What’s for Dinner?

By Prasanna Suresh, Tommy Roberts and Mats Aalen

Today, many people commute into cities in order

to work. A large proportion of these people will not

have much time to cook meals in the evening, or buy

ingredients for the same. People just seem to be too

busy to be able to cook, and at the same time find it

to be impossible to make good tasting food.

The major issue is just lack of time; people

don’t have the energy to make anything more

complicated than a sandwich if they have to

look up recipes as well. “What’s for Dinner?”

alleviates this problem by suggesting easy to

make food based on the items in your

fridge/cupboards, and providing recipes and

times.

Our Key Insight Statements

There are different ways through which our customers can achieve

what our app does, but there is nothing that combines all these

features in an organised way that makes all the features extremely

accessible. Also, there are many cookbooks that people can use to

make recipes, but the problem with this is that people might not

necessarily have all of the ingredients so that it is possible for people

to make all the recipes, which is a problem that our app aims to

solve by providing recipes depending on what ingredients our target

customer has in his/her fridge. The problem that we are trying to

solve is one that some websites, such as BBC Good Food and

Tesco Real Food have tried to solve, albeit unsuccessfully. It is the

aim of our app to solve the problem of not having enough time to

cook, as well as making it easier for everyone, of different ages and

calibres, to make good tasting food.

Our Elevator Pitch

MPT is developing a mobile app to help people with a limited amount of

time make meals easily based on ingredients they already have, and on

time taken to make recipes. Our cookery app incorporates lots of

different functions that help to make cooking easier as a whole. It is

possible to only search recipes based on the ingredients that you have,

and also it shows you the cheapest places to buy ingredients, allowing

you to buy them directly from your phone. A calendar also helps to

organise when to make different foods, and can help to plan out the food

schedule in the future. Finally, the interactive instructions and variety of

different recipes means that this app benefits a huge range of people,

from those who have just started cooking, to those who are experts in

the field. Therefore, this app will definitely get rid of cooking’s status as a

household chore.

Our Research

After we had designed our app, although we had a clear idea of our

app’s functions, we still needed feedback in the form of surveys to find

out whether we had designed an app that would be popular with our

targeted audience.

Responses: · Doing all the various things at just the right time, with just the right amount of ingredients. This is a

complex task that I have not been able to master.

· Making food taste good

· Frustration when some recipes do not work properly.

· Trying to find a very good recipe for cooking a certain meal, which has easy to understand instructions to

prepare. Also if there are multiple recipes available then I would like a comparison of all these recipes

suggesting which is the best one and for what reasons

· Preparation time

· Generally none, except for the reactions of others eating the food I cooked

· I don't cook

· Finding good instructions and the right ingredients.

· Time

· I can’t cook very well, all I can cook is steak and bacon and sushi.

· Recipes, gathering ingredients.

Many of the responses that we got were based around the fact that it was hard to find good

instructions, the complexity of cooking some foods and how well the food would turn out.

However, one comment that we could take into account if we were to redesign the app would

be the part about suggestion multiple recipes for a certain meal. This would mean that people

who struggled to make a certain food with a certain recipe could look to another recipe that

would suit them better.

Question #1: What would you say your

main problems with cooking are?

Question #2: Do you find cooking takes

up too much time and effort?

From this question, it is possible

to see that most of the

respondents found cooking to

take a lot of effort. Although

some people did say that

cooking was never a waste of

time for them, this is positive

feedback, as our app already

aims to take the effort out of

cooking tasty food. This also

shows that there is a wide

market awaiting the sort of app

that we are planning to make.

Question #3: Do you sometimes find that you

want to prepare food, only to find out that you

don’t have all the ingredients?

Once again, for this question, it

was possible to see that many

people felt frustration when

they realised that they did not

have all the correct ingredients.

Our app already incorporates

this, so this is more positive

feedback for our app. As this

feature being one of our USPs,

it shows that there a lot of

people who might be willing to

buy our app for use.

Question #4: Would you want to have an app

that would collate all of your cookbooks

together?

For this question, it is possible to see

that people would want an app that

would make it easier to organise

their cookbooks etc. This would

therefore link to the idea that many

people needed a handy tool that

would help them with their cooking.

To suit the needs of the minority

who would not want such an app,

as cookbooks have to be bought to

be used on the phone, the

cookbooks could be sold at

discounted prices e.g. 69p. This

would make it more attractive for

potential customers, as it would be

much cheaper to gain access to

cookbooks, and all the data would

be stored right in your pocket.

Question #5: How would you rate an app that would

help you to make good tasting food with only the

ingredients you have in your home?

This question is very much linked

to the last one, so to suit the

needs of the people who rated

in at 1 star, we could make it so

that it appeals to people to use

rather than old fashioned

cookbooks. The part of the app

that allows you to find the

cheapest place for people to

buy ingredients and the

calendar organiser could also

appeal to our potential

customers. We therefore

believe that the added features

could make our sort of app

more appealing to our

audience.

