Overview
Over 24 hours, I competed with a team of five in UX Fest SLO’s 3rd annual hackathon. This was my second time competing in UX Fest SLO's hackathon, but my first time competing with my group of teammates. My team and I spent an entire weekend brainstorming, researching, and prototyping. We decided to create a mobile application for the elderly in our community to pass down cultural recipes to younger generations.
Food is an important part of my identity. As a Filipino American, food is a way of love and connection. Living in San Luis Obispo 180+ miles away from home, means not being able to see family and taste my grandmother's cooking. Our team wanted to create something that brought home closer to us and connected our families and culture from all over the world.
Project Details
Timeframe: 24 Hours | Winter 2024
Team: Edrick Wong, Lindsey Wong, Rain Mazumder, Alexander Woon
Tools: Figma, Figjam
Pictured from left to right: Rain Mazumder, Alexander Woon, Anais Gomez, Edrick Wong, Lindsey Wong
Design Prompt
Food is a fundamental need that can significantly impact our well-being given its accessibility, quality, and diversity. Food insecurity occurs when communities consistently lack access to sufficient food, which can lead to inadequate nutrition and health issues, especially for those with existing health conditions and dietary restrictions. At the same time, food security shapes culinary experiences, such as sharing recipes and finding restaurants, depending on budget and time constraints. Overall, there are multiple avenues related to food that invite creative exploration and consideration.
Your challenge is to create a mobile or web prototype that aims to address food insecurity, health + dietary considerations, and/or culinary exploration. In addition, your app/website must incorporate an AI-driven feature (eg. Pinterest uses AI to populate your dashboard with recommended pins, Spotify creates AI-generated playlists based on your listening activity).
Problem Statement
Elders lack a mode of communication with the younger generation to share cultural recipes, and the younger generation lacks the means to view and share those recipes. Both parties are seeking a way to encourage intergenerational storytelling and cultural exchange within the San Luis Obispo community.
How might we...
create an app to create a bridge between generations in the local community to make sharing stories and wisdom through food more easily accessible?
Brainstorming
Once the prompt was released, our team jumped straight into coming up with How Might We questions to get an idea of how to approach the problem. Since there were different avenues we could take, we wanted to narrow down our ideas as much as possible. With five people on a team, it was essential for all of us to be on the same page. Creating our own HMW statements allowed us to find common themes and challenges we wanted to address.
From our How Might We's, we decided to focus on addressing:
• food-related challenges and opportunities
• meal planning
• promoting cultural heritage through shared recipes and community interaction
Competitive Analysis
To gain inspiration and analyze the current market, we researched existing solutions. We spent 15 minutes individually browsing the internet for existing websites and applications related to meal planning, recipe sharing, and food insecurity. Each of us jotted notes about why we chose to include these examples in our analysis. We shared our findings as a group and shared what we thought could be improved and what was missing. Then, we spent 2-3 minutes selecting our favorites from the hefty list we made.
Two mobile applications we gravitated towards were Yummly and Recon Food. These applications can be found on the App Store and are fairly popular social platforms for home cooks. These are the pros and cons we found for them:
Pros
• Clean, simple UI
• Personalized profile
• Shareable recipes
• AI-driven feature for meal planning
Cons
• Lacked an emphasis on community
• Missing cultural/historical aspects of the recipe
User Survey
To collect quantitative data about our target audience we sent out a survey with questions about food, culture, and our mobile application. Our main goal with this survey was to gain a better understanding of our target audience and the people in our community, specifically their relationship between food and culture. These survey responses showed us the value of food in our cultures and the importance of maintaining this cultural exchange alive within our communities. A digital platform like Melting Pot will keep our cultural history alive through the digital age.
This is what some respondents had to say about food and culture:
⎜“Cuisines and dishes are rooted in culture and family and tradition”
⎜“I think cooking and food is one of the best ways of cultural expression as it gets passed down generations.”
⎜“[Cooking is] an amazing way to learn about yourself and your culture and to connect with others.”
We also asked people what features were most important to them. This showed us what features we should focus more on. The responses showed us that people valued recipe sharing, a search function, a comment section, and language preferences.
Here are some quotes from this section that stood out to us:
⎜“show to friends/family “hey! other people make this just like us too””
⎜“language preferences would be an awesome way to be inclusive to non-english speakers”
⎜“I would want a comment section for people to share their experiences with the recipes”
Solution Sketches
We brainstormed with a Crazy 8’s activity to highlight important features and concepts to implement. Each of us made our own sketches, but we spent 10 minutes discussing our drawings as a group. From our discussion, we selected our favorite drawings which we would use as the foundation for our low-fidelity wireframes.
