CookUp!
CookUp: Cooking Experience Sharing Platform
UI/UX, Experience Design, Mobile
Background: it is an individual project as part of Behavior and Experience Design Studio, under the mentorship of Prof. Kristian Kloeckl. This course elaborates human-centered design in the context of information visualization and experience design with a focus on the theme: “Experiencing Platforms”
- Cookup shares cooking experience -
Find a cooking class in your city!
CookUp filters allow you to find the
best-fit cooking class,
so don't worry about your cooking skill!
Checking event hoster's profile
allows you to get a comprehensive understanding
of her/his cooking style.
Post a cooking class in your city!
Post your favorite cuisine from your culture
to the public! And you can decide who will
receive your post on CookUp platform.
CookUp ensures your privacy and safety during
the cooking event. It helps you to record and edit the class, and posts it back to the your profile.
- The opportunity -
Food itself is a Platform
Food is the best platform for communication that connects people together. Cooking is much more than words and pictures, cooking is about the experience behind food.
The goal of cooking experience sharing platform is to generate communities and people with common interests and consensus. Cooking varies from different cultures. By creating meet-ups only for cooking, the city could be explored by sharing its culture and lifestyle.
- RESEARCH -
01. Competitor Projects Research
Epicurious provides online recipes sharing. User types: recipe creator and recipe seeker.
Pros: it is a digital brand for consumers interested in food and cooking-related topics, everyone can find and create a recipe on it.
Cons: the social function is unclear, and the recipes are all recorded in words and pics.
Meetup provides online matching & offline meeting. User types: Meet-up creator and Meet-up seeker.
Pros: it brings people together to do, explore, teach and learn the things. But it is not a professional platform for learning cooking.
Cons: it is not a professional platform for the cooking experience.
02. Findings: What Types of Users Will Be on this Platform?
According to the competitor research, two types of users on the platform: the cooking event creator & seeker/participant. So, why don’t we create a platform that shares cooking experiences online and offline together? It is COOKUP! A platform for cooking meet-ups!
event creator
participant
ON-LINE recipes sharing
OFF-LINE cooking experience sharing
03. One-on-One User Interviews
Since I found cooking is a lifestyle generated from cultures. I interviewed 12 people, most of them have an international background. Considering they have different diets and culinary culture backgrounds, they will be the main target user group for my platform and content creators.
The interview outline includes Background, User's daily life, User's benefit / Motivation, Attitude toward strangers. The following are the main questions I asked them.
-
Have you ever posted/blogged your cuisine recipe online or share with others?
-
Will you be happy to teach others to cook your recipe? At home or somewhere public?
-
Are you willing to invite strangers to your home or public space to share your food? Could you tell me what is your concern?
-
Will you like to try offline activities about food and cooking?
- PAIN POINTS -
Here comes the pain points extracted from the research:
Privacy is a Problem
If I am the event creator, how can I trust the people on the platform, and even invite them to my home?
Matching is a Problem
if I am the participant, how do I know I am capable of this event?
It is a cooking class; I can not just come with my stomach.
04. Two Personas
I tried online dating before, I think cooking could be a more natural starting for meeting some new friends for me. More importantly, I can show off my cooking skills! 😉
As a participant:
As a cooking event hoster:
I personally can’t really trust people from social media, but if the profile can convince me that this person it not harmful, I might be willing to invite and teach them how to cook. 🤔
- Ideate -
01. Ideation: Define the Platform Main Features
I kept reading the Geoffrey G. Parker's book Platform Revolution during my design. It helped me a lot on understanding how platforms use technology to match users in a multisided marketplace, unlocking hidden resources and creating new forms of value. Based on competitive analysis and user research, I decided to include the following features that provide the most value to users in the MVP:
To solve the problem
of privacy
-
The filters are needed to protect user privacy when creating an offline event
-
Activity records can make the user profile be more credible
-
It is an experience sharing platform, online sharing serves for the offline cooking activities
-
Creators and participants can switch side anytime
Core interaction &
two-sided network effects
-
Records & Feedback provide a comprehensive background of the creator
-
The filter is needed to provide some special needs when seeking for an event
To solve the problem
of matching
02. Sketch: Design Concepts Earmarked for MVP
Creators and participants can
switch side anytime.
