OOMAMI- A SOCIAL COOKING APP
OOMAMI is a social cooking app concept designed to motivate people to cook more through education and social interaction. Part of cooking is the adventure you have is being flexible with your ingredients, making it a less stressful experience, leading to the desired result of cooking more at home.
PROBLEM
Millennials and older Post Millennials are cooking at home less frequently than previous generations or not at all- despite numerous benefits such as better nutritional value and saving money. I investigated and researched the underlying problem of why Millennials are cooking at home less compared to previous generations, and came across two interesting points: lack of confidence and knowledge.
SOLUTION
OOMAMI motivates users to cook through educational guided recipes and social interactions. Users are able to share and discover recipes, show off pictures of homemade dishes to friends, and re-create each others recipes.
Roles
User Research
UX Design
Visual Design
Brand & Identity
Deliverables
User Surveys
Interviews
Competitive Analysis
Personas
Branding
Visual Design
Wireframes
User Testing & Analysis
Tools
Figma
Maze
Google Suite
DISCOVERY PHASE
User Research
The initial user research provided is to understand the target users, and the problems aligned with current cooking solutions.
Most people order out
Over 33% several times a week
Over 40% once a week
Willingness to learn how to cook
100% of people surveyed are willing to learn how to cook
Watching, Reading, Listening
The best method that works for them: reading a recipe, watching a video, listening while they are following along with the instructions.
Interviews
I conducted three 30-minute interviews with participants who fit the following demographic requirements: no professional culinary experience, between the ages of 18 and 37, are considered within the middle class economic standards, and are currently residing in the U.S.
The availability of ingredients in a person’s inventory is an important factor to consider when making a recipe.
Major frustrations were: the time and effort required to cook, doing dishes.
They also noted that pictures or videos were helpful for them to make or find recipes.
Lack of cooking ability and know how.
Personas | Meet Maya and Kenny
These two Personas have goals and characteristics that represent a larger audience as they fit the 24-37 age range because that was the largest percent of respondents in my survey. They both are too busy to cook and spend a lot of time working on their careers.
User Journey
To create a visual trip and understand the experience of the persona I chose Maya and her goal of downloading a cooking app. The user journey I created considers not only the steps she takes but also her feelings, pain points, and moments of delight.
Her journey has helped how I as a UX designer can improve upon her frustrations, and where things went well such as: making the search option with the app easy to find and use, breaking down videos into smaller sections, and using cheerful friendly language.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
User Stories
To keep the focus on users goals I created two user stories:
As an Intern, I want to learn to cook so that I can save more money.
As a Mid-Professional, I want quick & healthy meals so that I can focus on doing more work when I’m home.
Wireframes | Paper to Digital
To layout the structure, define, and plan the information hierarchy for the OOMAMI. I wanted to differentiate from the competition by keeping the design simple, easy to understand and easy to learn and follow along minus endless scrolling. As well as a place to encourage social interaction as a means to reward the user. A feature not available on the top three apps. The end goal of this process is to figure out what UI components and styles will be needed in the final design. This makes looking for UI inspiration much easier as I become aware of what components I am looking for.
Visual Design
With the statement “Good branding will bring the right impact to the business” in mind, I broke down the process into simple statements:
My app is for all genders and sexes
Mainly for people in Generation Y and Older post millennials
Who are too busy and time poor
This breakdown allows me to envision my brand as motivating, vibrant, and educational.
Colors & Typography
Red and yellow are primarily used to evoke food, hunger, and appetite. These colors can be difficult to use in branding and I decided why not marry the two to create a bold orange.
After many iterations, I finally came across this orange that is bright, happy, and lends itself as an appetizing color. I call her D-Lite.
To play up with the tradition of using a cursive font within a food brand I chose Megrim- a mix of cursive with a bit of flair. Helvetica and Poppins are used for the heading and body text that aids in readability and the modern clean look of the design.
LOGO
OOMAMI. A happy pot of boiling deliciousness, what’s inside? Well, that's for you, our hungry user to decide.
The word umami spelled u.m.a.m.i - defined as pleasant savory taste is meant to describe savoriness found in both meat, fermented products, as well as in vegetables. I chose the name as a way of being inclusive towards people with different diets.
Accessibility
As a problem solver, I am responsible for distilling complex systems and workflows into products that are easy to use and inclusive for accessibility for those who use differently. I thought deeply about accessibility throughout the process of designing the app, and kept them at the forefront when making decisions.
Making things work for everyone
For visual disability, I tested all the colors to pass the WCAG guidelines through accessible-colors.com and Figma plugins A11y (ally) and Contrast. The text size used are 16 pt and higher. Letter spacing has been shifted wider to be at least 2%.
To design for cognitive disability: I created a strong hierarchy, and made each task simple to learn, preventing frustration and reducing cognitive overload using more white space.
For hearing disability, all the media shown has closed captions as an option. Audio follows the steps needed to complete each recipe.
For physical disability I knew I had to have a consistent layout and navigation, with error tolerant pages— Quote Source
Usability Testing & Feedback
Usability test studies were conducted on MAZE to gauge the initial reception. Based on the feedback I received, I had to think of the user more deeply. Many users tested had similar complaints and while they loved how it was simple to navigate they wanted a few more signifiers, like adding a home button to prevent confusion.
The design changes that were made: Adding a home button, star icons to each saved recipe to indicate it has been saved and it can be unsaved, a CTA on the congrats overlay.
I made Recipe of the Day a long scroll instead of needing to click to the next screen to continue, and I added arrows in the Profile section and indicators in Social Feed when there are comments or likes.
Final Reflections
I learned that Keeping the frames simple works best. Not adding a home button, or a signifier that allow users to know where to click. One surprise I learned is Most people want to cook, they either do not have the time, money or know how.
People need more signifiers and affordances than I realized. I thought less is more and too much would confuse, in reality it is a delicate balance. People do not like to feel they are doing something wrong or that they “don’t get it”. Since this is a social learning app, people need to learn where things are and how to get there without thinking.
I would also like the app to have users sign up for affordable 1:1 time with a pro-chef, to learn and ask as they go. What an excellent opportunity to measure KPIs. I would like to further develop this app for more iterations to refine the User Interface.