Question #6: How old are you?

We tried to get a wide variety of

people to answer the survey,

from working mums who would

benefit as they do a lot of

cooking, to the elderly, who

might need such an app to

make cooking much easier for

them. We also targeted 10-20

year olds, as in this category

there would be many people

who would be becoming to get

independent, so this app could

be vital for them to develop

their cooking skills.

The User Profiles The insight gained from our interviews proved invaluable in making the

next step towards an app that, with multiple facets, would be able to

satisfy every person in our target audience.

About K.R. Sampath:

· Retired man

· Lives in Mumbai, India.

· Old man who cannot work a lot due to age limitations.

· Wants to have an easy retirement without hassles.

· Wants to make others feel happy with what he has done.

· Wants to be as organized as possible.

· Unimpressed with current cookbooks that are a pain to follow,

especially for someone of his age.

We can therefore deduce that he needs an app that organises recipes in a

better way that cookbooks do, and also has added features that make all

the different steps before starting to make a recipe as easy as possible

too. We have taken these comments on board by having a calendar and a

way to order ingredients from shops directly on the screen of the phone.

User Profile 1: The Elderly

Gentleman

User Profile 2: The Independent

Cook

About Philip Wright:

· Student at school.

· Lives in Chalfont St Giles.

· Thinks of himself as an independent person.

· As a new cook, wants simple recipes that taste great.

· Does not want to get confused by complicated recipes.

· Loves saving money.

From this user profile, we can see that our app is perfectly suited towards

the younger generations as well as the old. For the independent

youngsters who want to try something new for change, this app would be

great, as it would suggest simple alternative recipes that would be make

great tasting food without being too much of a challenge to prepare. Also,

with the in app feature which shows the cheapest place to buy

ingredients, this app is great for people, like Philip, who want to save

some money when buying ingredients.

User Profile 3: The Parent with a

Limited Knowledge of Cooking

About Prahlad Sampath:

· Works for an IT firm

· Lives in Bangalore, India

· Extremely busy, cannot waste time

· Wants to have comparisons to know which recipes are the best

· Be able to organize when he is going to make certain recipes

· Be able to impress others with the food he makes

· Wants to know the best places to buy the cheapest ingredients

· Disappointed that it is extremely hard for him to find good recipes that

work well

Like the previous user profile, our app has improved with the use of this

interviewee’s opinion, as with a simple User Interface that is easy to

navigate through, as well as the simple cooking recipes, anyone with any

knowledge of cooking should be able to use our app with ease.

User Profile 4: The Passionate

Cook

About S Suresh:

· Works as a Management Consultant.

· Lives in Amersham.

· Loves cooking, but is a busy man.

· Wants to make brilliant tasting food that would not waste his time.

· Wants to save a lot of money.

· Wants to enjoy cooking as well as making a tasty dish.

· Thinks that the current solutions are all right, but would prefer

something would make cooking less of a hassle but more of an

enjoyment for him.

To make cooking less of a hassle, we have incorporated an interactive

cookbook, and this means that, due to timers and interactive instructions

that flash on the screen, none of your time is wasted waiting for food to

get cooked. With a huge variety of recipes to choose from, the user of our

app would be spoilt for choice when selecting a good tasting recipe they

would like to prepare.

User Profile 5: The Busy Mother

About Anuradha Suresh:

· Has a job as a teaching assistant.

· Lives in Amersham.

· Has to cook every day, although she has a busy lifestyle.

· Wants to cook food as quickly as possible.

· Wants to cook food that tastes good hot as well as cold.

· Wants to be able to organise when she cooks food.

· Wants an app that will bring together lots of different cooking functions.

We have tried to solve most of her problems with our app, such as the

many features that we have incorporated, as well as the easy usability of

our app that would suit her busy daily lifestyle. The interactive instructions

and the calendar means that she does not have to waste time, but can

organise her cooking schedule seamlessly with the rest of her daily work.

Competitors that already exist in

the market

• Before we started to design our app, we researched alternative

solutions that it would have to compete with in the current market.

Thankfully, we had successfully managed to find a “white space” - a

place where no other apps existed. Our app, if completed, would be the

first app of its kind on different app stores.

• Albeit this very encouraging information, there are competitors that exist

generally on the web, such as BBC’s Good Food and Tesco’s Real

Food. This was slightly disconcerting information for us, but websites

like this do not offer the wide range of features, such as a comparison to

find the cheapest place to buy ingredients, as well as buying recipes

direct from your phone. BBC Good food offers a way to search recipes

depending on what ingredients you have, but this is painfully

unsophisticated and will not work as well as the same feature on our

app.

• We believe that there are different solutions that offer the same features

as our app, but there are hardly any that combine and blend all these

features into one, extremely useful product.

