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All code we wrote is public on GitHub: https://github.com/benweissmann/vegitude.

Evaluation

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We conducted our user tests on one person from three different segments of the targeted population: vegans, vegetarians, and non-restricted persons who cook for friends with restrictive dietary needs. We briefed each individual with a general description of the problem Vegitude is trying to solve and the manner in which it solves it. Following that, we gave each individual three or four tasks based on a scenario centered around the segment of the user population that they are in. Each task touched on a different capability of the website, making sure that each user could successfully learn how to utilize all of Vegitude’s capabilities naturally, without being told or shown how to do so.

After conducting these user tests, we have discovered a couple of interesting usability problems for us to tackle:

• Tooltips use ambiguous at first site

The tooltips that accompany substitutions (on the left of them) can be pretty ambiguous at first sight. One of our users did not naturally think of checking the tooltip next to vegetable oil (a substitution for butter) in order to find alternative substitution for butter. One way to solve this problem might be to add in some natural instruction to the page to explain that more information on the substitutions and the ingredients they substitute might be found through the tooltips.

• The search seems fairly slow

One of our users mentioned that the search seems fairly slow and, although we have a search page animation, it runs for such a long time on most searches that it can be tiring. One idea we had to solve this issue is to actually use a dedicated searching library, such as Lucene, in order to find our information, instead of the mySQL search that we currently use.

• Substitutions based on usage is hard It turns out that actually finding appropriate substitutions for particular ingredients in certain recipes can be difficult, as their use in a recipe can vary. One of our users pointed this out and it is a reasonable worry. We have looked into this and figured that, unless we can find a better ingredient substitute database, we will probably have to create an algorithm or go through by hand and specify the type of substitutions for particular ingredients in different kinds of recipes.

Reflection

\[reflection\]