Case study: add a feature for kids on marmiton native iOS app.
Native iOS app, illustrations, atomic design, design for kids, desirability testing, prototype.
Third project of Ironhack bootcamp, add a feature on a native iOS application. I worked on my own for this project and I chose the french recipes application Marmiton.
Put on your apron, roll up your sleeves, wash your hands (even more so with the covid) and here we go !
— YOU SAID MARMITON ?
Created in 2000, Marmiton is a French website which brings together food lovers around a common passion: cooking. Over the years, Marmiton has become a community of millions of food lovers who exchange recipes, tips and advices on the platform.
Marmiton counts already 68000 recipes. It has is own Facebook page, instagram account and an application available on iOS and Android. It has been downloaded already more than 14 million times.
Let’s focus on the native app iOS. The application is pretty well rated on iOS with a score of 4,6/5.
There are a lot of categories such as « Frigo » which means the fridge. You can add the ingredients you have at home, and the app will find for you the meal you can prepare with those ingredients.
« Mon carnet » (my note book) where you can write directly your recipes on the application, to not loose it, if you have a lot of papers in your kitchen for example.
You can also shop for groceries on the app.
— COOK-PETITORS: POUR 5 COMPETITORS DELICATELY IN THE BOWL
There are a lot of recipes applications such as Kitchen stories, Jow, Seven hundred fifty grammes and Tasty.
All of those app offer recipes with fotos and videos sometimes, and the possibility for the users to take a picture and add their own recipe on the application.
All of those products are free to download.
— TONIGHT, THE CHILDREN ARE COOKING !
Nowadays kids know how to use a smartphone very early. They have an ability to understand technologies very fast. Also during a conversation with a mom of two kids of 10 years and 8 years old, I realized that they like to be in contact with food.
They want to as we say in French « mettre la main à la pâte ». So I started some researches about what does exist for kids around the food. I found out there are actually a lot of recipe books for kids, in order to learn how to cook some simple pastries and to be autonomous in the kitchen with parental supervision.
Based on the books I found, the recommended minimum age for these children’s cookbooks is 7 years. So I looked in details how the pages are composed, which elements are presented: photos, text, indications for the baking.
Then I started to look around the applications for kids, with recipes. And I was surprised that there are only one on the market, a paying one and another one but doesn’t exist anymore.
— INTERVIEWS « IT’S EASY AS PIE !» THEY SAID
KIDS INTERVIEWS
I interviewed few children about:
- What they like doing
- What kind of meal they like
I also interviewed few parents of 12 years, and 9 years old, about the activities they like to do with their kids. I asked questions like
- « How do your kid help you when you are cooking ? »
- « How do they feel when they are preparing a cake ? »
- « How do they realize their mission, is it fun ? »
The answers were really encouraging, some parents told me that:
« My daughter of 10 years old always want to help me cooking » Benedicte 45 y.o
« He likes to play with textures when we cook some pastries » Ben 38 y.o
« My kids enjoy a lot having their hands in the flour creating funny shapes with the cake dough » Emmanuelle 38 y.o
« My son is a bit distracted but in the kitchen, if I prepare a new meal he is watching attentively to my execution, that’s a peaceful moment for both of us » Frederic 31 y.o
« What she prefers doing is to butter the cake tin and to lick the bowl with the remains of the cake preparation » Jean 41 y.o
So I wanted to let the possibility to the kids, to be a chef like their parents, and have their own recipes.
THEN, MIX CAREFULLY THE INSIGHTS TOGETHER
— JADE THE MINI MARMITON GOURMET
Jade is 8 years old, lives in South of France with her parents. She is a joyful girl who loves her little brother Jules, 5 years old. Since she’s a little girl she enjoys drawing and painting. Her calm nature makes her very easy to concentrate on learning new things, such as reading books, and baking with her mother.
Since her brother was born, she takes care of him, and can’t wait to play with him and teach him what she learned so far. She also loves to play with her dog called Cookie.
GAINS:
- She loves eating her mother home made bakeries, and she also likes to taste the dough cake during the preparation.
- On the Saturday afternoon, when one of her friend is having a birthday anniversary, they play at games together, they put on some princess or cartoon characters costumes.
- Colouring is a hobbit, it helps her to be concentrated and she likes drawing colorful funny shapes.