Minimal Viable Product User

Stories

Here are a couple of comments we had got from users of our MVP:

• “The App has many useful features, but the UI can be quite chaotic for a

first user. Although this is the case, I think the app would still be

manageable.”

• “Incredibly easy to use, and very hard to get lost in the app.”

• “Good idea with lots of good features, but might be slightly hard to

implement in some places.”

• “Lots of strong features, but the links can be slightly confusing sometimes.”

From these comments, we kept all of our features, but arranged buttons at

the bottom of the screen to take the user anywhere in the app. We have

therefore kept it simple using the three touch rule - it is possible to get

anywhere in the app with three touches of the screen.

Key Features of our app

There are a number of different features incorporated into our app:

● Give recipes depending on ingredients that you have:

○ Many of our competitors only give recipes depending on what you search, but our app

feature gives our customers the ability to make recipes without having to go to the

shops, which gets rid of the hassle of having to go to the shops to buy new ingredients.

● Being able to find the cheapest place to buy ingredients as well as being able to buy

the ingredients straight from your phone:

○ Even if our customer needs to buy ingredients, an interactive screen pops up that, on a

map, shows nearby shops where the ingredient can be bought. As well as being able

to find the cheapest place to buy an ingredient, and being able to buy the product direct

from your phone, this feature once again gets rid of the hassle of having to go to the

shops.

● Simple, interactive instructions that are easy to follow:

○ By having this feature, it allows everyone (from youngsters to elderly people) to be able

to easily make good tasting food, due to the easy to follow instructions.

● Calendar for organising when to make food:

○ This feature is for the people with busy lifestyles. This feature means that people who

have less time on their hands than they wish would be able to easily organise when to

prepare certain food (cooking for special occasions etc.)

Integrating the Critical

Comments that we obtained

Our App had lots of good feedback, but our main point of improvement was

that our app looked quite cluttered, and sometimes seemed to be quite

confusing to our users. After much contemplation, our team came up with

the idea of adding a bar of buttons at the bottom of the screen, like many

apps nowadays. By doing this, we could get rid of lots of “back” buttons that

plagued our app screens and made our app flow much more confusing to

follow.

As well as this, one of our comments was to add a comments page for all the

recipes (as well as ratings). We heeded this advice, which means that all

the recipes on our app would be reliable and have some credibility, as

people would have commented on how well they thought the recipe works.

We therefore believe that the comments that we obtained have really helped

in the progression of our app to a product that has the potential to become

an extremely desirable and usable app.

The Flow of our App

Opening Screen Searching for Recipes Possible recipe

Key Wireframes #1

Where to buy other ingredients Planning Feature Buy other ingredients

Key Wireframes #2

Key Wireframes #3

We tried to make our app

wireframes as similar to a proper

prototype app as possible, with

all the MVP features put in. The

feedback that we got from

people viewing our wireframes

was vital in making sure that we

modified and improved our app,

to make it as desirable to our

potential users as possible. In

particular, from the feedback we

obtained, we made several

steps forward in improving the

layout of the buttons, to make it

as user-friendly with all of our

target audience age groups as

possible. Planning Feature

The Feasibility of our App

As a group, we believe that our app has the ability to target all of our specified age

groups, by bringing in a new type of product to the world of consumer apps. Although

this is the case, there are a couple of pitfalls that could hinder the progress of making

our app, if it were to be made.

Firstly, before our app would be launched, either a huge database of different recipes

would have to be made, or our app would have to collate different information from

the internet. The second option would be much more preferable, but there is a

chance that the use of their information might be rejected by the organisations who

put the recipe onto the internet.

This is our main feasibility issue for our app, as most of the other features can be

incorporated into our app with ease. For example, the feature which finds the

cheapest place to buy ingredients and allows you to buy them from a phone has

been tried and tested by many other companies, so there is no reason why our idea

should not work, if the customer were to sign into their Tesco Direct or other

supermarket account on their phone. The only other issue that might be faced would

be trying to promote our app has trustworthy, as the app would require access to

accounts, therefore also requiring access of credit card details. To deal with this

problem, we would have to create a safe place to save people’s data, which would

not be accessible to any other parties.

Our Customer Pledges

After asking multiple people at school and home, we

decided that people would be happy to buy an app that

would cost a small fee, but found that some might not

want to pay for the app unless they found out whether

it actually was any good. To make sure that customers

would be willing to pay, the best course of action would

be to maybe offer a free trial, or to ask for people to

survey a prototype model of our. This would help us to

find whether people really would be willing to pay for

our app.

Our Marketing Strategy

We are planning to release two versions of the app.

One will be free with limited features and the other will

be the premium version priced at about £1 which will

have more features, which are yet to be decided. We

are also going to try and limit adverts on other apps

and the number of adverts within the free version by

being sponsored by shops who will appear in the map

feature.

MTP CONCEPT TRAILER

A short video created by Tommy and while it is very

low budget it serves to show who the app is aimed for

and the problem it solves.