Taste Twister GR2 Design

Scenario

Kathy is a mother of three boys, Ricky, Bobby, and Joe. Her sons are pretty picky about food. Ricky is the oldest, and he doesn’t like certain vegetables but loves pasta. Joe is the youngest and does pretty much whatever Ricky does, except he also is minorly allergic to some nuts and doesn’t like tomatoes. Bobby is the parents’ delight when it comes to food - he just eats whatever is on his plate. As such, Kathy finds it difficult to make meals that all of her kids will enjoy.

One night, she sees that Shaws has a sale on pasta and decides she wants to make that for dinner. However, she can’t decide what to put on it because she knows her kids are picky about different things. Kathy has come up with a list of foods that her kids don’t like, and luckily has it with her. Right away she sees that Joe doesn’t like tomatoes and can’t eat nuts. With those restrictions in mind, she tries to think of what she can make with the pasta that will be somewhat nutritious. Kathy finds a recipe with pesto sauce and realizes that she has never made pesto for her kids. She thinks this would be a good time for them to try something new. With all the necessary ingredients, Kathy heads home.

Kathy finds a recipe to create a delicious pesto pasta for her kids. Her kids are a little skeptical about trying this new dish, because it’s really green. After dinner, Kathy asks her kids for feedback on the meal. Ricky and Bobby liked this meal, so Kathy considers making it again. Next time Kathy went to the supermarket, the new ingredients were on her list.

Analysis of scenario
This scenario identifies three main tasks:

• Picking ingredients
• Finding a recipe and preparing the meal
• Getting feedback from kids

Individual Sketches

Josh's Sketches

Sketch 1 Josh: Feedback/Recipe Finder

This sketch is designed to incorporate previous feedback from the kids to find new recipes. When a parent is deciding what to make, they can see how picky a kid is and what they like or are allergic to. They can then search with these preferences automatically placed as filters. When preparing the meal, caregivers have a list that lets them choose what they have and what they need as well as cooking directions. The feedback stage has a slider for the overall meal and binary (heart or broken heart) value for each major ingredient.

Sketch 2 Josh: Kid’s Decide

This design aims at letting the kids have feedback in choosing the meal. Each child can see their previous favorites and search for new dishes. They drag whatever they want for their caregiver to review. The caregiver can then see an aggregated result of what each kid chose and suggestions based on this. If they don’t like any of these options they can also search for dishes. During the prepare phase the caregiver can watch a video of how to prepare the meal and has a static shopping list for ingredients. The feedback system has a rating (0-5) for the overall meal and three buckets, “loved”, “liked”, “never again” for each major ingredient.

Sketch 3 Josh: Mobile Design

The mobile design was designed with efficiency as top priority. During the decide phase, caregivers either search or get a random choice by selecting “Get Ideas”. This system allows a choice to be quickly made, either by knowing what to search for or being inspired by the ideas. Any dish that is selected can be shared so that the dish, ingredients, and shopping list can be sent to others, for example, a wife can send it to her husband to pick up groceries. The feedback system is a single vote for the meal and each major ingredient. Each child can vote +/-1, or 0 for an item and the total score is aggregated for the caregiver.

Sarah's Sketches

Sketch 1 Sarah: Basic design

This design was created to cover all of the basic points of ingredient selection, recipe finding, and feedback. From the main page, the parent can either look at/edit the food preferences of the children or search for a recipe based on the preferences of their children. The generated recipe list includes both new recipes and recipes that have been tried before (with their previous rating). After the parent makes the dish, the children can individually rate the recipe and the individual ingredients. The ingredient ratings will be pre-populated based on previous preferences, so the kids only have to rate the new ingredients.

Sketch 2 Sarah: More ingredient control

In this design, the caregivers have a lot of control over which ingredients they want to include in their dish. They can select ingredients based on each of the kids’ preferences, and choose to add new ingredients. On the screen with the recipe, the kids can rate what they thought and the caregivers see how to make the dish. The kids don’t have to rate the ingredients, they will automatically be put in their “will eat” section. If they specifically don’t like something, it is easy to return to the preferences page and change anything.

