SErve
A recipe app built with the guiding principle that “less is more”; reducing time spent searching for and following recipes.
Summary
When searching for recipes, it is not uncommon to come across a long winded blog post or an onslaught of advertisements before the actual recipe. In a society where our time is more valuable than ever, this can be extremely frustrating to users, and even cause them to abandon the recipe all together, hurting both the creator and the consumer. SERVE is a week long exploration dedicated to finding a better way to get recipes to users without losing personalization or advertisement revenue.
Early ITERATIONS
Research points to minimal multitasking for the highest percentage of information retention and optimal task completion. While this might come as no surprise, the competitive analysis for this project brought forth the largest pain point: high-distraction interfaces that require users to toggle through multiple screens or fight pop ups to get to the screen they want.
The leading questions then became: how might we simplify recipe reading for efficiency, understanding, and ease of use? What can we do to support a multitude of cultural palates and dietary needs?
GREAT VIEWS, BETTER FUNCTIONS
Ever heard the saying “eyes eat first”? I took this philosophy literally for this design and created a visually dominant explore page for users to find inspiration when they aren’t searching for a specific recipe. Once a recipe is clicked, it opens to a full screen view with details and instructions, that also doubles as a secondary way to view recipes by swiping right and left or tapping the arrows at the top of the screen.
PERSONALIZED BY PALATE
A unique opportunity I had with this project was transferring the cultural importance of food and its place in community building into the digital landscape. Allergen icons on each recipe card make it easy for users to identify top allergens in recipes, and a pill button filter system allows quick filtration of search results. Personal profiles allow users to save their favorite recipes into collections of their own organization.
if there was more time to cook…
If I had more time to work on this project I would like to conduct more in depth user research to expand on features. There is potential to add short format videos to both share recipes and cooking techniques for users that are just learning how to cook. One of my concerns with the design is that it is too similar to Pinterest in format. I would like to explore other design options that serve the same function.
Another focus I would work on is figuring out how to create other streams of revenue with the removal of pop up ads. Keeping the business’s needs in mind is an integral part of design work and advertisement revenue is a part of that. This could take the form of advertisements in the explore page cards, commissions off video views, or promoted products in recipe ingredients.