My Big Idea

I decided to design an app that comes up with child-friendly menu ideas, based on what the mother has in the cupboard.

I came up with this idea from reseach indicating a problem with coming up with a varied, nutritious diet through interesting recipes for meals, and also the problem on limited funds and time.

It searches a database of recipes to find recipes that are child friendly.

You input the foodstuffs youd like to use, how much time you have, what foods your child doesnt like, and it comes up with recipe suggestions with information like how much the meal costs per person, nutritional information and how long it will take to make.

The app would probably go on the assumption, like many recipe books, that the user has very basic foodstuffs like oil and basic seasonings i.e. salt, pepper, mixed herbs.

I believe that this app would help mothers come up with interesting, child friendly meals that are economic and nutritious. It could also reduce food waste by suggesting food combinations that the mother might not have thought of, and therefore will use the leftover bulk bought foodstuffs before it goes off and is therefore thrown away. It could also save time as the mother would be able to make use of what she has, and won't have to pop to the shops to buy particular items.

I have created this video to show the situation before:



Here is the scenario after:



To create a community, i'd like mothers to be able to login, and put their own recipes in there, which would then be searchable by others. There would be the option in the interface to search only user generated recipes, professional recipes, or both. There would also be a rating system for users as well as a reviews section so you can see other peoples reception of it, which would probably influence whether you made it or not. There would also be a timer on it, to record how long the recipe took you to make it (which from experience is always longer than it says), which would be logged aswel. You can contact other mothers, and there would be a noticeboard and a 'meal of the week' to keep mothers coming back.

There might also be a section for food offers.

I am going to design both iphone app and desktop versions. Problems with an iphone app: single mothers arent a very big user group.

It might even be an idea to put it on a platform like an ipad or a standalone version.

What next?

Designing both iphone and desktop versions.

Initial flash design work:



A vocal interview



I showed the interviewee my potential sketches which are shown below:






What i learnt from this:

That kids themselves could use it, for rainy day activities and to learn omre about good food nutrition.

There could possibly be a short list of additions to basic things that they had made before, to make them more interesting.

Could you put your own recipes on it?