Sketch 3 Sarah: Design for illiterate users

This UI is designed for illiterate users, so must communicate the flow without words. The log in screen is a combination lock-- the user gets a random code if they click on the “???” button. The next screen has a tile for each of the children, and when they click on it it brings up symbols for the ingredients they like and don’t like. The parent can drag each ingredient into the “shopping cart” box, and from there create a recipe. After selecting ingredients, the parent is brought to the recipe screen where the UI takes them through symbolic representations of the steps. When they have completed this, they can give feedback, also symbolically.

Tal's Sketches

Sketch 1 Tal:

This design is primarily a web interface that is geared towards caregivers. It has search functionality based on cuisine, with ratings for the dish from other users. Once the caregivers find a dish, they can see recommendations from other users, the ingredients and the recipe on how to make it. The feedback is basic, kids rate the dish from 1-5 scale using stars.

Sketch 2 Tal:

With this tablet interface the caregivers have an autocomplete search to search for specific dishes. They can also view recommended dishes and the favorite dishes of the entire family. Caregivers also have the ability to search by ingredient, and view the rating of each ingredient by person/total ranking for the entire family. By clicking on an ingredient they can see dishes with that ingredient, and by clicking on the dishes, they can see a list of ingredients and a recipe. The feedback system allows each child to provide feedback for each ingredient, and the overall rank is calculated based on the individual rankings.

Sketch 3 Tal:

This is a mobile interface, and provides a dish search feature with autocomplete. Once the caregivers select a dish, they can see a list of ingredients on a separate screen, so they can go shopping with a list. By clicking next, they can view the recipe for that dish. A child is able to rate the overall dish, and each ingredient in the dish, which happens automatically by rating the overall dish. In this design, the feedback is verbal rather than visual.

Max's Sketches

Sketch 1 Max: Stretch Design for Kids

This interface is a stretch to be used by children only. Pictures are primarily used to communicate to the users – there is little to no text on screens. The use of large circles throughout the design is meant to be a clear affordance for children so they know where they can click in the interface.

Sketch 2 Max: Gather Feedback Design

This design is focused on quickly giving feedback on a lot of dishes. The top menu bar has the name of each child to allow quick selection of child who is voting. To gather feedback a voting slider is used. Left and right arrows to allow continuous cycling through meal options.

Sketch 3 Max: Focus on Recipe and Ingredient Selection

This design is focused on ingredient selection. A caregiver adds ingredients and the app searches for dishes that include those ingredients. The caregiver then picks 2 dishes for the child to pick. The child also has the option of picking that they want neither of the dishes and parent will select two more. Finally, the child gives feedback not only on the dish as a whole, but individual ingredients. This feedback can then be incorporated into dish search from the beginning.

Storyboards/Designs

Feedback Oriented Design

This design focuses on the children's feedback, and allows them to rate every ingredient separately, based on a scale of "liked," "loved," and "never again." This does require the input of children in deciding how they felt about the meals, it is mostly about the parent's ability to view the preferences and find new recipes accordingly. It is very easy for caregivers in this design to not even think as they pick new dishes-- they just select the children that are home and search for a recipe right away. Allowing the caregivers to also select certain ingredients they want in the recipe could be especially helpful if one of the ingredients happens to be on sale or is already at home in the pantry.

Recipe Oriented Design

The meal planner selects ingredients that they want to see in each part of the meal. If the user knows they have certain things in the kitchen already or notices some item on sale, they can add the item to be considered here. To select ingredients, users drag the ingredient they want to use to the column that represents the part of the meal they want to use it. From the ingredients selected, the application recommends several complete meals to the user. This search allows caregivers to find a delicious recipe that fits their restrictions.

The meal maker is presented a convenient tool to organize how to acquire all the ingredients needed for the meal. The tool allows a caregiver to keep track of the ingredients they already have in the kitchen and what they need to still purchase. This is meant to be as unobtrusive as possible, the list can be printed or shared depending how the caregiver likes to shop. A recipe is given to the meal maker to follow and because of this there is no need to leave the app when preparing a meal.

After the meal, kids can review the meal as a whole as well as individual ingredient. Kids use an up/down voting system to do this.This is an opportunity for caregivers to learn about what their kids thought about the meal and what are the best ingredients for the next meal.

