PANTRY RAID User Experience App Concept by Lauren Lapid
TABLE OF CONTENTS PROJECT BRIEF PROJECT BRIEF 4 Problem Statement 5 User Goals
RESEARCH RESEARCH 7 10 12 14
Research Plan Survey Results Affinity Diagram Research Summary
USER EXP USER EXPERIENCE PROCESS 16 18 20 24 26 27 28 29 31 32 36
Personas Storyboard Competitive Analysis Content Strategy Task Analysis User Flow Sitemap Minimum Viable Product Low Fidelity Prototype Low Fidelity Wireframe Visual Design & Prototype
43 Appendix
PROBLEM STATEMENT
PROBLEM STATEMENT
How might we encourage young adults to cook at home more in order to reduce wasted money and food? Food costs people thousands of dollars every single year. The average American household spends an average of $3,008 per year on dining out, with meals averaging about $10, whereas homemade meals cost about $6.30 to prepare. On the other hand, about 150,000 tons of food is tossed out in American households each day, with fruit and vegetables the most likely to be thrown out. 32% of Americans say they waste food the most on uneaten or expired food. All of these unused groceries are not only wasted food—it all amounts to wasted money! That’s where
PANTRY RAID comes in.
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TOP FIVE USER GOALS
1
Save money on wasted groceries
2
Easily find healthy recipes
3
Feel confident cooking a recipe
4
Feel focused without unnecessary distractions
5
Live a healthier, nutritional lifestyle
RESEARCH PLAN
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RESEARCH PLAN PANTRY RAID is an app that will help reduce grocery and product waste. The app will serve as a comprehensive grocery list, curating recipes based on what the user already has and suggesting ingredients for the user to buy based on the suggested recipes. Pantry Raidhas hasthe the following Pantry Raid following categories: Grocery List, categories: Grocery List, Recipe Finder, Nutrition, Goals, Saved Recipe Finder, Nutrition, Goals, Recipes, and Budget. Saved Recipes, and Budget. Grocery List would allow the user to input their current groceries and ingredients along with expiration dates. Thus, the user could opt into adding everything they currently have, but ideally, users would use the Grocery List to plan their next grocery shopping trip so that he or she can go shopping with a list already in mind. Recipe Finder has two options—it will either curate recipes based only on what the user has, or it can provide suggestions based on what the user has along with ingredients he or she would have to buy. Thus, it is helpful in planning further grocery shopping trips. Recipe Finder would curate recipes through a general online search. It also allows users to filter recipes by diets, dietary restrictions (like allergies), time and difficulty, and cuisine (Japanese, American, Italian, etc.). Nutrition would track the general nutrition for each meal to help the user keep track of intake for factors like carbohydrates, sugars, proteins, etc. Based on the frequency the user uses the app, it could also generate nutrition reports to help users keep track of their dietary health. It would also pair with MyFitnessPal. Goals would allow users to set goals regarding how many meals they would like to cook in a given time period.
Saved Recipes would allow users to save and recommend recipes he or she really liked. This would encourage users to cook more. In addition to this, users would be able to input their own recipes and share them. They would also be able to categorize the recipes into their own lists, like breakfast, lunch, dinner, under 30 minutes, etc. The Budgeting function is a unique feature that would allow users to plan out how much money they would like to spend on their next grocery shopping trip, recommending groceries that are in season and likely to cost less in store. For further development, the Budgeting function would be a great way for grocery stores to offer coupons and sales to users in exchange for advertising in the app.
What defines success for this project? This app would be successful if users find it effective in cooking more, wasting less groceries, saving money on groceries, and/or being more conscious of what they are eating. Success would also be seen if users are actively sharing recipes and showing enthusiasm for cooking.
What are the potential pitfalls?
This app relies on users going into the app to add their current groceries and also engaging with the Recipe Finder section to not only find recipes, but also curate their next grocery shopping list. The highest risk of failure lies in the user forgetting to use the app or losing motivation to use the app. It will be important to find ways to incentivize the user and remind the user to continue to use the app.
RESEARCH PLAN
Forming and Sustaining New Habits
Pantry Raid encourages its users to cook more, waste less, and buy food more meaningfully. The Goals feature will help users plan how many recipes they’d like to cook within their set amount of groceries and encourage them to cook healthier meals.ould like to cook in a given time period.
One Sentence Tagline Ideas From Pantry to Plate Waste Less, Eat More Plan, List, Cook Your Go-To Grocery Guide The Perfect Pantry Waste Less, Cook More
Voted Tagline
From Pantry to Plate
Building Questions What do we know? People waste a lot of money on unused groceries and spend a lot of money eating out instead. What do we want to know? Are people even interested in cooking still? What would encourage them to cook more? What is the biggest challenge for people who want to cook and eat healthier? What are the biggest motivators to cook rather than eat out? What can we do to encourage users to continue using the app?
Target Audience
I hypothesize that the ideal target audience is college students and young adults, probably from the age range of 18 to 36. These are people who are most likely to be living on a tighter budget and less likely to be cooking at home. Groups within this age range include: college students, young working professionals, and new parents. For college students, these users are likely on a budget and have a hard time finding affordable, healthy meals. Young working professionals are likely undergoing the same struggle, having difficulties finding time to plan what meals to cook, if they cook at all. New parents also have to find ways to live healthy lives while saving money where they can. All of these groups have something in common: wanting to maximize their money and eat healthily.
