Oodle is a concept for an app designed to go beyond a normal recipe app and take the frustration out of cooking with others. User interviews revealed that people frequently felt frustration when cooking collaboratively, irrespective of their individual cooking skill level. I decided to design recipe app that hasn't been seen before; Oodle divides recipes into steps for each cook based on their skill level, allowing everyone to take part in cooking regardless of their ability.
Following user interviews, I developed user personas to represent the common patterns I found. I then used the user personas to identify what features would be useful to inform the MVP document.
I mapped the user journey through Oodle, iterating several times to create the most seamless experience possible. As I was introducing a novel concept of co-cooking, it took a lot of careful thought to decide where in the product this concept would be introduced to the user.
To ensure my user flow was clear, I turned hand drawn wireframes were into a low fidelity prototype. I user tested the prototype to ensure the path through the features was being used as intended. No significant problems were encountered during user understanding.
To establish a positive association between users and Oodle, I defined the key brand values as: enjoyable, approachable, and friendly.
The logo is composed of the two O’s from Oodle, wearing chefs hats to represent the cooperative nature of people using Oodle to cook together. A bold yellow accent colour became the product motif, as a sunny yellow has positive associations. Fonts were chosen that complement each other and represent the fun and friendly aspects of Oodle’s brand, while round and bubbly icons give off a friendly appearance.
Finally, I illustrated two characters for Oodle to use during onboarding and co-cooking mode. Illustration was chosen over the use of photography to give the app a more playful and approachable feel.
The onboarding process involves the user inputting their cooking skill level and any dietary needs they may have. Onboarding was kept to as few steps as possible to ensure the lowest drop off rate. While completing the onboarding is entirely optional, it results in personalised recipe recommendations.
Oodle’s users can search for recipes directly through the search bar, filter their recipes to suit their needs or browse a specific category of recipe through the scroll function present at the top of the home screen. This suits both users who know exactly what they’re looking for, and those that need a little guidance.
The challenge in developing the co-cook mode was to create an experience that allowed two people to view their own, different, instructions with the small screen real estate of a mobile breakpoint. I was determined to make Oodle work on one singular device, as this avoided both users needing to download Oodle, a friction point that would cause significant drop off. To make this happen, I worked with a split-screen model often seen in gaming,
