Results of the Second Testing

Observation

Link to observation forms

Questionnaire Responses

The overall results are not positive. It seems confusion has been caused in navigation and the completion of tasks, which could influence users' perception of the application.

Interview Responses

Interview questions

1. Can you describe what the application is about?
2. What do you find confusing in the pages you have seen?
3. How easy it is to find the recipe you want in the application?
4. What do you want to improve in the way of presenting content on recipe pages?
5. How do you like or dislike about sharing variations from your culture or family in the traditional recipe section?
6. (The same question) What about creation recipes?
7. How do you like or dislike about having a group where you and your family share recipes from your family together, as is shown in the app?
8. How likely would you share your stories for a traditional recipe?

Interview 1

1. It looks like an application for sharing recipes from your hometown. It also shares stories. The purpose of it might be to share recipes.
2. For these tasks, I didn’t find anything confusing.
3. It’s really hard, because there is no clear categories. And how are you going to classify recipes in Creation?
4. My suggestion is to add more pictures. It looks boring with pure text.
5. I’ll probably only give thumbs up to recipes I like. But I won’t share because I’m not good at cooking.
6. I’m not interested, because they are possibly not tasty at all.
7. Not appealing to me. Even with the same recipe, I can’t make the food taste the same as those made by my mum. What matters is the person, not the recipe.
8. I’m less likely to share these, because sharing daily life seems boring. Unless the story is pretty interesting, otherwise it’s hard to enjoy it.

Interview 2

1. As I understand it, it’s an app sharing recipes from different countries. For each I can add my created recipe, and I can comment. And I can see my family and recipes they shared. I’ll use it because it’s related to family. It’s really cool. I always want to create a book for my grandmother to save her recipes and the history of my family. This app can help me.
2. The name for the menu, probably. I can’t recognize what “Creation” means at first glance. It’s also confusing that I have to search to see whether there has been similar recipe before I share mine. It could be easier if you put a dropdown inside a general category, for example, like pizza, and pasta. And when I create I just need to choose an existing category.
3. It’s good enough for me.
4. Recipe is important for this page. You probably should show it more clearly. And it’d be better to add some more pictures. For example, scroll down and there’s a gallery.
5. It’s good. You can see how other people change the recipe and maybe it reduces ingredients and is easier for me to follow.
6. Good. I’ll share with my relatives.
7. This is my favourite. I think this is something new, because websites and apps for sharing recipes already exist, although without variations. But family is valuable.
8. For me, I don’t comment often because I’m lazy. I just consume information.

Interview 3

1. An application that is for sharing family recipes for the purpose of preserving history and culture.
2. How to upload a photo and the task (non-traditional) for finding a creation.
3. Pretty easy, there was pictures so yeah.
4. It’s pretty good already.
5. Yes it is good because it allows for change and adaptations of already traditional recipes.
6. It’s good to try something different and explore different cultures of food.
7. Very good to preserve the history of food for a family as a whole.
8. The family recipe can be spread amongst all, preserving its history and ensuring that its culture will live on.

Interview 4

1. It’s an app for sharing recipes with family members and with people around the world.
2. The homepage. It’s hard to recognize it’s a homepage. Once I enter it, I can’t immediately understand what information the page aims to show. It looks no different from the app for ordering online take-away.
3. It’s good. You’ve got a search bar and a filter.
4. I would recommend you to make the text of the food name smaller and put it on the corner of the picture. It takes up too much space and blocks the picture.
5. I prefer authentic ways of making food, so I myself won’t share.
6. Are they original recipes from families? They probably taste not so good. But it’s interesting to see how new food is created.
7. It’s good. I would like to check what my family members are eating, and if I’m interested I can also try their recipes.
8. I don’t really like to share stories. I just want to share my recipes.

Interview 5

1. I got the vibe of a recipe app with a story component to it. Like kind of a historical encyclopedia of recipes with users able to give comments and stuff.
2. Bit of confusing with the family thing that happened but apart from that wasn't complicated at all.
3. Well I mean the tasks I was given didn’t even require me to use the filters, although I can definitely see how they would come in handy.
4. Not really sure, it seems fine to me.
5. Sounds fine to me, sharing traditional recipes is how they can reach other cultures and evolve.
6. I love creating recipes so that’s a great idea for me. 100% support it!
7. Well not my whole family really cares about food as much as I do but I can see some benefits to it. But still it may need something more to make it fit better with your app in general.
8. I would love to share my stories! Would use this feature all the time.

Analysis

Conclusion

Users like the idea of family groups and would like to share variations and comment traditional recipes. They do not have difficulty navigating the application as is shown by the tasks. However, it seems the name ”Creation” is confusing and is not normally associated with “non-traditional”. Users are also somewhat misled by the emphasis on traditional and non-traditional recipes, considering the application as one that focuses on sharing recipes. This can be clarified by getting rid of the “Creation” section and focusing on traditional recipes. For story sharing, it seems not all users are willing to do it because it takes time. Instead of forcing them to share stories, it might be better to make story sharing optional. Changes we will make can be summarized as follows:

• Remove “Creation” and totally focus on traditional recipes. Divide traditional recipes into “Favourite” (for users to customise their page) and “Popular” (show traditional recipes based on popularity)
• Change “Stories“ to ”Comments” because users should not be forced to share stories, and they naturally perceive this feature as sharing comments
• Family recipes will be based on those variations they share on the traditional recipe page, which is more in line with our purpose since this can encourage families to preserve their cultural traditions