Design an app for cooking.

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Design an app for cooking.

Asked at Google over a year ago

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rahul_g · Answer 1 · 2021-04-28T14:11:41+0000

Clarification

when you say cooking what kind of cooking - at home or professionally, Im assuming the former
Is this a part of an any existing app or is standalone - assuming the latter
Is there a specific goal or is it primarily engagement focussed - assuming the latter
is this worldwide or for a particular region? Assuming its a global app that should be compatible with India
Android or iOS - given its India we shoud prioritise Android

Who is the user

I feel we can split the user persona depending on the type of cooking involved
- Cook daily/almost on a daily basis: Cook daily mostly out of necessity, the breadth of dishes is limited/basic in nature hence ingredients are limited.
- Occasional cooks - Cook on special occasions, may require special ingredients, recipes are new and need to followed.
  Usually stay alone/in a shared apartment and have people over sometimes

User journey

User has an urge to eat something specific/cook something special
It can be :
- A specific dish
- a function of constraints:
  - ingredients or cooking utensils
  - facilities available
  - time you have to cook
  - Cuisine
  - Certain dynamic factors :number of people you are cooking for
You get the ingredients +utensiles together in line number of people you are cooking for, you prep them as per instructions
you cook them as per instruction which can be
- Time based
- Based on condition of the ingredient (pops or turns a color)
  - you may look for video or photo understand what is meant by color or texture reference
you serve basis serving technique
- you often spend time rewinding in a video to see how to serve it a certain way
its boring

Pain points

- I don't know what I can cook basis the ingredients or the constraints

- Often the recipe is for 2 people so i dont how to portion it for 3 or 4 or 1

- Im not aware of certain instructions around color or texture or techniques - I often end up googling

- Im not if Ive all the utensiles to cook it

- Certain ingredients are not part of my vocabulary so im not what it means

- Certain dishes require super special ingredients or utensiles which arent availble in india, I realise that late

- I struggle with keeping track of time/prep of ingredients (I forgot to crush the garlic)

Proposal

RICE legend:

H - high, M - medium, S-Small

Dish recommendation generator basis what you have to cook with or time or both
- Users can specify what they have to cook with and/or give further filters such as:
  - what kind of cuisine they feel like having (including healthy)
  - dietary restrictions if any(vegan or veg)
  - Time they have
- RICE: H H H M
  Pick
Recommended dishes have special utensiles call or ingredient call outs
- Special ingredients or utensils are called out upfront in the recipe as a confirmationto the user
  - User can see images of utensils to understand what is needed/why
  - User can see local terms for special ingredients/ingredients with uncommon international names for example: okra
- RICE: M H H H
  Pick can be a data moat, not a must have can be a stretch goal
Allow user to modify recipe by number of people people being cooked for
- RICE: H H H S
  Pick, easy win
Detailed video on techniques with voice over instructions on how to check/perform the technique
- Will cover dish specific techniques with images and videos for example how do you garlic is fried or onions have been grilled to transparent (what is meant by transparent here)
  RICE: M H H S
  Pick, easy win
Cooking guide: ingredient prep checklist and cooking timer post check lsit
- Users can use checklist to prep ingredients and then user timer to cook it easily
  RICE: H H H S
  pick, easy win
basics/hygiene:
- bookmark/fav recipes you cook or browse so you can come back to it
- Prev cooked recipes - users can quickly go back to previous cooks
- custom notes on recipe for reference: use lesser salt than mentioned etc
  RICE: L M M M
  not for MVP version
Personalised recommendation
- Over time the app recognises the ingredients usually preferred/time/techniques
- suggests recipes in line with the above under themes
- RICE: H M M M
  Pick as it's a potential moat/hard to replicate

assuming this a product that about to be launched I would want to track acquisition/growth and engagement metrics, listing them below in no particular order

- App opens (daily/weekly)

- Retention(Weeekly)

- % of users searching for a recipe

- % of users viewing a recipe

- % of users cooking a recipe

- Time spent per user

from a prioritise perspetive I'll want to look at following metrics

- app opens - this tells me about growth

- time spent - this tells me about engagement/leading indicator retention

- % of users daily vieweing a recipe (sub metric - cook using it)- this tell me how many users are discovering value/can be a good start for an Aha moment metric

- Retention - this tells me about long term value/growth

Eli Marcus · Answer 2 · 2020-09-10T02:33:43+0000

Design an App for Cooking :

Clarifying Questions

1. What are the goals of the app? New users, user engagement, revenue, healthier users? Google is interested in users being healthier - engagement.