Interview Process
Full interview transcriptions in appendix. Interviewees: –– Samantha Lapid, 25 –– Alyssa Mertins, 21 –– Chad Marquez, 26 –– Savanna Schaffer, 22 Demographics and Base Questions: –– Demographic Statistics: [Gender, Age Range] –– Tell me about what you do for a living? Are you a student? Working? –– What does your typical weekday look like? –– What do you like to do in your free time? –– How frequently do you use the internet and what are some of the apps and websites you use the most? –– Are you using any apps or other systems to find recipes? Product Questions: –– Do you cook? –– How often do you cook? –– If you don’t cook often, what stops you from cooking? –– If you do cook, what do you normally cook and why? –– What would motivate you to cook more? –– Do you use recipes to cook? If you do, where do you find them? –– How often do you go grocery shopping? –– Do you make a grocery list? If so, how strictly do you follow it when you go shopping? –– How many groceries do you think you end up throwing away in a month? –– Do you keep track of your groceries? If so, how so? –– How many times a week do you go out for food? –– Approximately how much money do you think you spend on eating out? –– Do you pay attention to your daily caloric intake? –– How healthy would you say your diet is? –– If not so healthy, what would help you have a healthier diet?
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Product Specific Questions: –– What is most appealing about this app? –– Why do you think someone would use this app? –– Can you see yourself using this app? –– How would you use this app? –– What’s the hardest part of using this app or what would keep someone from using this app? –– Do you find that phone reminders work? Would you be okay receiving them? –– Does this app remind you of other apps? –– What feature would you want to include? Or how can this be a better product? –– Do you have any questions? –– Any comments, observations, and/or suggestions?
Ideal Functions
–– Potential grocery store coupons/sponsorships –– Grocery List Making –– Offline capabilities –– Monthly reminders to go grocery shopping –– Charts to record daily, weekly, and monthly personal analytics –– Recognition (badges) –– Links to YouTube videos (for recipes) when available –– Personalization Options Area/Customization –– Ability to make recipe boards
Sources Abraham S, Noriega Brooke R, Shin JY. College students eating habits and knowledge of nutritional requirements. J Nutr Hum Health. 2018;2(1):13-17 http://www. alliedacademies.org/articles/college-students-eating-habits-and-knowledge-ofnutritionalrequirements-9188.html Carter, Shawn M. “Every Age Group, Gender and Income Bracket Say They Waste Too Much Money on This One Thing.” CNBC, CNBC, 13 Sept. 2017, www.cnbc. com/2017/09/13/e very-age-group-gender-and-income-bracket-wastes-money-on-food.html. Martin, Emmie. “90% Of Americans Don’t like to Cook - and It’s Costing Them Thousands Each Year.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 27 Sept. 2017, www. usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2017/09/27/90-americans-dont-likecook-andits-costing-them-thousands-each-year/708033001/. Milman, Oliver. “Americans Waste 150,000 Tons of Food Each Day – Equal to a Pound per Person.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 18 Apr. 2018, www.theguardian. com/ environment/2018/apr/18/americans-waste-food-fruit-vegetables-study.
SURVEY RESULTS
SURVEY RESULTS 184 RESPONSES What is your age range?
How often do grocery shop?
How often do you cook at home?
Do you bring a shopping list?
Do you use recipes to cook?
Have you ever considered using an app to help you keep track of cooking, recipes, and/or groceries?
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Would you be open to using a cooking app?
Please rank these features in order of what you’d use the most.
AFFINITY DIAGRAM SORTING
Making Affinity Diagrams
After receiving 184 responses to my initial survey, I wrote down comments in addition to the survey questions on separate notes in order to organize the ideas into main themes. This broke the users’ wants and concerns down into secondary add-on features, budgeting, nutrition concerns, interaction with recipes, fulters and customization, recipe curation, grocery list making, and general demographics statistics.
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RESEARCH SUMMARY
RESEARCH SUMMARY Overall, my research affirmed that my target demographic—college students and young working professionals between the ages of 20-30—is enthusiastic about the concept of Pantry Raid. 184 people answered the survey. Most people cook only several times a week (38.6%), with about half of the responders only cooking once a week, once a day, and rarely. Most people used Google search to find recipes, with many commenting that Google search, while producing many results, was inefficient and cumbersome in the process of finding the perfect recipe. People want to be able to find recipes based on current ingredients and then save the recipes, with the ability to categorize them into separate lists, similar to how Pinterest boards work. There are a few apps that already do this, but Pantry Raid will differentiate itself by having a budgeting feature that users can enable to help estimate how much their grocery list will cost and also filter out recipes based on estimated cost. Overall, Pantry Raid will cater to its target by offering a quick and easy solution to wasted groceries, tight food budgets, and the solving the lack of knowing where to begin with healthy cooking.
