly complicated in the user experience or user interface.
They are big fans of the Pinterest UI and would like to find a similar designed app but for food recipes if there’s one that exists.
Being an athlete and college student, they don’t have much free time so intuitive UI’s are best.
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While Alex does see the long-term benefit of studying, his ADHD makes it harder to stay focused for longer periods of time.
He uses small games in everyday life to help him stay focused and get stuff done in a timely manner.
Being a med student his days are often long and work intensive as he spends his days in class, in long labs, or in extensive study sessions.
He often finds himself on the apple app store looking for new games to try or focus on.
He values simplistic easy to understands apps and hates overly complex games that take too much brain power.
He is also very social and loves to game with other friends he has made through college.
User Flow
Wireframes
This set of Wireframes shows the screens that the user would take to find a specific recipe that is dairy-free. While in the final version of the app, you could sort by any allergy, this prototype only allows you to sort by dairy-free recipes.