Craving Connections
Global Food Connection & Storytelling Platform
Project type
App creation project led independently as a personal initiative
My role
Product Designer
Tools
Contribution
User Research
Ideation and Wireframing
User Journey Mapping
Low-Fi/Hi-Fi Prototyping
UI Design
User testing & Iteration
Duration
1 month user testing/interviews
2 week design
2 week iteration
Figma
Adobe
Microsoft
Zoom
OVERVIEW
Background
Craving Connections was inspired by my time working and traveling around the world, where I found that even without a shared language, people could connect over food.
Asking about someone’s favorite or most memorable dish always uncovered a story—a moment they wanted to share. While many are curious about international cuisines, they may feel intimidated by unfamiliar ingredients, complex recipes, or items they might never use again. Craving Connections addresses this by creating a central place to explore these stories, with easy-to-follow recipes and videos.
Objectives
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Creating a centralized space for users to watch videos and discover recipes related to memorable dishes
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Offering an engaging and intuitive interface for easy navigation
What user-centered strategies can we implement to ensure the app effectively facilitates connections between users through memorable dishes, while providing an intuitive and engaging experience for discovering and sharing recipes and personal stories?
Product preview
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USER RESEARCH
Surveys & Interviews
I conducted surveys and analyzed the data to understand user preferences and expectations. Below are three visualizations created from sample data, along with key findings:
01 Desired Features
Personalized Recommendations garnered a 91% interest, indicating that users strongly favor tailored suggestions within the app.
02 Content Preferences
Stories accounted for 45% of content preferences, while Cooking Tutorials made up 35%, highlighting these as the most favored types of content among users
03 Usability Factor Ratings
Users indicated that the most significant need is for improved Search Functionality to facilitate easier exploration and discovery of new dishes.
Persona: Culinary Explorer
Following the analysis of my research, including user journey and empathy mapping, I developed the user persona below to effectively capture and represent the needs and motivations of my target audience.
DESIGN PROCESS
Ideation
During the ideation phase for Craving Connections, user feedback revealed a strong preference for layouts similar to popular streaming and workout platforms. These layouts are praised for being intuitive, visually engaging, and content-focused, which aligned well with the goal of creating an accessible and enjoyable way to explore global dishes and food stories.
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With this in mind, initial sketches and low-fidelity wireframes were crafted to resemble streaming platform’s structures, featuring sections for discovering featured videos, browsing by cuisine or region, and viewing recommended recipes.
Wireframes
The wireframes were developed for layout preferences and usability testing. Based on the testing findings, we iterated the design before moving to the high-fidelity design stage.
Splash Page
Splash Page 2
Onboarding
Onboarding 2
Home Page
Search Page
"I'm a vegetarian but I was confused why the dietary preferences was asked before regions of the world."
"Will the recipes in action show snippets of the videos? Is this needed if the videos are 3 plus minutes long?"
"Is there a more concise way to search countries or global regions?"
The key findings include:
1. User Navigation Preferences
Users responded well to a familiar, streaming-inspired layout with clear, categorized sections. They appreciated the ease of exploring content by themes.
2. Content Visibility
Users found it helpful to see recommended recipes, popular videos, and curated collections on the home screen.
3. Search and Filtering
Users found the search and filtering options to be unintuitive and felt they needed clearer, more accessible filters. Feedback suggested incorporating visual cues, such as images, and taking inspiration from popular food apps to make navigation more intuitive.
4. Layout for Video-Centric Experience
Users expressed that video thumbnail previews with brief descriptions helped them decide quickly what to watch. They layout mirrored a streaming interface, providing a familiar and visually engaging approach that users found both appealing and effective.
Hi-Fidelity Design
The high-fidelity design phase brought Craving Connections to life with a polished engaging interface. Key sections, like featured videos and recommendations, were refined to create an intuitive, visually rich experience, allowing users to easily explore memorable dishes an stories. Below are examples of high-fidelity screens showcasing the final look and feel.
Onboarding
Home Page
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Search Page
Filter Options Page
Video & Recipe Page
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Favorites Page
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TAKEAWAYS AND NEXT STEPS
Takeaways
Working on Craving Connections provided valuable insights into how users from different countries perceive usability based on their unique experiences and cultural expectations. This diversity emphasized the need for a universally intuitive design that resonates with users regardless of their background. Since this was a self-led project, my initial deliverables and tasks evolved as new insights emerged from user research and feedback, leading to a shift in project scope to better meet user expectations.
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Being the sole decision-maker meant I relied heavily on input from friends and mentors to gain fresh perspectives, which was invaluable in refining the design and pushing the project forward without direct oversight.
Next steps
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Collaborate with app developers to implement and build Craving Connections​​​
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Conduct user testing post-launch to evaluate usability and refine the app based on feedback
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Investigate potential partnerships with grocery services like Instacart (U.S.) and Grab (Southeast Asia) to offer added convenience for users
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Explore integration with social media platforms to enable easy sharing and transitions between platforms