73.1%
76.6%
of people use recipes to cook
of people make grocery lists
58.7%
96.7%
of people have considered using an app to help keep track of cooking, recipes, and/or groceries
of people would be open to using a cooking/grocery list app if it met their needs
Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Features –– –– –– ––
Recipe Saving Recipe Finder Grocery List Making Grocery Budgeting
Secondary Features –– –– –– ––
Nutrition Tracker (paired with MyFitnessPal) Goal Setter (as a sub-feature in Budgeting) Recipe Scheduling Portion Editing/Customization
Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Features
Pantry Raid will have portion control settings that will automatically adjust ingredient amounts based on the portion the user wants to make, and the app will also have a budgeting feature that will help estimate grocery list costs.
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“
I am so wasteful. Probably ¼ of everything in my fridge goes to waste every month. Cooking for one person, you get tired of eating the same thing every day. All of what I throw away is probably produce, which makes me so sad.
“
It’s difficult I think to find intricate or cool recipes for two people and not have leftovers. I think that’s what’s limiting—you want to make a dish, but you find it’s difficult to find a way to prep it for two people and then spending a ton of money on different ingredients when you’re only cooking for two people.
“
I don’t think it’s the time it takes to cook that’s stopping me. It’s the time it would take for me to find a recipe, go to the grocery store, come home, and prepare it. I need to know what I need to buy, otherwise it’s like, ‘Oh! I can cook this—oh wait, I don’t have the ingredients.’
PERSONAS
PERSONAS Introducing PANTRY RAID’s personas, Chris—the young working professional— and Elise—the broke college student.
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CHRIS YOUNG
#TheYoungWorkingProfessional Chris is a 25 year old paralegal at a major production studio in Hollywood who works up to 60 hours a week. Chris has worked his way up to being a successful paralegal in Hollywood, but he’s still paying off his undergraduate loans while also saving up to one day go to law school and become an official lawyer. He often works long days and rarely has the time to think about what to cook—so most days, he doesn’t. Frustrations: Not having the energy to cook everyday, having a hard time finding portion controlled recipes, spending too much money eating out Goals: Eat healthier, grocery shop more frequently, cook at home more Traits: Flexible, Hardworking, Dedicated
ELISE RUSSO
#TheBrokeCollegeStudent Elise is 21 years old, a junior in college studying business, and works parttime at a local coffee shop off campus. Although she goes on runs and hits the gym when she can, she knows that her health could be improved if she just ate healthier meals. Her scholarship covers most of her tuition, but she needs to save money where she can to help pay for rent, activities, and—of course—groceries! She isn’t the most talented chef in the world, but she’s always open to new recipes. Frustrations: Spending too much time trying to find recipes, inability to make effective grocery lists, and wasting money on unused groceries Goals: Eat out less, cook more, only buy what she needs Traits: Ambitious, Motivated, Social
STORYBOARDS
STORYBOARD CONCEPT
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“
I’m trying to be less wasteful. That’s my big thing right now, and so this app would make it easier for me to not waste. -Alyssa Mertins, 21
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
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Cooklist “Cooklist shows you recipes you can cook with the groceries in your home. It connects to your grocery store loyalty card and automatically adds your purchases to a digital pantry in the app.” PROS: • Automatically updates your pantry after purchase • Makes estimated expiration dates • Has feed of recipes you can cook now CONS: • You must shop from one of the partnered stores in order for it to work • You must also have a rewards card or credit card with each specific store
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Chefling “Welcome a smarter cooking experience with Chefling UltraConnect™. With the ability to identify and coordinate appropriate appliances and settings for any recipe, Chefling’s UltraConnect™ technology bridges the gap between recipes and smart kitchen appliances. With UltraConnect™, every recipe is smarter.” PROS: • Allows you to control smart appliances from one app • Syncs your shopping list in real-time with family members to manage your shopping CONS: • Recipes aren’t shown natively in the app and instead link to external sites that may not be available • With it geared towards smart kitchens, it isn’t functional for a majority of people
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Innit “Innit makes home cooking more accessible by recommending delicious personalized meals for you and your family based on diet, allergies, and dislikes. Innit is a culinary GPS. How-to videos and real-time cooking guidance update with every personalization you make.” PROS: • Allows ingredient substitution for more personalization • Adds recipe ingredients to grocery list • Video tutorials to help the less experienced CONS: • Recipes are native to the app, so there aren’t a lot of options • The calendar function doesn’t actually work or let you schedule anything
CONTENT STRATEGY
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CONTENT STRATEGY
PANTRY RAID: From Pantry to Plate. Your friendly and light-hearted kitchen assistant. Pantry Raid knows its supporting busy people who need encouragement and support regarding their dietary and nutritional needs—without beating around the bush. Content should be phrased playfully. It shouldn’t feel too formal, and any technical cooking terms should have a description. The app is meant to teach, so content shouldn’t be too technical or intimidating. Reminders
“Heads up! Your milk is about to expire. How about some simple milk and cookies?
Recipe Starting Screen
“Let’s get cooking! Here’s your ingredient list.”
Error
“Uh oh! Looks like we need clean-up on Aisle 3.”
Find Recipes
“Help me eat tonight!”
Save Recipes “Make it again!”
