Homeal wants to be a reference to help you organize batch cooking. You select the recipes that best fit your diet, we provide you with a shopping list of the ingredients you’ll need, and we transform the recipes you’ve chosen into a single personalized batch cooking recipe. This combines the previous recipes in an optimal way so that you spend less than 2 and a half hours cooking everything.
Duration
Tools
- Figma
Role
Year
2022
Summary
Personalized batch cooking within your reach.
Intro
Homeal is the final project of the UX/UI Design bootcamp I completed at Northcamp. While talking with friends, I realized there was an issue with time and motivation for cooking during the week. With this in mind, I began researching and immediately thought of batch cooking.
Problem Statement
Who doesn’t find it a headache to organize grocery shopping, go shopping repeatedly, and cook every day?
Process
DISCOVER
Surveys & Interviews
DEFINE
Affinity Diagram
User Persona
User Journey
IDEATE
MoSCoW
User Flow
Crazy 8
PROTOTYPE
Low-Fi
Mid-Fi
Hi-Fi
Discovery
Organizing a Large Grocery Shop: The Biggest Challeng
First, I conducted desk research to find out what is already known about the topic, the current situation regarding batch cooking, food waste, eco-friendly and local purchasing, as well as eating, shopping, and organization habits.
Through surveys (37 responses) and interviews (3 interviews), I realized that I was attempting to solve too many problems at once. Therefore, I focused on the biggest issue to address: the organization of grocery shopping for batch cooking. This approach allows me to target those who are hesitant to try batch cooking while also making it quicker and easier for those who already practice it.
Definition
Empathizing with Víctor
After conducting initial research, where I synthesized the information obtained in search of problems and opportunities, and having validated my hypothesis, I created a user persona, a user journey, a value proposition canvas, and user stories. These tools will help me focus on addressing the pain points and frustrations through functionalities that solve these problems.
Empathizing with Víctor, my user persona, and how he might use my product, I found the key to Homeal’s value proposition: ‘I don’t know how to organize batch cooking; there are many recipes, but how do I optimize the time and the recipes to cook them all at once?’ This friction point has proven to be crucial.
What does Víctor need?
Ideation
Problems & oportunities
I can’t solve all the problems.
After creating the affinity diagram, I realize that I am trying to solve too many problems; I need to prioritize to offer a good minimum viable product.
The biggest problem to address, which is repeated in the interviews, surveys, and in Víctor’s friction points, is the selection and organization of the grocery shopping for batch cooking. This way, I can reach out to that segment that is hesitant to try batch cooking and make it easier for those who already do it to cook in a faster, more organized, and simpler way.
Prioritization of Features
Feature creep
When defining the functionalities of the Minimum Viable Product, I took into account the business value, user utility, and development cost. In Notion, I created a table with all the proposed functionalities, and considering the value of the aforementioned variables, I was able to easily choose the features that I will prioritize for the first phase of my product.
Ultimately, I opted for an app due to the importance of notifications.
Value Proposition
Homeal aims to be a reference that helps you organize and do batch cooking.
You select the recipes that best fit your diet, we provide you with a shopping list of the ingredients you will need, and we transform these selected recipes into a single personalized batch cooking recipe that combines the previous recipes optimally so that you spend less than 2.5 hours cooking everything.
We solve the biggest problem for users, which is organizing such a large grocery shop in just a few minutes. It is the first platform that organizes a batch cooking plan based on recipes you choose to optimize cooking time.
User flow
Wireframes lo-fi
User tests
Design & prototype
Designing a good experience
Stylescape
Design system
Design of functionalities.
Escoge las recetas quieras.
You select the recipes that best fit your diet from our continuously updated catalog. Don’t miss out on our latest recipes!
Personalized shopping list.
We create a shopping list with the ingredients you will need based on the recipes you have chosen. No more forgetting items at the supermarket!
Personalized step-by-step menu.
Creation of a batch cooking recipe that optimally combines your selected recipes so you spend the least amount of time cooking them all at once. Step by step and with an audio version.
Prototype
FLOW 1
Create personalized menu
FLOW 2
Notifications
FLOW 3
Your personalized menu: start cooking.
Conclusions
One of the biggest challenges was the time constraint; I only had 2 weeks to complete it, so prioritizing tasks and features was key. I had to avoid trying to solve all the problems I encountered during the research and learn to understand which is the most significant problem to address.
I have realized that design processes are not linear, and the order in which I conduct different research and empathy exercises depends on each project and process. It is important to understand what your project needs for a deep understanding of user problems and the development of solutions.
In the future, I would like to address:
- Monetization of the app: subscriptions.
- Partner producers who deliver the products you will need to retail points (eco stores, greengrocers, etc.).
- A component of nutritional education.
- Built-in timers with predetermined times for the steps of batch cooking.
- Community features (recipe voting, how many times a recipe has been saved… popularity, comments…).
- Export the shopping list to another app or PDF.
- Invite another person to the platform.