2. When you say app - what do you mean? Phone App, Web App, Assistant app, Assistant app with screen. Phone app

3. Cooking - any particular type of cooking? Cooking, Baking, Healthy? Focus on healthy cooking.

Constraints - Any constraints I should know about? None

Personas

Single - people who are cooking for one

Family - people that are cooking for families

Professional cooks - want optimize their cooking for their professional business

Kids - looking to enter the kitchen - sense of accomplishment - hobby

Compare the personas and pick one

When I think about these personas I would like to focus on Single. I got there by process of elimination:

Professional cooks are a small user group with specialized needs.

Kids is also a smaller user group both as a segment of the population and by engagement with cooking.

Family - most recipes are already geared for family and usually serve 4. .

State a Goal or Mission

Google’s mission is to organize the world's information and make it accessible and useful. Google wishes to engage single users with a phone app that helps them cook healthier usually for one person.

Pain points.

Recipes are designed for 4

When I look at recipes I never have the right ingredients.

Because recipes are designed for 4 I always have too many leftovers

Because pantry items are designed for cooking for when I open something I only use a portion of it.

The recipes I find are not healthy

The recipes I find don’t use the ingredients I like

Brainstorm ideas for the pain points

Recipes are designed for 4
1. Create an app that contains recipes for 1
2. Create an app that allows you to dial up or down a recipe for the number of people being fed
3. App that allows you to plan for leftovers in the right amount
I never have the right ingredients
1. App that tells you which pantry staples you should keep to cook most recipes
2. App plans a week worth of cooking and gives you a shopping list for all the needed ingredients
3. App that tracks your shopping and item usage as you use the item it adds it to a shopping list
I have too many leftovers
1. Create an app that allows you to dial up or down a recipe for the number of people being fed
2. App that allows you to plan for leftovers in the right amount
Because pantry items are designed for cooking for families when I open something I only use a portion of it.
1. App plans a week worth of cooking and gives you a shopping list for all the needed ingredients
  1. Some pantry items will be stored for cooking latter in the week
The recipes I find are not healthy
1. App can focus on healthy recipes
  1. App can include recipes rated from one to five carrots of healthy - with five carrots being the most healthy
The recipes I find don’t use the ingredients I like
1. You can preset types of food that you like
2. You can preset type of ingredients you like and don’t like
3. App learns from past used recipes and learns your preference

Compare the ideas

Idea	impact	effort	audience	vote
Create an app that contains recipes for 1	Medium - the next idea is higher	Lowish - many recipes are designed for families of 4 and may have ingredients like eggs that are harder to scale back	Only works for singles	In light of the next idea this is likely a no
Create an app that allows you to dial up or down a recipe for the number of people being fed	High - this is higher than just having recipes for one or single please it broadens the audience	Lowish - many recipes are designed for families of 4 and may have ingredients like eggs that are harder to scale back	Huge everyone can get a recipe that fits their family size - including signals	Yes
App that tells you which pantry staples you should keep to cook most recipes	Low - it's just a list.	Low	Medium - its just a list of pantry essentials	no
App plans a week worth of cooking and gives you a shopping list for all the needed ingredients	High - this is big market differentiator from existing cooking aps	Low - once you have set number of items to cook building a weekly shopping list is pretty easy	Big - this is different than picking one recipe and some people want want a week of planning	Yes
App that tracks your shopping and item usage as you use the item it adds it to a shopping list	High	High - requires tracking and compliance to know the list of all physical items	low- requires users to comply with tracking likely by adding and removing every item.	No
App plans a week of cooking and uses the pantry items throughout the week - even splitting ingredients across multiple meals.	High - this combined with the week of planning allows the user to shop and use the items throughout the week.	Medium - requires the app to connect the recipes together for ingredient optimization.	Medium This only works if you plan the week / multiple meals.	Maybe or v2
Includes healthy recipes with recipies rated	High - if the goal of the app is healthier eating this is important	Low - google can analyze the list of ingredients and come up with a health rating	Huge - this is core to the target audience	yes
Preset ingredients and foods that you like	high	Low - organizing info is Google mission	Huge - who doesn't want food tailored to their likes.	yes
Learn your preferences over time	High	Low	High - everyone likes personalization	yes

Summary of product

Google would like to build a cooking app that focuses on healthy eating. On evaluation I identified that cooking for singles was an interesting and underserved market. I also identified that a new and interesting twist on the cooking app was the ability to build a weekly menu that organized all the needed ingredients into a shopping list and split the items across the weekly menu. This feature allows a single to buy pantry items and use them across the week of cooking.

Some important features that we would want to get include

Recipe selection based on present foods and ingredients, refinement based on past user selections. The app would calculate health ratings based on the recipe.

While the app is designed for singles, a feature that allows users to dial up or down recipes for family size would expand the marketability of the app to other personas.

Metrics

If the goal is engagement then average daily users would tell us if the app is being used. This metric when tracked day over day will show us health and show acquisition trends.

