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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.