Easy Chef

A Culinary and Chef Service App

The product: A mobile application that allows busy professionals and individuals to get recipes and instructions to cook their preferred meals, or hire a chef to come to prepare the meals for them

Project duration: Four weeks

The problem: Working professionals don’t often get the time to eat healthy because they work long hours and don’t always have time to go grocery shopping and prepare meals. This makes them feel frustrated and bad about themselves.

The goal: A solution that empowers these busy individuals to cook for themselves when they are free, or addresses their health and safety concerns and lets them hire chefs in the neighbourhood to cook the meals for them

My role: UX Designer, UI Designer

Responsibilities: wireframing, create low fidelity mockups and prototypes, create high fidelity mockups and prototypes

User research summary

Quantitative and qualitative online survey

The research involved developing a questionnaire based on the pain points that were arrived at from primary research. This was used in a survey that was shared with multiple individuals who worked more than 8 hrs a day and their response was recorded. Based on their response, key action items for the first iteration of the design were identified, along with some workflows which could later be used in the usability study as well.

Pain Points

Time Crunch
Oftentimes, these individuals get home late from a hard day’s work and can’t seem to find the time or the energy to prep meals and cook them.

Expensive
They find themselves ordering in almost every day of the week and this takes a toll on their savings.

Health ConcernsThe fact that they can’t help but order in regularly also poses a health concern as they find themselves relying way too much on unhealthy foods and fast foods

Clear instructions
Many were of the opinion that even if they did get some time to cook, the lack of direction or idea about what they are cooking made them lose interest quickly.

The Process

A rough layout of the app was captured on paper.

The paper wireframes were then converted to digital wireframes in which the features were a little more elaborately conveyed.

Placeholder texts and images were used.

The high-fidelity prototype connected the primary user flows like:

Selecting a dish
Viewing the recipe and instructions of the selected dish,
Opting to hire a chef to prepare the dish
Selecting the time for the appointment

This prototype was used in a usability study with users.

Usability study: findings

Users want a mobile application to use the app on the go
Users want a recipes option to make the dish themselves
Users want the option to decide if they want to cook the meal or hire a chef to do it.

Refining the design

The usability study yielded insights which were prioritized and incorporated into the existing design.

Eg: Earlier iterations didn’t have a video option for the user to view while following instructions. This was identified to be a high-priority action item after the usability study and addressed

Another action item with high priority was to allow the user to decide how they want to cook the meal.

Users not only wanted instructions but were receptive to options like buying only the ingredients to make it at a later time, hiring a chef to cook the dish, or even opting for the option where the chef would bring the ingredients along.

Another option was to buy this dish from a partner kitchen with a cleanliness guarantee

High Fidelity Mockups

Accessibility considerations

Contrast between text and background was short of WCAG standards (4.25:1 as opposed to 4.5:1 )

So the primary accent color was changed to #B11818

Accent Color: #B11818

Primary Color: #FFFFFF

contrast ratio: 6.96:1

The individual elements can have alt text provision as well as sequence numbering, which will enable the app to be used by a screen reader.

Takeaways

From the usability studies, it was clear that the app was intuitive for the users to navigate through and view the recipes and ingredients.

All the participants involved in the usability studies were able to execute the recipe flow and select a chef.

What I Learnt

Working professionals are willing to subscribe or pay for services that address their concerns when it comes to maintaining a healthy lifestyle amidst their busy schedules, especially when it comes to something as staple as food.

“This would actually make a great app. I would definitely use it.”

- Participant A

“Great idea. Takes healthy living a step further”

- Participant C