Kid Oriented Design

Storyboard Analysis

Feedback Oriented Design

Learnability:

• There is internal consistency in the fact that every time the user needs to select things based on the different children, this is displayed as personalized tiles. Additionally, the 'buckets' for the ingredients on the feedback form match the classification of the ingredients on the preferences page.
• We will include affordances for each of the elements on the page that can be directly manipulated; i.e. making the ingredients look draggable and having the cursor change when a mouse click is held down, having checkmarks/checkboxes next to the ingredients on the home page.
• There will be feedback for the users when they select a tile by the title highlighting.
• Additionally, once a child has completed their feedback, their tile will change color to indicate that they are done.
• There will be feedback on the slider- the smiley face will change expression as the slider is moved.
• The preferences and feedback boxes appear in a logical order from most liked to least liked.

Efficiency:

• When users log in after they have visited the site before, it only takes a few clicks to have a recipe generated. All of the children will be selected by default, so the caregiver could have a recipe by clicking on "Find recipe."
• If the user wants to pick a different recipe, pressing the back button will keep all of their previous choices.
• The only operation that is slightly difficult is dragging the ingredients into the box, but we will make the boxes/items large enough to avoid confusion.
• The ingredient boxes on the feedback page will be pre-populated with ingredients that have already been rated, so the children really only have to worry about new things that they tried.

Safety:

• The users will be able to edit their ingredient preferences later if they made a mistake in the original feedback form.
• It is easy for users to return back to the home page and start again if they made a mistake in choosing a recipe.
• None of the actions taken are binding-- the user can update the preferences or choose a new recipe if they choose to.

Recipe Oriented Design

           
Learnability:

• The screens show an ordering for the steps needed in planning a meal. This organization allows users to quickly understand the flow of the application.     
• We offer the option to print out a physical shopping list so a caregiver does not have to have to learn a new shopping system to use our tool.
• The up/down arrow voting system follows a common externally consistency of many other applications.
• Red and green are used to indicate positive and negative actions, following a common external consistency.

Efficiency:

• Each screen has one clear task allowing users to efficiently give us necessary inputs. These tasks in order are     
• Pick ingredients    
• Pick meal   
• Buy necessary ingredients   
• Cook meal   
• Get feedback
• The ingredient list tool is designed to be a living shopping list which can be faster than a physical shopping list.
• Caregivers get full meal ideas presented to them, saving the time of picking many parts of a meal.
• Caregivers can put in as many or as few ingredients as they want.
• Possible ingredients are already presented on the screen so user can quickly select instead of typing.

Safety:

• It is possible to reset a search at anytime to remove all ingredients.
• It is possible to remove a single ingredient that has been added by accident.
• Photos of dishes are used to communicate what dish caregivers are selecting and kids are voting on.

Kid Oriented Design

Learnability:

• Every action in the GUI has an affordance and feedback to the user, making it very clear what each action/button does. Since the main focus is on the kids, each task is as simple as possible and text is kept to a minimum.
• We use the same login screen for kids to vote for dishes and provide feedback to make the interface as easy as possible to learn and interact with.
• The design focuses on using buttons and sliders with no text input to make interactions with the application easier.

Efficiency:

• “Autocomplete” features are used whenever possible, such as the dish finder, and auto-populating the happiness of each ingredient from ingredient list. This allows caregivers to reduce typing to find a dish, find similar dishes that they haven’t thought of, and save time for the kids when providing feedback about the meal.
• User input is kept at a minimum, especially textual input, which is used only for dish selection. The other inputs are only buttons and sliders. We minimized the number of buttons, so that to a vote, a kid only has to use two buttons; selecting his name/picture, and the dish he is voting on. We are assume the kids are not malicious, so they won’t vote for their siblings.
• Each screen has only one task, such as picking a dish, voting for a dish, and giving feedback for a dish to streamline the mobile experience.
• Providing the caregivers with the ingredient list and the recipe makes it easier and more efficient for caregivers to cook the selected dish for dinner.

Safety:

• By using autocomplete for dish finding, we try to eliminate problems for caregivers to find dishes.
• The caregivers and the kids can change their opinions for every action, until they submit it, providing an ability to “undo” an action.
• By showing the kid his name on top for the dish voting screen and the feedback screen, we are able to ensure that he knows that he is voting for himself, and not someone else.