SWEET DREAMZ
✕ Designing a Baking App ✕
OVERVIEW
Sweet Dreamz is a baking app designed to encourage users to bake more using natural ingredients. It also gives them the ability to create their own offline cookbook from their favourites to refer back to, quickly and easily.
Sweet Dreamz has a read aloud function that will ultimately allow the user to bake hands-free by setting commands and actions using voice activation techniques.
CONTEXT
With the uptick in natural/healthy eating due to the addition of so many preservatives in foods The Sweet Dreamz app is designed to interest people who are wanting to control ingredients that go into their sweets, treats and desserts.
It utilizes a social aspect so the user can upload reviews and ratings as well as share any recommendations with their friends.
Researching other similar apps, there appeared to be quite a gap in the market for baking apps. It can be quite difficult to get all the information required into such a small screen space.
OBJECTIVE
The “Sweet Dreamz” app will allow people to easily create recipes by choosing difficulty levels and accessing previous user reviews. It will allow users to save favourite recipes offline to their own organized cookbook section. The additional feature of unit conversions is a must to cater to users all over the world.
The objective is to gain validation that this app is needed and assist people of all ages, ethnicities and genders to bake home goods.
In order to understand other app flows and designs I researched a variety of different related apps as well as some I thought could possibly be relevant. I targeted baking and cooking as well as dashboard display layouts and general functionality.
Below are some of the reference material I used in order to create my final design for Sweet Dreamz.
RESEARCH + DESIGN
App Layout Design
Dashboard Theme Ideas
Colours, Tones & Themes
USER PERSONAS
I chose from eight different user flow options to compile a good understanding of how the basic app structure would flow together and make sense to the user.
USER FLOWS
I created two distinct mood boards in order to get some feedback from users in my target audience. I gathered some fantastic feedback and chose "mood board 1" as it was a little more muted in colour tones which wouldn’t be as likely to detract away from the large amounts of information that will be on the page.
From the mood board selection I then looked at creating a style guide which included all icons, symbols, cards, imagery and fonts.
DESIGN
LOW FIDELITY
In order to really get a good idea of the app design and to make sure the user flows were working correctly I created some low fidelity page layouts by hand. I turned these into a prototype so users could test the design and let me know of any major issues or likes/ dislikes with the design and layout.
MID FIDELITY
After gathering feedback I adjusted my design and created mid fidelity designs of my app so I was able to test the layout and design again with a little more thought. Users responded very well to the app with only a few adjustments including extra pages and the new placement of the menu for easy access with one hand.
FEEDBACK & IMPROVEMENTS