TASK ANALYSIS & USER FLOWS
TASK ANALYSIS
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USER FLOW
SITEMAP & MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT
SITEMAP
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MVP FEATURES ESSENTIAL
RECIPE FINDING RECIPE SAVING
GROCERY BUDGETING
GR0CERY LIST MAKING
PANTRY UPDATES
UTILITARIAN
HIGH POLISH PORTION EDITING NUTRITION TRACKER RECIPE SCHEDULING
GOAL SETTER
NICE TO HAVE
LOW FIDELITY PROTOTYPE & TESTING
LOW FIDELITY PROTOTYPE User Flow: Onboarding + Quick-Input
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WIREFRAMES
LOW-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
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User Flow: Onboarding + Quick-Input
WIREFRAMES
1 4
2
3
ID DESCRIPTION 4
ID DESCRIPTION 1
2 3
User Flow: Onboarding + Quick-Input
Quick Input - Understanding that some users will not use the Pantry feature, quick input allows users to manually enter any number of ingredients to curate recipes from. Recipe Categories - Based on pantry items, the app will select recipes for the user, prioritizing items that are expiring soon. Each recipe card will have an indicator in green, red, or yellow to indicate how much the recipe matches up with pantry items.
Quick Input Flow - When the user clicks the “Find me a recipe...� button, this is the screen it leads to. It allows users to input their main ingredients to begin finding recipes for.
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5
6
ID DESCRIPTION 5
Quick Input Alert - Many survey participants commented that they probably would not remember to input basic ingredients like salt, pepper, and oil, so this screen allows users to add those ingredients in order to more accurately match ingredients with recipes.
7
ID DESCRIPTION 6
7
Adjust Portion - A major complaint of users is that it’s hard to find recipes of the proper portion. Thus, this feature would automatically adjust portions based on the users’ specifications. Leave a Review - As Pantry Raid’s community grows, its library of reviews will grow as well. Many users find recipes from independent blogs without easy-tofind reviews, and so this feature’s goal is to help encourage users to review recipes they try to help inform their fellow users.
HIGH-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
HIGH-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
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User Flow: Onboarding + Quick-Input
HIGH-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
NOTES As mentioned in Annotations 2 and 3, the dots on the right hand corner of the recipe cards indicate how much of a match the recipe is to the user’s pantry. Green means an 80-100% match, yellow means 50-79% match, and red means a less than 50% match. This feature is useful especially for when users are finding recipes for their next grocery shopping trip, as it would help users use ingredients they already have, which thus reduces waste and unnecessary spending!
User Flow: Onboarding + Quick-Input
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NOTES A change from the wireframes, “View Cooking Directions� is larger here due to the smaller version failing in heuristics tests. The larger button in red performed much more effectively.
HIGH-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
PANTRY
SAVED RECIPES
BUDGETING
The app is its most robust when users opt into using the pantry. If the user chooses to utilize the Pantry function, they will be given the option to either input an expiration date or let the app make an assumption based on the item. Regardless, the items close to expiration will be emphasized at the top of the screen, with red dots indicating it’s expired (or very close to it) and yellow dots meaning it’s nearing its expiration date.
Something emphasized in user interviews was the ability to save and categorize recipes, similar to how Pinterest boards work. The preset sections are breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but opportunities are endless.
A main competitive advantage for Pantry Raid is the Budgeting feature, which would allow users to set a grocery shopping budget per a cycle they specify. This is also an opportunity for local grocery stores to share coupons and advertisements. Users would be able to save digital coupons, scan reciepts to automatically deduct from budget, and estimate how much their current grocery list will cost.
Users can also filter pantry items by their category—meat, dairy, produce, condiments, or general pantry items.
MVP Features
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GROCERY LIST
GROCERY LIST - Add Recipe
Based on current pantry items, the app can recommend recipes for the users to buy that would utilize ingredients they already have to ensure they will be used before expiring.
If the user clicks on a recipe, they will see what ingredients he or she has and what ingredients he or she is missing, as indicated by the red boxes. The user can then add all of the ingredients to the grocery list or view the full recipe first.
