Tasty Redesign as Social Media
Duration:
Tools:
Project:
Role:
March ~ June 2021
Figma
UCSD / Group Project
UX Designer
Food is seen as a unifying force - a medium that brings people of different and diverse cultures together. The act of sharing food is a natural, almost primal action that has been enacted around the world since the dawn of humanity. However, our group in DSGN 100 noticed a lack of recipe sharing products on the market. We decided to task ourselves with redesigning Tasty to better encourage social interaction and coerce the sharing of recipes within cooks of all skill levels.
Finished Artifacts
Style Guide
Log-In Page
Our log-in page was very similar to Tasty's log-in page (at the time). We did change the colors for a better match, however.
User Profiles
We refined our user profiles with improved friend-adding and removing capabilities.
User profiles allow for users to see their friends, recipes and purchase history
Users can search, add and remove friends.
Recipes
Users can find specific recipes that they want to cook in the community tab. Users can browse a feed - similar to other social media platforms - where recommended recipes are suggested.
Users can explore recipes tailored to them.
Recipe Posts contain all information needed to cook, and can be favorited/saved.
Users can leave comments under recipes.
Log-In Page
Users can also search for specific recipes with the search feature.
Other Important Features
Users can also view their friends profiles, along with their connections, recipes they've created, and recipes they liked.
Users can view their friends' connections, recipes they've created, and liked.
Every social media platform has a discovery tab!
Recipe Creation: Make sure to include all information on food creation.
Problem Statement
We knew we wanted to focus on creating an experience around food, but we weren't sure what approach was best.
So, to kick off our research, we decided to create two personas to get a better perspective on what kind of users we wanted to focus on, along with their needs, behaviors, and potential pain points. This process also allowed for us to better empathize with potential users of our experience.
Following the creation of the personas, we created the problem statement:
The challenges of our problem domain - cooking and recipe-sharing - is that many food apps do not have a community aspect where cooking enthusiasts can share their recipes with like-minded people. And in some recipe-sharing communities, it can be difficult to find a specific recipe in a large list of recipes.
Key Functions
To determine some key functions to include in our redesign, we decided to make some storyboards and conduct some brief interviews.
My storyboard:
Teammates:
From our insights, we decided that the following features were crucial in our redesign:
-
Upload and share their own recipes.
-
Add friends on the platform or through Facebook.
-
A community tab that supports users to explore new users and see what their friends have been posting.
-
Follow professional chefs on the platform.
-
Video demonstrations with clear audio and written transcripts.
-
Option to pick and choose ingredients they actually need.
Lo-fi Prototype
The initial lo-fi prototype features a similar user experience to other social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, while remaining an extension of Tasty.
​
Below are some of the key features of our lo-fi prototype.
Log-in Screen
Every social media platform has a profile tab.
Community Tab allows for the user to explore recipes and other users.
Exploring the large collection of recipes can be difficult without some sorting features.
Recipe Viewing: Viewing a new recipe as a post, similar to Instagram.
Usability Testing - Round 1
To get a better idea of the usability of our redesign, we conducted our first round of usability testing. Participants were asked to complete a set of tasks, followed by an interviewing session.
The tasks included:
-
Utilizing the login button.
-
View your list of friends.
-
Navigate the different tabs.
-
Find and use the search function.
-
Switch between the recipes, accounts and tags features.
After observing the participant's interaction with the prototype, we conducted the interviews. The questions were aimed at understanding the user's experience and to get a general understanding on the state of our prototype:
​
-
What were your overall impressions of the prototype?
-
Did you find any of the buttons challenging to identify?
-
What would you add/change about the prototype?
​
Insights:
-
All tasks were successfully completed, and the users had a generally favorable impression on the user experience.
-
Some confusion regarding the community tab.
-
Somewhat lacking in functionality
-
-
Prototype was good, with only 1 suggestion
-
Separate friends and following
-
Now that we knew that our prototype was a success, and with some insight on how we could improve our redesign, we decided to move onto the high-fidelity prototype.​
Usability Testing - Round 2
Following the creation of our high fidelity prototype, we conducted a second round of usability testing. This time, we decided to focus more on the prototype’s ease of navigation. We picked three college students who fit into our personas.
Tasks/Procedure:
-
Go to your profile and check how many existing friends you have
-
Connect your account with Facebook and link friends together
-
Go into the community tab, and try to add a new recipe to the feed
-
After you add a new recipe, go back to the community tab and find the dish made from Owen Kung and explore that recipe
-
Try to like and save the recipe post you just opened
-
Now, explore the page again and find a way to get access to Owen Kung’s public profile page
-
After checking out Owen’s profile page, go back to the recipe post and try to post a comment for this recipe.
​
Interview questions:
-
What is your overall experience with our app?
-
What are some parts of the app that you found difficult/easy to use?
-
Anything else you would like to see being added to this prototype?
-
If this redesigned product was out in the market, how many times a month do you think you would like to use it?
-
Compared to the original Tasty app ( show it to the interviewee), do you think the redesigned vision has a better feel of community?
Insights and design considerations:
-
Navigation was great: the worst review stated that the experience “wasn’t bad”
-
Easiest parts to navigate:
-
Finding recipes
-
-
Hardest parts to navigate:
-
Recipe creation and saving​​​
-
-
The community tab was a "good addition"
-
People prefer an interface that is clean and easy to use.
-
2 out of 3 testers mentioned that sometimes it is hard to click on some buttons
-
Immediate feedback between frames is very important.