Engagement would also be measured by frequency of use and avg meals planned per period per user

Other supporting metrics could include tracking which meals or ingredients are used most

Limitations

Users will likely want to access this app from their phone and will also want access to it from google hubs this will require some cross development.

hjc · Answer 3 · 2020-09-19T19:25:52+0000

Clarifications

What's the goal for this app? [Make it useful so that we can acquire more users]
Is this a mobile app, web app or PC app? [Mobile]
Is there any limitations that I should be aware of? [Nope]
Who is the target user for this app? [I would like to hear your opinion]

Identify the user

I can think of several potential user personas that might be interested in a cooking app.

[Learners] users who wish to learn to cook
[Professionals] users who cooks as a career, like chefs in the restaurant
[Party organizer] users who need to prepare food for a house party
[House Cooker] users who usually cook for the family everyday
[WFH workers] users who stuck at home due to the pandemic and has to cook every meal

I would like to prioritize the personas based on the segment size, potential usage frequency and user impact

	Size	Freq	Impact	Notes
Learners	Low	Low	High
Professionals	Low	High	Low	Chefs know what they are doing
Party Organizer	Med	Low	High
House Cooker	High	High	Med	Over years they already know the stuff
WFH worker	High	High	High	Forced into the business, need the most help everyday

Based on the analysis, how about focus on the WFH worker persona. [Sounds good]

Pain points

WFH workers need to cook every meal, often times for the whole family. They are busy during the day, relatively free during the evening. They can only go shopping during weekend.

For WFH workers, I can think of the following pain points.

Have to cook every meal, I run short of ideas
I only have limited time to cook, especially during lunch time
When I'm ready to cook, I found I'm missing ingredients
I don't know how to cook
I'm getting less exercises WFH, so I would like to eat healthily

For WFH works, I would like to prioritize the pain points as 2) > 1) >3) > 5) > 4)

Solutions

Here are several ideas to address those pain points

[Recipe DB]: to establish a collection of cooking receipts, which user can select from.
[Recipe upload]: to allow user to contribute recipes and allow other users to rate them.
[X-minute Menu]: to address pain point #1, provide a collection of recipes that can be finished in 5/10/15/etc minutes.
[Cooking Calendar] to address pain point #2, allow user to plan what they wanna cook for the whole week, with available receipts.
[Shopping list] to address painpoint #3, based on the receipts selected, compose a shopping list so that users can purchase during the weekend shopping.
[Plan-ahead]: to address pain point #1, dependent on [cooking calendar] Some recipe only takes 5 min to cook, but need preparations a few hours ahead, like to take the meat out of frig to unfreeze at least 4 hours before cooking. Insert notification to users calendar with the specific actions.
[Cooking Instruction]: to address paint point #4, As contrary to cooking videos, the instruction will stop at each step and only goes to the next step when user confirms.
[Recipe filter]: to address pain point #5, also essential to [cooking calendar] and [X-minute menu] Allow users to filter receipts based on type, calorie and cooking time.

We can prioritize those features based on the effort, feasibility, user impact and dependencies.

		Effort	Feasibility	Impact	dependencies	Note
1	Recipe DB	10	10	10
2	Recipe Upload	8	8	2	1	Need to build upload and rating feature. Brings concern of content quality, which might impact user experience.
3	X-minute Menu	5	10	8	1	Need recipe db to contain cooking time information
4	Cooking Calendar	5	10	10	1,8
5	Shopping List	6	10	10	1,4	Need to derive shopping item from receipt and calendar selection;
6	Plan Ahead	6	10	9	1,4	Need recipe db to have preparation step, need calendar information to determine when to notify.
7	Cooking Instruction	4	10	4	1	Need to build step by step UI, which requires the recipe db to have break down instructions. Limited user impact as compared to a simple list of steps.
8	Recipe Filter	3	10	10	1	Essential feature to fully utilize Recipe DB

Based on the analysis, I would like to Recipe DB+Recipe Filter+X-minute Menu+cooking calendar as P0. Then shopping list+Plan Ahead as P1, cooking instructions +Recipe Upload as P2.

The key to success is to build up a large repository of Recipes that contains ingredients, cooking time, Calorie, instructions. We can consider to partner with companies and institutes who already have the basic information.

Metrics

The key metrics to measure success of this app is user engagement. We can monitor

DAU vs MAU - whether user are using it on daily basis
# of sessions per user per day - to monitor how many times user engage with the app.
Volume of Recipe searches
# of Users who used cooking calendar
# of Users who used X-minute menu
# of Users who used planning ahead

Summary

In short, we plan to build a mobile app, which will help WFH workers to avoid scratching their head of what to cook, save their time in shopping and cooking and help them to eat healthier.