Baking is a niche interest, and with most niche interests there is often a difficulty for those interested in learning connecting to those with the ability to teach them. Because of this difficulty, various tools are used to connect and learn, including Facebook groups, Meet-up groups, Blogs, and email lists. What is lacking is a tool that provides a platform that connects people who want to bake together.
Promotional Poster This browser does not support PDFs. Please download the PDF to view it: Download PDF.
Promotional Flyer This browser does not support PDFs. Please download the PDF to view it: Download PDF.
A link to the promotional Website can be found here: Bake-Mate Promotional Website
A link to the initial prototype can be found here: Adobe XD Prototype
A link to the final interactive prototype can be found here: bake-mate.firebaseapp.com
Instructions
The Prototype is built to work on mobile devices, so it is only recommended that the user visits the webapp on a mobile device. The user can scroll through the feed and view and attend multiple events created by other users of the app. For testing purposes the user is the profile "Jodie Green" and can visit the messages, buddies, and profile page. The user can also create an event from the Create Event page, and see it show up in the feed.
The problem domain that is being approached is that of Active Communities, and to connect like minded individuals, in this case bakers who want to learn in a community environment with other similarly motivated individuals. The concept is a community driven application that allows users to connect with other who share an interest for baking and want to bake together. Users can create an event based around what they would like to bake, and can include an image, description, the amount of people they would like to bake with, current attendees, and a difficulty level. The app also supports direct messaging between users, with a friends list viewable from the main page.
In order to encourage engagement in the community, the app will provide additional features that are valuable to the baking community in different contexts of use. Firstly, the ability to save recipes and work through them when later in the kitchen, checking off tasks when they complete them.
Users are able to can look through a list of posts that other members have made and join and contact the user who posted it. This allows users to meet new people with similar interests and learn together with them. It can also help users that may not have all the equipment find someone who does, and find out if it is worth investing in the proper equipment. Over time this will allow users to maintain a constant friendship and improve their baking skills, where they otherwise might not be interested as it takes a long time and could prove to be too difficult by themselves.
Project Aims:
- Linking professional bakers with users that want to learn
- Promote communication and information sharing between fellow bakers
- Allow users to promote their services related to baking (e.g. cooking classes) and gain exposure.
Audience
The audience for this application falls into four main demographics, depending on different skill levels and desire to learn or teach. For those who want to learn, there are those who are Amateur, and don't understand terminology related to baking and those who are semi-experienced, who do. Courses can be classed as amateur or semi-experienced based upon the expected knowledge and terminology used.
Our Design process consisted of three main design iterations, each one iterating on itself using the feedback gained from testing sessions. The first round of user research that was conducted was aimed at gauging interest about the form of the app and what functions the target audience would deem appropriate to be a part of the app. Along with this, locating any issues that we hadn't considered that the target market could provide us with would be valuable.
The research questions that were used for this round of testing are below:
Explain Concept Summary
Ask if anything is unclear
- if yes, follow up and clarify
What would you like to do while baking?
- if something unheard of, follow up
How many people do you think it would be fun with/practical to bake with?
- follow up for their goal baking partner number
What would you expect to be able to do in this app?
- follow up on any new ideas they may suggest
This research provided several valuable insights. Prior to this research the application was primarily designed around the social interaction of a teacher to a student, with a secondary focus on peer to peer interaction. The events would take the form of classes with Teachers being able to indicate a price that the students pay in person when they arrive at their class.
Research found that users were more interested in connecting with people that wanted to bake with them, instead of teachers.
The second round of user testing involved using a preliminary prototype in the form of an Adobe XD Prototype. This prototype was reasonably fleshed out and users were asked to accomplish several tasks to understand the usability and audience perception of the current design.
The user testing protocol for this round of testing can be found below:
User Testing Protocol
The “you” in the following is the person that the group has selected to be the “tester”.
Preparation before participant arrives
Prepare/lay out materials for the participant so that everything is ready.
Introduction
Introduce yourself to the participant and give them a high-level idea of what they will be doing in their tasks today, and what the application is about.
Instructions
Give the participant more detailed instructions about the task they are to do (e.g. Create an event etc.).
Tell them to take as long as they need to complete the task.
Ask them to think out loud or to make comments as they work.
See if there are any questions from the participants before you get started, and answer questions.
Tell participant they can stop at any point and data received will not be used if they choose to stop.
Observation task
When participant is ready, ask the participant to start on the task:
Task 1: Find your profile.
Tasks 2: Which buddies are planning to bake cupcakes, and what are the event details?
Task 3: Create an Event
Task 4: What did you ask Samantha For?
Interview
Then ask leading questions to the participant after their performance.
Clarify anything needed.
Questions in a logical order:
- Talk me through what you did
- Identifying what tasks they did, and how they went about doing it (in their words)
- Was there any fields of information missing from the Events page?
- Was everything where you expected/easy to navigate?
- How would you change the layout
- Was they layout / colour visually appealing?
- Any additional feedback
-If participant has struggled anywhere, ask any relevant extra questions (and record them)
- Extra features to add or delete?
Closing
Tell the participant that the session is at an end.
Thank the participant for their time, tell them that their data are valuable.
Let participant know that they are free to go.
Insights from this second round of testing were that user's struggled to understand at a glance the difference between different types of posts, and that there was no way to see if the current user was attending an event or not. To address both of these issues the final design streamlined the post type, with the previous three types of posts being restricted to a single type. Along with this, a visible indicator was added to events that the user is attending, and a filter added so the user can see only the events that they are attending.
These changes can be seen integrated into the final design.
Nick MacArthur
- Conducted First Round of Testing
- Developed Initial Prototype
- Developed Final Prototype
- Presented on Demo Day
Peter Ramsey
- Conducted First Round of Testing
- Conducted Second Round of Testing
- Wrote User Test Protocol, Test Plans, & Testing Session Evaluations
- Designed Promotional Poster, Pamphlet, & Logo
- Presented on Demo Day
Llewellyn Roydhouse
- Conducted First Round of Testing
- Conducted Second Round of Testing
- Contributed to Final Prototype Development
John Anderson
- Conducted First Round of Testing
- Conducted Second Round of Testing
- Contributed to User Test Plans
- Designed Promotional Poster, Pamphlet, & Logo
Ben Hooper
- Conducted First Round of Testing
- Conducted Second Round of Testing
- Developed Promotional Website
Concept Tags
- Collaboration
- Distributed Community
- Social Networking
- Persistence
- Coordination
Domain Tag
- Active Community