APPENDIX
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APPENDIX Interview Transcriptions Samantha Lapid Demographics and Base Questions Q: Gender, Age A: Female, 25 years old. Q: What do you do for a living? A: I work in non-profit management. Q: What does your typical weekday look like? A: I work Monday through Friday. I start work usually at 6:30-7:30 in the morning, ending work around 2 or 3. And then around 4 to 5 is when I usually start cooking dinner. Q: What do you like to do in your free time? A: I love to read! I love to go out and walk my dogs at a nearby park. I love to try different and new restaurants, cafes, and dessert shops in Portland where I live. Q: How frequently do you use the internet and what are some of the apps and websites you use the most? A: Probably everyday! I use a lot of Google, YouTube, I follow some blogs. If social media counts as the internet, a lot of Instagram. A lot of Facebook. Q: Are you using any apps or other systems to find recipes? A: I don’t use an app. I mostly just Google everything. I have a food blog I consistently follow, but that’s it. Product Questions Q: Do you cook? A: Yes, I cook 75% of the time! Q: How often do you cook? A: Probably 3 to 4 days out of the week. I cook a LOT because Chad is at work during the week. Q: What do you normally cook and why? A: We try to change it up. We go to Costco and buy bulk meats and freeze it! We try to do one fish a week, some beef, chicken, some pork and
try to have some variety. And then, a lot of times, being Asian, rice is our accompaniment. But we try to change it up sometimes, using pasta, having a casserole or using a slow cooker. We’re adventurous to an extent, mainly because my level of cooking is still very basic to intermediate. Q: What’s stopping you guys from cooking more elaborate or complicated meals? A: Probably budget with groceries. With more complicated dishes, you need more herbs and different things. It’s difficult I think to find intricate or cool cool recipes for two people and not have leftovers. I think that’s what’s limiting— you want to make a dish but you find it’s difficult to find a way to prep it for two people and then spending a ton of money on different ingredients when you’re only cooking for 2 people. Recipes online always seem to be for 4-6 people, and it’s difficult because I feel like it’s just a waste of food! I wish that there were more recipes for 1-2 people. Q: Do you use recipes to cook? If you do, where do you find them? A: I have a cookbook from one of my favorite chefs but it’s difficult to follow her too because it’s all family style. Q: How often do you go grocery shopping? A: We don’t go grocery shopping that often—I’d say maybe like every other week if that. Mainly because for proteins we do a big Costco run once a month, and we subscribe to Imperfect Produce, which is delivered once every other week so that’s where we get our produce. You can pick on imperfect produce what you want to order, which is a lot of seasonal things. That has actually helped us branch out more because we’re like, “Oh let’s get it and try to cook with it!” instead of when we used to grocery shop every week, we’d get the same things over and over
APPENDIX
again! Like onions, mushrooms, green beans. So now, we actually try using cauliflower, asparagus, sweet potatoes! Q: Do you make a grocery list? If so, how strictly do you follow it when you go shopping? A: Yes! Chad is more strict, but I deviate because I like to buy fun things like chocolate! Or I buy random crap, like Totino’s Pizza Rolls, and Chad’s always like, “Do you really need that?” and I’m like, “YES! I really do love Totino’s Pizza Rolls.” Q: How many groceries do you think you end up throwing away in a month? A: Oh my gosh!I I just cleaned out our fridge, and we threw out a ton because I just made a big dish and we couldn’t finish all of it, so I had to throw it out. I would say like maybe out of 25% of our food we have to throw out. We try to be really good with leftovers, but y’know, it’s for two people—you’re not going through food too much so it spoils. Q: How many groceries do you think you end up throwing away in a month? A: Oh my gosh!I I just cleaned out our fridge, and we threw out a ton because I just made a big dish and we couldn’t finish all of it, so I had to throw it out. I would say like maybe out of 25% of our food we have to throw out. We try to be really good with leftovers, but y’know, it’s for two people—you’re not going through food too much so it spoils. I’d say it’s 50/50 groceries we never got around to cooking and leftovers. Q: Do you keep track of your groceries? If so, how so? A: We write down everything we need before we go. It’s not a strict list of like, “Oh we need this much chicken!” It’s more of us listing when we run low. Q: How many times a week do you go out for food? A: Only on the weekends, so 2 days out of the week. Q: Approximately how much money do you think you spend on eating out? A: We usually just do dinners, and sometimes lunch. On a normal weekend, most of the time, it’s 2 meals. Whether a lunch or a dinner or two dinners. I’d say we spend, like the average per meal, is like $30 to $40 for the two of us together. $60-$80 on the weekend if that. We definitely spend $100 at Costco, a box of imperfect produce is $30…I’d say we spend like $200 on groceries a month. Imperfect Produce and Costco have really helped us save money on groceries. Q: Do you pay attention to your daily caloric intake? A: NO. I wish! I don’t. I feel like it’s hard, especially when you’re cooking, if it’s not like a meal prep box. I also don’t enjoy meal prep so I feel like that’s difficult.
Q: How healthy would you say your diet is? A: For every meal, we try to have a protein, a green, and a grain! I’m alright. I think I’m healthier now than I was two years ago, but I’d say if it’s a scale 1-10, it’s a 6 or 7 now mainly because I am actually eating vegetables with every meal now. Q: If not so healthy, what would help you have a healthier diet? A: For sure I think just knowing dishes to make that have all the components you need and recipes that I had for two people with the calories, its nutrition. Y’know? Guidance on that I feel like would be helpful. Product Specific Questions Q: What is most appealing about this app? A: I think the keeping track of the groceries and it pulling recipes based on what you have. Q: Why do you think someone would use this app? A: I think your market would be responsive! I think the drive would be just like if you market in the sense of eating healthier on a budget. It’s kind of taking more ownership of your financial decisions! Q: Can you see yourself using this app? A: Yeah! Depends on how much it costs, haha!! Q: How would you use this app? A: For me, I would use the grocery shopping and the recipes, because that’s what I struggle with. Q: What’s the hardest part of using this app or what would keep someone from using this app? A: It takes effort and time to track. And with cooking, it’s laziness, because people will be like, “Oh I’ll just buy food.” But I think this will help with the laziness, because people will see, “Oh we have the ingredients!” I know sometimes I get lazy because I’m like, “Ugh, I have to go to Walmart or Kroger to buy ingredients and THEN cook.” But I feel like this will help with the laziness because there are no excuses if you have these ingredients in your fridge! Q: Do you find that phone reminders work? Would you be okay receiving them? A: It depends! Being able to opt in or out would be good. Q: Does this app remind you of other apps? A: Nope! But then again, I haven’t really looked into food apps, but no. Q: What feature would you want to include? Or how can this be a better product? A: Nope this sounds GREAT! I think it just needs to be simple. Grocery list, inventory, and your saved recipes! That feels good enough.