PAINS:
- She already tried to read the recipes her mother is writing in a notebook but she can’t understand everything, there are complicated words that she doesn’t know yet.
- She can’t visualise the steps of the recipes and it makes her angry.
- She feels frustrated when her mother is cooking because she would like to help more.
- Sometimes she feels annoyed when her parents are busy and her little brother is sleeping.
— PUT 500 GRAMMES OF SKETCHES
I started to sketch some ideas that could fit with Jade’s gains and pains.
First I though about a different logo marmiton exclusive for kids such as « mini marmiton » or « little marmiton » with a twist of the actual logo.
And I was searching where should I put it on the nav bar and the home page so it can be visible at the first sight.
Also I was thinking about put different categories like coloring, games to know better about vegetables for example, where does it come from, how to cultivate it and in which season we can find it.
— ADD 2 PINCHES OF LOW FIDELITY
*I used English on the Marmiton wireframes to allow international Ironhack members to understand
Then the low fidelity wireframes: I sketched a lot about the games, and the coloring option. At the end I selected my first assumption:
Simple recipes explained with illustrations. There are also some characters in shape of vegetables to lead the kid when he is using the app.
Here I started with a usual menu, with scrolling and square images but when I tested it, the kid told me he preferred the version with vegetable characters, so I changed the menu and I put the broccoli here as the mentor of the app, who is talking to the user.
At the beginning he couldn’t read the word under the illustration, and asked me if it was the character name.
« I would like it to be like a virtual friend just like cartoons ! »
So I added names for each characters that you will discover in the high fidelity prototype.
— YUMMY, TEST-IT ! 😋
Testing with a 10 years old kid.
« I would love to choose my vegetable character »
« I want to select the recipe to cook, but an easy one »
Changement : the menu recipes >> becomes a menu with vegetables « brocolis, tomatoes, citrus’s, and then he has to choose the recipe ».
Actually the kid said he wants to play and be in the atmosphere just like in a cartoon.
So I developed an onboarding with veggies that he can choose.
— USER FLOW
The kid comes on the app, then the feature, he has to select a vegetable and here he selects the cooking option, and begin to cook a broccoli cake because there is only vegetables and fruits for now on the app.
— MIX IT ALL TOGETHER AND YOU GET A MEDIUM FIDELITY PROTOTYPE !
Those pictures are an extract of the mid fidelity wireframe.
Here I worked on the illustrations in black and white to see how it would look. it was useful for the composition of the cards.
I chose this logo and called the feature « Mini marmiton » at the end. It represents a color stain, it’s a reference to the coloring, and also when you are cooking it gets dirty quickly.
— DO YOU WANT TO TEST IT ? YES WE DOUGHT !
I conducted a desirability testing with a ten years old kid.
I thought keeping the illustrations of the recipes in black and white, but after testing it, the version with the colors won.
« Why the broccoli isn’t green ? »
« Does white citrus exist ? »
« My mum kitchen is full of colors! »
— 2 CL OF STYLE GUIDE
After I bring the colors, referred to the style guides of the application. I added the illustrations with the colors that I made as a components.
SMELLY ILLUSTRATIONS
I wanted to add the ingredients of the list like little sticky notes with pictures, gommettes more friendly.
— ATOMIC DESIGN
— «DRING» The high fidelity prototype is ready, be careful you are gonna be hungry !
He has 3 call to actions buttons: cooking, coloring, playing.
He can scroll horizontally to choose his favorite character. Then he can choose the recipe he wants. And the flow is about the recipe.
— LEARNINGS
Analyze the atomic design of the application Marmiton is very useful, and interesting. I started some components a bit different from the design system, and thanks to the summary of the components I realized I was going in the wrong way sometimes. It helps to keep a consistency ! Very important.
Conducting user interviews with kids afraid me at the beginning. I was nervous about how to talk to them, but in the end, thanks to the preparation of the questions and the way the interview was conducted, everything went well. I was pleasantly surprised by their reactions and their intelligence.
I really enjoy listening what the users are thinking and looking how do they react. Putting insights together is really motivating !
Of course, I loved imagining characters like Broccolus, I had only 5 days for this project, but I would like to work more on the shapes of the characters and interactions with the users.
Thanks for reading,
Have a great lunch 🥦 🍋 🍅