The features we wanted to include were:
• An explore page: Showcase recipes from other community members. Cater to different palates with intuitive filters for cuisines, dietary needs, allergies, and even meal types.
• A way to upload and share recipes with other users: Make recipe creation a breeze with a drag-and-drop interface, step-by-step instructions, and photo/video integration.
• A comment section: Foster interaction with features like recipe ratings, comments, and direct messaging between users.
• A news feed: Keep users up-to-date on community events, neighbors, and trends.
• A customizable profile: Track user progress by showcasing their uploaded recipes. Allow users to create and manage a virtual pantry list, making grocery shopping and recipe planning a breeze.
• Smart suggestions: Take a photo of a written recipe and AI will input the necessary information to share the recipe
In speaking with users, we gained a better understanding of their needs – relating that back to our problem statement and the goals of this mobile solution we pivoted from our initial task flow to better suit user needs.
The original concept factored in a meal planning aspect to the offered features, yet diminished from the main goal of our product design, which is to create a cultural connection via recipes. Considering that, we pivoted to focus on features that bolstered the passion and emphasis on connection and creating a solution for a user base that skewed older. This entails a straightforward task flow that causes minimal friction, requiring minimal actions to achieve end goals and plenty of elements to guide the user for an efficient process.
To consolidate our user flow, I acted as the scribe for our group and directed the team through each screen. We agreed on the layout and the interactions included for each screen. After spending time trying to narrow down our features for the app, we needed to figure out how each feature would complement the other.
After we established our user flow, the five of us selected a screen to work on individually. I was tasked with designing the home screen, which would function as the app's explore page. On this screen, a walkthrough of the app would be included. This will highlight the main features of the app and direct the user on how to interact with each feature appropriately. After the walkthrough, the explore page will have a search bar, a grid highlighting recipes from other users, and a navigation bar.
Design System
For our design system, we focused on enhancing its convenience without adding complexity since it is tailored specifically for older individuals. It focuses on core principles like clarity, simplicity, and accessibility, removing barriers and making technology a tool for empowerment, not frustration.
In speaking with one of the mentors for the designation, we were advised to avoid bright colors and specific colors such as yellow, blue, and purple which cause visual impairment issues. It was also important that we avoid black and white and opt for a warmer background like beige. We also needed to use fonts that were big and easy to read.
This design system is not just about aesthetics; it's about understanding the unique needs and limitations of older users and creating technology that truly serves them. By prioritizing clarity, simplicity, and accessibility, we can design a future where technology empowers, enriches, and improves the lives of older individuals across the globe.
Imagine a digital melting pot where culinary cultures collide, flavors explode, and families from all corners of the globe connect. That's the vision behind an ideal food-sharing app, a platform brimming with features to foster relationships across generations and nourish your soul.
Break down language barriers and embrace global flavors with multilingual support. Cater to all dietary needs and preferences with comprehensive filters.
A warm welcome for everyone
Guide new users through the app's key features with a friendly, interactive walkthrough.
Dive into a visual feast
Discover diverse dishes from other community members and their cultures
Foster interaction and discussion with lively comment sections. Users can praise creations, ask questions, and share their own culinary experiences, creating a vibrant community around food.
Share your family recipes with the help of AI!
AI will assist users with the recipe-uploading process. Just scan a written recipe using the phone's camera and AI will input all the necessary information.
Check it out 👀
Achievements + Insights
Achieving this solution, within the short time frame has been extremely satisfying. In learning more about how to connect with others we have been able to become more connected ourselves through conversations with users and family over the topic of food and culture, ultimately showing us the great impact of this product.
Due to the time constraints, we often found ourselves running out of time. We spent a lot of time brainstorming, struggling to narrow down our project scope and application features. A lot of time we spent working as a team, could have been used to work individually instead. Nominating a decider of the group would have also ensured that we removed unnecessary time for long discussions. More time could have been spent prototyping and working on our design pitch.
Next Steps
In the next step of developing this product, we would focus on conducting more user research for our product. Since we only collected 11 survey responses, it would be beneficial to collect more responses and seek in-person interviews from our target audience. Validating the workflow through usability testing would be another step we would have liked to take. Given this information we would improve the workflow and go through another round of usability testing, possibly using
a/b testing to validate the new iteration. Another piece we would expand on moving forward is diversifying the forum, by creating a direct message function allowing for greater interaction between users, possibly integrating WhatsApp, WeChat, or Botim to include family members ranging far and wide.