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Chad Joseph Marquez Demographics and Base Questions Q: Gender, Age A: Male, 26 years old.
Q: How often do you go grocery shopping? A: Once a week to every other week
Q: Tell me about what you do for a living? Are you a student? Working? A: I’m officially going to be a deputy prosecutor soon. Throughout the week, it’s various days of going to and from court, whether it’s working as a criminal prosecutor—so whether it’s handling a case from when it first shows up in the courthouse to actually litigating them, so when they go to trial—everything in between. Technically it’s an 8am5pm job since it’s a governme¬nt office, I officially have a lunch break in which the office is closed during that time.
Q: Do you make a grocery list? If so, how strictly do you follow it when you go shopping? A: We use Google Keep—and basically we have that all set out. We look through our fridge and pantry to see what we do and don’t need and almost shop exclusively from that list. It’s just a notetaking app. One thing we like about it is that we can have multiple users on a single list so that we can both access a checklist. We can both add to it and we can both check it off.
Q: What do you like to do in your free time? A: I like to watch movies in my free time and just relax, especially after long work days. Q: How frequently do you use the internet and what are some of the apps and websites you use the most? A: I use internet everyday for work purposes as well as just leisure purposes. The most frequently used apps I use are reddit for leisure, for work and other things like that—gmail and outlook. Various sites I frequent are for sports, like ESPN and The Athletic Product Questions Q: How often do you cook? A: I only cook now like once or twice a week. Q: If you don’t cook often, what stops you from cooking? A: I have a very special significant other who does a lot of the cooking since she works from home. It’s my work schedule. Q: What would motivate you to cook more? A: Having a more available or flexible schedule. Since I legitimately work from 8-5 where I start at 8 and end at 5, I don’t get home til around 5:30. And a lot of times, I would say, Sam moreso than me is hungry at that point, so to not delay. If I cooked when I got home, we probably wouldn’t eat til 6:30-7 o’clock. Q: Do you use recipes to cook? If you do, where do you find them? A: It depends on what I’m cooking. There are some things where I originally used the recipe, and there are other things that after sometime I learn from it and make some variations from it I mean I don’t necessarily use a specific website. Like, if it’s some specific meat I’m cooking, I’ll google it. It’s through different websites that come up, like All Recipes, Food Network—it’s just kind of whatever gets shared as the top rsults on Google. I’ve never looked at it specifically enough to know which sites come up more.
Q: How many groceries do you think you end up throwing away in a month? A: In a month, probably less than $20. The most I can imagine is $40. It probably is because we go out of town. We normally toss out extra vegetables that we ended up not using, or occasionally milk if we’re out of town. We also occasionally throw out leftovers. Sam has become more comfortable eating leftovers. With just two of us eating, we end up with a lot of leftovers.. Q: Approximately how much money do you think you spend on eating out? A: In total for just myself, probably $8-$14 a meal. So probably $30-$50 depending on where we eat. Since starting working again, I haven’t gotten in the flow of actually packing a lunch. Before, I would probably maybe have one meal out a week but that was still infrequent. Q: Do you pay attention to your daily caloric intake? A: Not in total. But each meal I’ll often look at the caloric intake and nutrition of what I’m about to eat or deciding what I’m going to eat. It definitely factors in to my choices but not in total. Q: How healthy would you say your diet is? A: About average to maybe good. It’s definitely something I consider but I don’t necessarily make my eating choices on health conscious decisions. I’d definitely say since being on my own, it’s definitely become a much bigger consideration. I’d say overall it could be better but it’s not bad. Q: If not so healthy, what would help you have a healthier diet? A: I would say—I mean part of it I think is just having an easier way to track everything but not necessarily having to completely change how and what I eat.
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Product Specific Questions Q: What is most appealing about this app? A: I’ve seen it done in other ways, but I know it’s difficult since stores label and track things differently, but given that most grocery shopping is done in person and not electronically, it’d be nice if there was a way to track shopping based on receipts. I don’t know if you’re aware or if you’ve seen it, but there is an app that I actually beta tested. It’s called CookList, so it’s like an app where you can input groceries and it’ll give you some recipes. But I never use it because it annoying to input stuff manually. So if you could use receipts or make it easier to input manually, that’d be great. Quick and easy input. And they didn’t have a good list of recipes, and there wasn’t ways to add or save recipes. Some pain points—at the time, the user interface wasn’t very good, mainly input—scanning receipts could be hard, so ease of manual input could make a difference. One thing I just thought about—you generally have an idea of shelf life of things—specifically vegetables or milk—it’d be nice to be able to input expiration dates that way it could remind you or it can just be removed from your recipe list once it’s expired because then you can’t really use it at that point. Q: What’s the hardest part of using this app or what would keep someone from using this app? A:Initial input. When you have a bunch of spices, vegetables, meats, things like that—getting started and inputting everything at the very get go. When starting the app, you’ll obviously have a lot you’ll be needing to input right away. The next thing would be for recipe suggestions for people who have frozen meats. The defrosting time is a time constraint the app can’t account for necessarily. Q: What feature would you want to include? Or how can this be a better product? A: Input recognition. Maybe variations on recipes. Say a recipe calls for salt, pepper, and cayenne but given you may not have that—a recipe can substitute paprika for cayenne. Having things that recipes aren’t exactly what you have—have a percentage map! 100% match with what you have or like 85% with some sort of variation. On the list of ingredients, it’d be kind of cool if cayenne is one of them and it says common substitutions for suggested substitutions accounting for the variability of people’s pantries. Q: Any comments, observations, and/or suggestions? A:I just thought of one other thing! You know how you didn’t know about Google Keep? It’d be cool if the app itself had a shopping list that way when you check it off, it’s added into your electronic pantry. With that, if you could have a shared list and shared pantry. Having multiple users.
