Our Solution

Everything you need to know at a glance.

Our goal was to restructure the information architecture to highlight key information users would need to know at a quick glance (i.e time it takes to cook, dietary restrictions, # of steps), and also add new features (i.e. a servings size calculator) that would make searching for and executing recipes, a breeze.

Target Audience

In order to better understand who best our redesign would serve, we surveyed 35 men and women who all have some experience cooking (ranging from beginner to intermediate). Their goal is to develop their cooking skills with easy and quick recipes.

01. RESEARCH

Behavioral Analysis

Newfound time for newfound interests

To understand what types of problems people were facing when trying to cook, research began with analyzing behaviors and trends amongst American households during the pandemic.

Research showed that because the pandemic has afforded people the opportunity to spend more time at home, Americans are cooking more meals at home, experimenting with flavors and expanding their palettes, and are focused on cooking quality and healthy meals.

Interesting Findings:

PR, H. (2021, January 14). America keeps on cooking. America Keeps On Cooking. Retrieved January 18, 2022, from https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/america-keeps-on-cooking-301208005.html?tc=eml_cleartime

Galarza, D. (2021, October 28). Before the coronavirus epidemic, they didn't know how to Cook. now they are scrambling to learn. The Washington Post. Retrieved January 18, 2022, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/voraciously/wp/2020/03/27/before-the-coronavirus-epidemic-they-didnt-know-how-to-cook-now-they-are-scrambling-to-learn/

User Survey

What do people have to say?

In order to validate our assumptions about possible pain points people might be experiencing when trying to search for recipes, we surveyed 35 men and women ranging from 18-55 who are full-time employees and have had some experience cooking.

Here’s a summary of our insights

User Interviews

We also interviewed 5 men and women to get some qualitative data in go more in-depth on their survey answers. Here’s what some of them had to say:

'Free vectors icons and illustrations from Streamline https://streamlinehq.com'

All of this data was very insightful as our assumptions were validated and we gained new insights. From this data, we were then ready to create a user persona.

Affinity Mapping

Coming all together now

We then took all of the information gathered from user research and grouped what people had to say to reveal the most common themes and pain points.

02. INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

Affinity Mapping

It all comes down to proficency

My team and I were able to identify two distinct personas among our user data: beginner and intermediate proficiency levels in the kitchen. We decided that our primary persona would be beginner cooks like Wilson as we felt that profile best represented the majority of our users in the data we gathered. We would also be able to identify more opportunities to improve Amazon’s website with this persona.

User Journey Map

Wilson’s journey to find flavor

To further empathize with the users and explore their experiences, we mapped out Wilson’s journey. Our goal was to identify possible pain points someone like Wilson might experience while trying to follow a recipe using Amazon Fresh recipes.

Here’s a summary of our insights:

Paint Point 1: Wilson finds the recipe page layout overwhelming and confusing
Paint Point 2: Wilson finds that the meal he chose took too long to cook because he had to substitute ingredients.
Paint Point 3: Wilson is disappointed by the flavor of the meal because he had to use ingredients he’s never used before.

Brainstorming

Letting our minds run wild

After mapping out his journey, we then began brainstorming possible solutions to his pain points as a team. We did not hold back our ideas and focused on quantity initially. We then refined our ideas by evaluating whether or not each proposed solution directly answered our original problem statement.

User Stories

Getting our priorities in order

After generating all of our great ideas, it was time to filter and refine. Since time was a constraint, we could not incorporate all of our features into this project. We wanted our redesign to be a minimum viable product to create the most impact for our users. User stories gave us clarity on which features to focus on. Thinking from the perspective of our users reduced our designer bias focus on what users truly needed.

We made each feature generated from our initial brainstorm into a story and then categorized it as either high, medium, or low priority.

After our evaluation, we focused on this user story:

As a busy professional, I want to quickly scan through key information on the recipes page so I can easily find what I need.

From this, we were able to identify the key must-have features:

• Clear and comprehensive menu categorization

• A section highlighting key information at a glance (time, # of steps, diet)

• Enticing pictures of food

• Rating system

We also identified some nice to have’s:

• Serving size calculator

• Reviews section

03. VISUAL DESIGN

Wireframes

Low and mid-fidelity wireframes

We began our low fidelity wireframes by doing crazy 8’s to see how many ideas we each could come up with. We then reviewed each other’s work and incorporated the best parts of each into our mid-fidelity wireframes.

04. Reflection

Lessons Learned

Celebrate good times

I completed my first UX Design case study (yay!!) and I’m very proud of the work my team and I produced. When presenting it to our classmates, we received a lot of positive feedback which was really rewarding. Doing this redesign was a fun and worthwhile experience, but I would be lying if I said there weren’t moments of hardship. Here are some things I learned:

Plan, plan, and plan again

Big projects, such as this one, can easily make anyone feel overwhelmed. It was important for me, as team leader, to organize and prioritize my team’s tasks and deliverables from the beginning so we could work as efficiently and effectively as possible. Because so that my team and I knew what we had to do and when we had to complete it, we were able to execute a successful project.

Collaboration and communication

As I come from a graphic design background, I’m used to working on solo projects with feedback only from my superior. The UX process is completely opposite from that, so I had to learn how to rely on others for support and compromise on my ideas so that my team members' voices ideas and opinions are heard and utilized.

What Would I Do Differently?

Getting feedback

User testing is a vital part of the UX process, so not having the time to incorporate feedback from our users was unfortunate. If there was more time to complete the project, I would prioritize user feedback. I would as users to complete such tasks as:

• Navigate to the Recipes page

• Find an article that teaches you how to use a knife

• Customize the serving size of the recipe

After testing, I would ask them questions such as:

• What was your overall impression of the Amazon Fresh recipes page?

• What was the best/worst thing about Amazon Fresh recipes page?

• How would you change Amazon Fresh recipes page?

• How would you compare Amazon Fresh recipes page to AllRecipes?