What should I eat today?

The most common question that students and youth used to ask while doing school in university, I found out that 61–64% of Gen Z lack confidence in basic cooking and 76% of UK adults experience “decision fatigue” when planning meals.

This story became the foundation of Whatcipe

Competitor Analysis

To understand the current landscape of recipe and meal-planning applications,
I conducted a competitor analysis focusing on interaction design, key features and overall usability.

Heuristic Evaluation

As part of our research we conducted a heuristic evaluation on one of the applications from our competitor analysis. We utilized Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics as a basis for our findings. Our evaluation focused on Mealime, a meal-planning app that advertises easy-to-use features, healthy home-cooked meal options and personalized selections.

Survey

We wanted to have realistic data to create personas, user journeys that are based on the user's needs,
so we conducted an online survey to understand everyday cooking habits, pain points, and expectations around AI supported recipe tools.

79% cook a full meal more than three times weekly.

86% struggle with the daily question: “What should I cook?”

100% find it useful when the app suggest the recipe that they can cook with

How comfortable are you
with apps that uses AI to suggest recipes?

Whatcipe's Core Audience

We analysed the survey answers and divided similar patterns, which led to two categories

01

02

Linda William

22 years old, international student in Jönköping

Bio

• Shares a small apartment with one roommate

• Cooks 3–4 dinners per week, orders takeaway or eats on campus the rest

Goals & Needs

• Quickly decide what to cook tonight without scrolling forever

• Use up ingredients she already has so they don’t go bad

• Cook simple, tasty food and affordable

Frustration

• Stares at the fridge thinking “I have food but nothing to cook”

• Low energy after classes, no patience for long onboarding or complex filters

• Forgets what she bought, feels guilty about food waste

• Traditional recipe apps feel heavy to use and not personalised

Userflow & Information Architecture

I created a sitemap that focuses on quick access to the core flows: “Cook with what I have”, "discovering new recipes”, “Photo-to-recipe”.
Which helped us to have the foundation before moving to the design process.

Starting from low-fidelity sketches

These sketches helped me to turn ideas into pre-visual screens and design direction,
which are backed by research insights gathered from research phase.

Branding, Design system & Hi-fi Screens

I developed a simple brand identity and design system for the app.
The visual identity focuses on clarity, friendliness, reflecting my goal of making cooking feel less overwhelming and more enjoyable.

On Boarding Flow

This flow focuses on gathering eating habit from users
to suggest dishes based on their favorite ingredients

Cook With What You Have

With this feature users can now cook with anything they have at home
without thinking or wasting time looking for recipe by browsing on social media

Photo to Recipe

Users can save their own recipes
through capturing images of any dishes they saw at a nice restaurant or coffee shop

Usability Testing

To evaluate the clarity, usability and overall experience of the Whatcipe prototype,
we conducted four usability tests with our target group

Results

AI is accepted conditionally
Comfort ratings 6.5 - 8/10, all caveated on accuracy

Discovery paths diverged
100% completion masks hesitation

Across all five participants,
the app shows strong usability,
particularly in browsing and input tasks