Chef Frank App
Part of Frankly, a system of cooking products designed to help young adults with autism become more
successful in the kitchen
Recipe app that sheds light on the grey areas of cooking while encouraging new beginnings in the kitchen for individuals on the spectrum.
skills: collaboration, user research, branding, prototyping, ux/ui, app design
Cooking is a critical life skill,
and a crucial step needed to successfully transition into independence.
However, young adults with autism who have just become independent may find learning how to cook for themselves a daunting learning curve.
What are some difficulties young adults with autism experience when in the kitchen?
Sensory issues when handling ingredients and when eating.
Juggling multiple tasks at once when cooking.
Easily find recipes that don’t trigger any potential sensory sensitivities, or include their specific food preferences.
Organizing and parsing ingredients and tools needed.
Handling cutting tools safely and confidently.
Initiating and transitioning tasks when following a recipe.
system goals
These challenges make it difficult to be successful in the kitchen, a setting where you should feel
Following recipes is an encouraging way for anyone to start learning
how to cook.
I want to design a recipe app that grows along with and guides a user's journey into cooking, while catering to
their unique sensory sensitivities, and aiding with task initiation/transitioning through restructured recipes.
product goals
Streamlined
Comprehensive
benchmarking
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Blurred parsing between ingredients, equipment, ingredient prep, and instructions.
Long sections of text to scroll past before
getting to recipe.
Lack of visual references to go along
with instructions.
Ambiguous units of ingredients.
Blurred parsing between ingredients, equipment, ingredient prep, and instructions.
Expectations to know "basic" ingredient prep.
Source is limited to app's self-curated recipes.
Can filter search by inclusion but not exclusion.
Short range of customization and personalization.
prototyping
From our user testing, we learned that over ambition did more harm than good.
Cramming multiple functions into an app complicates it's user interface and can very easily overwhelm young users, making the cooking experience even less welcoming.
We found that the best way to be inclusive was to focus on a few features and provide supporting elements that allow adaptive and flexible functionality.
Discover Page
Curates recommended recipes based on the user's preferences.
Recipe search engine allows users to filter their results based on things they either prefer or want to avoid.
Great for users with hyper/hypo-sensitivity to certain tastes, textures, smells, colors—whether that's during the cooking process or when eating.
Convertor Page
Allows users to paste a link to an existing recipe into the convertor engine.
Converter will restructure the recipe with the goal of making the cooking procedure easier to follow along with for users with difficulty in task initiation
and transitioning.
levels of resolution & visual guides
Profile Page
Focuses on personalization, by including sections for favorited recipes, sensory preferences, and settings to customize features that might over-stimulate the user.
This is flexibility is important for autistic users, as each user will require unique needs in order to have a comfortable digital experience.