Filters are needed
to protect user privacy when creating an offline event.
Filters are needed to provide some special needs when seeking for an event.
Records provide a comprehensive background of the event creator.
- System Layout & Development -
01. Alignment Diagram
& It Helped Me Get Urban-level Suggestions
To begin, I made this alignment diagram based on the MVP main features. It shows the service flow of the entire platform: from online searching, matching, reaching agreements, to holding the offline cooking events. After the event is completed, the cooking content is recorded and uploaded to the online creator's profile (it shows in the past events' category, but it is also a video-based recipe). This virtuous loop system between online and offline platform can inspire more event creation and more participation.
"Cook-up celebrates the City! "
Not only the platform can benefit from the city by using the spare space, the city can also benefit from the platform, such as the ingredients in farmers market can be used directly, some fewer-visitor restaurants can rent out their spare space and kitchen. What is more, tourists can get a better understanding of the city culture through cooking experiences, etc.
02. Lo-fi Design Concept & Does It Tell the Story?
First Round Usability Testing and Design Implications:
Too much content on the search page. I only come to this platform for cooking events. I hope it just presents what I want here. 😮
I always like the "nearby" function. Hope I can explore my community through it. Maybe...it can even become a dating platform. 😳
Implication: Yes, recipes should serve for the offline cooking events.
Implication: A map-based search mode can be added.
I like the settings before event post. Especially the function that you can let only specific groups of people see the event. This makes me feel safe. 🙂
This user profile convinces me. What if I am interested in the events that this user has held in the past? 🙂
Implication: More design focus will be here:
set up detailed filters for users on both sides
(creators and participants)
Implication: You can leave a message... But an "interested" button makes your voice louder!
03. Information Architecture After Usability Testing
I convened what I learned from user research and sketch & Lo-fi prototype feedback sessions into this design concept and system layout. (Please click on the following image to expand them.)
04. Mid-fidelity Prototypes & Put Them in the Storyboard
Second Round Usability Testing & In-story-prototype Feedback
I found this test method is very efficient and comprehensive. The storyboard allowed me to involve more users in a limited time. I print the storyboard out and show the story in a 5 mins video and got a lot of feedback from 22 people. More importantly, when given a user context, under the guidance of the story, the testers gave me more details.
Key findings: the home page can have two browsing modes: a map mode and a cooking theme mode; advises on privacy protection process (like which groups receive event reminders), etc.
- Design -
01. Participants' Flow: Find a Cooking Event
Browse
Two browse modes allow the users to explore events in different scenarios. The user could also set its filters when searching for events, such as "the event doesn't require any skills for participants."
Event Card
Details of the event could be viewed on the Event card. After clicking join button, user will receive a confirm notification telling more details (like the real location. User can set a notification push about the event.
User Profile
User can get a closer look at the host's profile: recipes, event host, and event attended. This function helps the participants to make a better decision on the event. Users could also view the past events as recipes and get more understanding of the host. Moreover, this encourage every users (hosts & participants) to better manage their profile: host and attend more events.
Event Setting
The event host can set specific filters for the event. Besides the basic information about the event, the filter of "who will receive this post" helps to prevent users privacy. Actually, more filters setting will bring more accurate matching.
- Reflection -
Platform design? Open to see the big pictures!
Platform design is complicated as it connects varies user types and both online and offline activities. It was a big challenge for me but I found things became clear and exciting when I try to think in an urban perspective! I learned that users are part of the society, design can make an impact on our city.
Always validate design assumptions with users
I am glad I keep the design process user-centered. Had I not test my early iterations with real users, I would not have changed my focus from how can I allow users to find recipes and cooking events based on that recipe, to how can I encourage them to trust other users and find the suitable events on the platform. Moreover, I found that the storyboard was always welcomed by the participants!