Alyssa Mertins Demographics and Base Questions Q: Gender, Age A: Female, 21 years old. Q: Tell me about what you do for a living? Are you a student? Working? A: Good question! I start my new job at Starbucks next week, and I am also a full-time student. Q: What does your typical weekday look like? A: I have class from 9 am to 10pm all day on Mondays and Wednesdays, and the rest of the days, I will be working. Q: What do you like to do in your free time? A: I actually love to cook! I’m not being corny; I actually do love to cook. I love to take naps. Those are it! That’s it. Q: How frequently do you use the internet and what are some of the apps and websites you use the most? A: Constantly. Instagram, Pinterest, Siri answers all of my life questions—so Google I guess. Q: Are you using any apps or other systems to find recipes? A: I am always on Pinterest looking up food, but I don’t normally follow recipes. I’m just looking at inspiration. Product Questions Q: How often do you cook? A: I cook everyday at least once a day. Probably once a day. Q: If you do cook, what do you normally cook and why? A: I definitely change it up all the time. But a lot of like eggs. A lot of variations on eggs. Q: How often do you go grocery shopping? A: Ugh, way too often. Probably 3 times a week. Just like a little bit over here, a little bit over there. Q: Do you make a grocery list? If so, how strictly do you follow it when you go shopping? A: I like it better when I do have a list, but I rarely actually make one. But yeah, it’s definitely a goal of mine to start doing that more. Like without a list, I buy a ton of stuff that never goes together. Q: How many groceries do you think you end up throwing away in a month? A: I hate it. I am so wasteful. Probably ¼ of everything goes to waste. Cooking for one person, you get tired of eating the same thing every day. All of it is probably produce, which makes me so sad! Like I probably could have cooked this broccoli, but I chose the frozen pizza that would have lasted 5 years instead. Q: Do you keep track of your groceries? If so, how so? A: Nope.
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Q: How many times a week do you go out for food? A: Probably 3 times-ish. Q: Approximately how much money do you think you spend on eating out? A: Hah, too much! Probably $30 at least. Maybe more. Probably $40.
Q: Any comments, observations, and/or suggestions? A: I mean this would be great! Like I go onto Pinterest and type out “Hamburger meat, I have this, this, and this,” like trying to do that and it never works! This is super good. I think I’m really upset that this isn’t going to be a real thing because I need this in my life!
Q: Do you pay attention to your daily caloric intake? A: Not specifically calories, but I’ll limit carbs to one meal.
Savanna Schaffer Demographics and Base Questions
Q: How healthy would you say your diet is? A: Probably like medium to healthy! Q: If not so healthy, what would help you have a healthier diet? A: Probably if I planned out my meals for the week, and went to the grocery store with a list, and I dunno, stuck to a plan. And maybe like a schedule! I don’t know—I’m eating at the most random times. Product Specific Questions Q: What is most appealing about this app? A: I’m trying to be less wasteful, like that’s my big thing right now, and so this would make it easier for me to not waste. Q: Why do you think someone would use this app? A: To be better about health-wise, to be less wasteful, to make grocery lists, to make grocery shopping more appealing and exciting. Q: Can you see yourself using this app? A: Oh yes, for sure! Q: How would you use this app? A:Definitely the pantry part of it—where you put in what you have to make sure you’re not forgetting anything. And the recipes! Just to get inspiration on what to cook and how to use everything without wasting. Q: What’s the hardest part of using this app or what would keep someone from using this app? A: If someone’s not fond of cooking, I don’t think that it would be for them, but then it’s not for them. Q: Do you find that phone reminders work? Would you be okay receiving them? A: Yes, constantly!! Siri reminds me of literally every single thing in my life. If I don’t have 10 a day—something’s wrong. I need everything, otherwise I forget. I would be lost without them. Q: Does this app remind you of other apps? A: Not like specifically. There are a bunch that do one or the other, but this I feel like puts everything together. Q: What feature would you want to include? Or how can this be a better product? A: Scheduling! Like if you had breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the week and you can go ahead and plan out your meals and when you’d be eating out.
