I completed the project when I was in an UI/UX club-Design Innovation at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign. We started with brainstorming some problems and frustrations students have that we can help to solve. We came up with the idea of creating a recipe app where people can find recipes that they need more conveniently based on the ingredients they have since it is hard for college students to have the time to go get groceries and plan out their meals.
UI/UX designer
June 2022-Aug 2022
Students have a hard time coming up with recipes to cook given their limited available ingredients
The main users for this app is college students
We interviewed around 9 college students an created personas to understand their needs
The design process for this project involved brainstorming problems and frustrations, conducting user interviews, analyzing insights, creating user personas, establishing a design foundation and language, constructing information architecture, sketching the interface, and developing the UI and prototyping the app. We aimed to create a recipe app that allows users to conveniently find recipes based on their available ingredients. The process encompassed research, analysis, ideation, and implementation to ensure a user-centered and problem-solving design
For the design, we wanted to make it clean and free of distraction so we chose dark green, muster yellow, and ivory as the primary colors and a simple font
Colors: we chose green, mustard yellow, and ivory as the primary colors for the app interface to achieve a cleaner and healthy food aesthetic
Features: we added the features where the users can see the cooking time and the ingredients that are required for each recipe since the interviewers mentioned that they care about the cooking time and ingredients when it comes to cooking
My Fridge Function:
We added my fridge feature where the users can add the ingredients they have in their fridge and search for recipes based on the ingredients they have
This is one of the pain points that the interviewers mentioned in the research we conducted where they don't have the ingredients they need
In conclusion, our project aimed to simplify meal preparation for college students through a user-friendly recipe app. Beginning with user research and design iterations, we crafted a clean and functional interface, prioritizing features like cooking times and ingredient lists based on user feedback. The "My Fridge" feature emerged as a key solution, addressing the common dilemma of missing ingredients. Our app centralizes recipe discovery, streamlines searches, and promotes healthier eating habits. This project is my first UI/UX design project that I worked on in a team. Through this project, I learned how to practice the design process and decision-making based on solutions for user needs.
