My core idea was to analyze recurring home cooking challenges and devise solutions for more efficient home cooking. I designed an algorithmic app that helps you with recipe discovery, food prep, and meal tracking. Syncing with the stores you shop at, it uses your buying history to provide you with a recipe feed based solely on the ingredients you have in your home.

Hidden Kitchen is an innovative solution designed to address the recurring challenges active adults face in their everyday home cooking experiences. The core idea behind this project is to streamline the home cooking process, offering efficient solutions to common meal preparation struggles. The primary focus is on becoming a helpful tool in the kitchen rather than reinventing traditional cooking methods.
Users, Challenge, Context: The primary users targeted are active adults who frequently cook at home. Through extensive user research, the project identified common challenges users face, with the most significant problem being the recurring question of "What am I going to make?" Various constraints, such as allergies, dietary restrictions, the number of people to feed, time limitations, and budget concerns, contribute to this challenge. These constraints make meal planning a taxing process for users.
Purpose and Solution Approach: The purpose of Hidden Kitchen is to simplify the home cooking process and alleviate everyday struggles with meal preparation. The project's primary goal is to create an algorithmic recipe app that eliminates the need for manual input of grocery store ingredients. The app directly syncs with users' favorite stores, utilizing their buying history to provide a recipe feed based on the food available at home. This approach lets users jump straight into cooking, bypassing the cumbersome steps typically associated with meal preparation. Hidden Kitchen also offers features to address additional meal prep problems, including recipe discovery, meal scheduling, budget constraints, health concerns, and time limitations.

User-Centric Research and Design: The development process involved formal research explorations with targeted users, including interactions with restaurant managers, parents, and users within their homes to understand their unique food-making experiences. User research was pivotal in shaping the final product, leading to two complete redesigns based on user feedback. This iterative process resulted in a more cohesive user interface and the incorporation of new features directly influenced by user input.

USP, Innovation, User Benefits: The unique selling proposition of Hidden Kitchen lies in its algorithmic approach to recipe recommendations. Unlike other recipe apps, it directly syncs with users' preferred stores, using their buying history to tailor recipe suggestions. Users can customize their experience by filtering recipes based on food goals, allergies, and diets. The app offers a range of features, allowing users to save favorite recipes, schedule future meals, and shop for ingredients within the app.

Outcome and Business Value: The assumed business model involves a partnership with grocery stores to help curate a user's feed and find ways to help users save money. The app features the "Discover" feed, showcasing recipes from stores based on available coupons for potential savings. This incentivizes users to shop at partner stores, leading to cost savings on traditional marketing for those stores. Syncing with stores in the app results in more integrated coupons being shown, benefitting the grocery stores while translating to increased user engagement and more users buying from their stores. This approach forms a symbiotic relationship between the app and grocery stores, creating a unique digital marketing strategy.

Monetary Information: Hidden Kitchen aims to make the app free for users by receiving direct advertisement payments from partnered grocery stores, eliminating the need for third-party ads. A portion of the revenue generated is allocated to the 'Partnered Chef Program,' incentivizing professional and amateur chefs to contribute verified recipes. A program where anytime a user completes a recipe, the chef who posted that recipe can get paid. This is strictly for professional and amateur social media-based chefs who get verified to promote their existing content library. The pay system incentivizes those existing chefs to come over and use the app. This program enhances user experience by ensuring users only see recipes from verified chefs, fostering a helpful and pleasing experience.

Social and Planetary Values: One of the significant positive impacts of Hidden Kitchen is waste reduction, targeting the annual 60 million tons of food wasted in the United States. The app helps reduce food waste by assisting users with efficiently planning meals and utilizing ingredients they already have. The project aligns with sustainable principles by addressing the issue of food waste and promoting a more mindful approach to cooking.

UX Challenge: The primary challenge was finding a delicate balance between addressing the multifaceted needs of users while maintaining a simple and intuitive interface. Through undergoing project redesigns based on user feedback, a big problem was adapting the app to ensure it met user needs without overwhelming them. Striking this balance was crucial to empowering users and enhancing their overall cooking experience.
Future Outlook: The project will slated to participate in science and technology showcases and a startup competition within the coming months to hopefully secure funding and further development. The future goal for Hidden Kitchen is to aim for a fully market-ready product within the coming years. The long-term vision is for Hidden Kitchen to be a reality and a transformative tool used in homes worldwide to simplify and enhance the cooking process.
In summary, Hidden Kitchen is an algorithmic recipe app that addresses the challenges of home cooking by streamlining the meal preparation process. The project has evolved through user-centric research and is designed to offer a user-friendly interface, innovative features, and a symbiotic relationship with partnered grocery stores. With a focus on reducing food waste and providing a seamless cooking experience, Hidden Kitchen aims to be a valuable tool for individuals seeking efficient and enjoyable home cooking.

Product Links:

Product Site: hiddenkitchen.webflow.io

Online Dynamic Prototype: cloud.protopie.io/p/hiddenkitchen_demo *If the audio does not play, try scrolling to the next recipe video

Personal Site: cobistancik.com