I'm an MBA graduate from Pepperdine University with Warehouse Management and Logistics experience. Process optimization, user empathy, and interdepartmental communication and collaboration have helped shape my core UX design competencies and enhance my UX design skills. My area of expertise lies in both UX & UI design and my goal is to work on projects that help the less fortunate such as the Family Promise Foundation, The Herren Project, and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Interests and hobbies of mine include gaming, photography, travel, and (of course) trying different cuisines.
It was a challenge to find people within the target audience because a lot of my friends cook since it’s cheaper than eating out, but they don’t necessarily have a passion for it. Although, it did help me figure out who my target audience would be, and it helped me narrow the options down. Originally, my target audience were home cooks of all ages. However, I think home cooks at an intermediate level would benefit more from the proposed app so I asked friends that fit the following criteria:
An important lesson I’ve learned through conducting these interviews are the following commonalities among homecooks:
Each persona represents a unique and hypothetical group of users that include personal details to distinguish between different characteristics and target audiences.
This persona represents the family-owned catering companies with a vision to build generational wealth. To keep up with latest trends and influencers, Charlotte is looking to elevate the current menu to include creative and fresh new recipes now that her kids are of age to fully take over the business while she retires comfortably.
This persona portrays the tech-savvy single that grew up helping her parents feed their large family with little means and resources, which fueled her passion for cooking. To show her parents how successful she's become in this dog-eat-dog world, she consistently throws dinner parties at her house where she's fully in charge of the spread.
What I learned from the card sorting exercise is that it provides general
guidance on what users prefer but it’s not always reliable because users may
have various answers that skew the results. For example, four of my users sorted one card in five different categories (Favorite chefs) so having an odd number of users participate in the exercise helped with the final decision.
The information architecture of my Figma design is to help internal departments and shareholders understand the navigation of the app at-a-glance. It employs a hierarchical structure with a clear top-level navigation. Each section allows users to dive deeper: for instance, the chat function features ways of communicating with product support and direct messaging with professional chefs for personalized advice.
When a user downloads the app for the first time, a short walkthrough of its key functions will appear, allowing them to scroll through and explore the main features that include requesting a quote, chatting with a professional chef, and the ability to post within the app's community. I decided to exclude this portion in the hi-fi prototype to make the account creation process faster.
As the user continues on with the walkthrough, coach marks appear to guide them on how to use the app. To highlight the coach marks, the background will be greyed out until the user taps on the screen to move forward.
Obtaining basic information is the first part of account creation. Initially, I wanted to collect as much information as I could from the user but since some users prefer not to share their personal information upfront, it can be filled out on their profile after account creation.
I tried to emulate the account creation process like Tinder, the dating app, to make the process more "fun" for the user and later realized it's not fun filling out basic information.
A/B testing was conducted on the splash screen for the mobile version and the landing page for the web version. Both versions were completely redesigned with new images, fonts, and overall look to make them look more like a complete and thought-out design.
I took a few more colors from the color scheme and included them in some of the elements but, overall, stayed within the scheme. The results were clear. For the mobile version, 73% of respondents voted for the redesign.
The user that submitted the engagement feedback fully understood that the design was in its initial stages. The users’ intention was to suggest ideas that would encourage users to login to the app more often than using it strictly for communication purposes so I treated it as feedback that would be considered nearer the developing stages so no changes were necessary.
As far as the technical issues with adding favorite chefs, I had other users test the same functionality on various phone models and determined that it was specific to the users’ phone that caused the technical issues.
To curb the confusion surrounding the navigation function titled, “Projects,” I removed the title all together and kept the folder icon instead because this icon typically represents a place to organize, store, and access collections of files or data, maintaining the mental model users have from physical file folders, where users can access active, planned, and archived quotes.