Rozlyn Vaughn
(add draft designs here)
(add refined drafts here)
Basil
Basil
Basil
Project Scope
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My Role: User research, product thinking, interactive design
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Tools: Adobe Illustrator and XD
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Timeline: Dec. 2021 (2 Week deadline)
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Deliverables: Sketches & wireframes, research findings, interactive XD prototype
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Prototype link found HERE
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Team: Just me, myself and I
What is Basil?
Basil is an app designed to allow food fanatics of all skill levels to save, sort and share different recipes, create grocery lists, and utilize cooking shortcuts. The "Pinterest" of cooking!
The Problem
There are many cooking apps with different functions, but none that utilize all of the tools I'm looking to use such as saving and creating recipes, adding ingredients to a shopping list, sharing cooking ideas, and getting help with cooking conversions
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• Utilize ingredients on hand
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Quick cooking conversions
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Unique ways to follow along with recipes
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Easy to share recipes or save them to use again
The Solution
Design a simple and efficient app that combines several elements of other cooking applications into one place; including a "For You" suggestion page, the ability to save and sort recipes, grocery list, basic cooking conversions, and easily share ideas with fellow cooks.
Related App Research
Who are my competitors for this app? I did some research into similar apps that have similar functions to the one that I will be creating and a few of such apps are:
• Kitchen Dial
• Allrecipes Dinner Spinner
• Epicurious
• Handpick
Each of these apps have similar parts to the app I’ll be prototyping in that they either show recipes, conversions, shopping lists, etc.
What’s going to make mine different from it’s competitors is that it will incorporate a bit of ALL of these app functions. I’m also considering making it an app that can be used by both home
cooks as well as professionals.
Persona Development
For me, it is important to have a persona because it allows me to bring the target user on the journey of designing a solution.
I created three different personas as well as specific situations that would help guide the design and development of my app prototypes.
Summary
Sharon (36) mother of four, is constantly looking for healthy recipes that make her whole family happy. Those recipes are hard to find and when she does discover a good one, she’d love a way to save them for later. She’s a busy lady with all 4 kids in extracurriculars so she needs simple recipes that she can throw together in between the activities.
Scenario
Sharon has some frozen chicken and rice on hand; she needs a quick, healthy recipe to make before she runs her younger two kids to soccer. If she can find the right recipe with the ingredients she has on hand, she’ll definitely want to save it in her account to use again.
Callie knows her mom is really busy this week and wants to help make dinner by herself. She doesn’t have her own phone but she can use her iPad to find good recipes. She can’t drive to the store by herself, so she needs to use a recipe with stuff she already has. She also wants to make a practice video of her cooking that she can show her mom later.
Summary
Peter (21) is a student at BYU-I who loves to cook as a hobby and is considering making his passion into a career. Peter is trying to
find ways to document recipes he creates and share them with friends to try. He’s also trying to memorize general cooking conversions but needs a way to check his math.
Scenario
Peter has been experimenting with different recipes and has created his own that he wants to share with his roommates and family back home. He needs a way to document the new recipe and send it to his mom in Utah as well as checking his conversions in his self-made recipe.
Sketches & Wireframing
During sketching, I was able to explore potential layouts and user flows that would allow the user to accomplish the different scenarios I described previously. Accessing the app itself, "favoriting" recipes and sorting them into categories, adding ingredients to a shopping list, sharing ideas, and utilizing the conversions calculator feature.
Digital Wireframes, Drafts, and Revisions
I then created basic layouts and wireframes digitally that would serve as a foundation to add in the design elements and start working on functionality. Below, you will see different stages I went through in the creation process with both the "bare bone" designs and adjustments I made along the way as I incorporated user feedback and testing.
View Style Guide Here
Final Design and Prototype
After multiple rounds of user testing with several different individuals, the final design that I created is shown below. Using Adobe XD, I also created a minimal prototype that allowed my users to get a basic feel of how the app functions and what it's capabilities are.
The link to the prototype can be found here!
Summary
Callie (12) is Sharon’s second oldest child who has shown a true knack and passion for cooking. She is constantly wanting to help out her mom in the kitchen and wants to try making her own cooking show some day.