Q: Gender, Age A: Female, 22 years old. Q: What do you do for a living? A: I am a student, and I work part time. Q: What does your typical weekday look like? A: I wake up at about 8, take my puppy on a walk, come back, feed her, feed myself a cup of coffee, and then I go to work. I go to work, eat lunch at work, come home late, do homework, and cook whatever is in the house. Q: What do you like to do in your free time? A: I walk my dog, I go rock climbing, I hang out with friends. Q: How frequently do you use the internet and what are some of the apps and websites you use the most? A: Everyday, all of the times! I use Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram—not in that order. Q: Are you using any apps or other systems to find recipes? A: I can’t cook on the fly because I am terrible at making things taste good without a recipe. So if I am ever going to cook something, I use Pinterest. Product Questions Q: How often do you cook? A: I cook an actual meal probably twice a week—a protein, vegetables, and a side. I cook everyday, but it’s not anything gourmet, and that’s just because I don’t have the time to find a recipe and do all that. Q: If you don’t cook often, what stops you from cooking? A: I don’t think it’s the time it takes to cook that’s stopping me. It’s the time it would take for me to find a recipe, go to the grocery store, come home, and prepare it. Like, I need to know what I need to buy, otherwise it’s like, “Oh I can cook this—oh wait, I don’t have the ingredients.” Q: If you do cook, what do you normally cook and why? A: I’ll cook bratwursts and rice or roasted vegetables because they are quick and easy. Usually just like an easy meat and rice or quinoa because it’s hip.
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Q: What would motivate you to cook more? A: If I had a cookbook of all of my favorite recipes that I knew were easy to make, that I’d say probably take under an hour to cook, that’s what I’d do. Because whenever I go on Pinterest, I am looking for—I type in, “Name of what I’m looking to cook,” and “quick.” Q: How often do you go grocery shopping? A: I love to grocery shop, so I probably go to the grocery store 3 times a week but I do a big grocery trip like once a week. I go for little things all the time because it’s like a social event. Q: Do you make a grocery list? If so, how strictly do you follow it when you go shopping? A: I typically have a list of the things I have to get, so I follow that list strictly. I always buy the things I know I have to get, but other than that, I am super easily swayed by what I see in the grocery store. Especially if I see they’re sampling something, I’ll 8 times out of 10 buy what they are sampling. Q: How many groceries do you think you end up throwing away in a month? A: I don’t buy a lot of stuff that is perishable. If I buy something that is perishable, I usually use it that day. Like if I buy fruits and vegetables, I use it that day, unless it’s like clementines, which in that case, it’s a snack. But I don’t typically buy things that go bad. The only thing that I buy that goes bad that I don’t use the day of is like milk or eggs. But I use that so frequently that I don’t typically throw them away. Q: How many times a week do you go out for food? A: Sooo often! I would say I go out for food once every other day honestly. I rarely do breakfast out. It’s usually lunch or dinner out because if I do lunch or dinner out, that’s two meals for me, so I purposely only eat half of the meal. Q: Approximately how much money do you think you spend on eating out? A: I will usually spend $15-$20 every time I go out, so if I go out 4 times a week, what is that? Like $100 a week? Oh my gosh!
That’s why I follow a lot of people on Instagram! Because they’ll post certain really good recipes or good go to products. When I know they’re tried and good—I’ll do it. Q: What feature would you want to include? Or how can this be a better product? A: Scheduling! Like if you had breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the week and you can go ahead and plan out your meals and when you’d be eating out. Product Specific Questions Q: What is most appealing about this app? A: Being that it’s so personal and you can say, “This is what I have!” and it automatically tells you all of the different recipes you can make with it, I think it would be cool if there were different filters you could put on it like preparation time, or number of ingredients—or even like your kitchen appliances! Because I know I don’t have a kitchen aid or a mixer, so I’m not going to make something that requires that. Q: Can you see yourself using this app? A: Yeah! It’s like a personalized Pinterest! Q: What’s the hardest part of using this app or what would keep someone from using this app? A: The time they would have to put in in the frontend, but it’s the same with Pinterest, and Pinterest isn’t that personal. Like, you have to go through Pinterest, you have to find something that looks good, and then you have to click on it, and then you have to view the recipe. But this is like you automatically see things fit for you. It’d be even cooler if you could like take a picture of your receipt and it’d automatically be like, “Here are the things you can cook!” Q: Do you find that phone reminders work? Would you be okay receiving them? A: I have all my reminders off because I don’t like them because they distract me. But I know some people who love them—like Alyssa loves them and uses them all the time. All day long, she lives by them.
Q: Do you pay attention to your daily caloric intake? A: I used to, but now I don’t care as much about the calories in something as I care about the ingredients.
Q: Does this app remind you of other apps? A: I don’t have any kitchen apps! Like, I’ve never looked into a kitchen app so probably not.
Q: How healthy would you say your diet is? A: Right now, it’s not healthy. However, I go through periods of time where I am very, very healthy because I have time and I put in the effort to do the research, and I come up with a set number of recipes I follow. So when I put the research in, I can go months being healthy, but right now I am not.
Q: What feature would you want to include? Or how can this be a better product? A: I think it would be cool to be able to put—the way Pinterest allows you to organize into boards—have the same sort of things in the app. So like breakfast—these are my items. And I go in, and I have all my breakfast things in there. Or lunch, and I have all my lunch recipes in there.
Q: If not so healthy, what would help you have a healthier diet? A: Having easy to get recipes where I don’t have to go searching for them—where they are just in one place.
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PANTRY RAID Lauren Lapid laurenlapid.com 714.869.6479 laurencjlapid@gmail.com