Stoven: Home Cooking Reimagined
A UX Case Study about cooking classes taught from your stove.
Methods
Product Design
User Experience Design
Branding
Team
Designer: Brett Sweeney
Art Direction: Abby Guido
Details
Fall 2021
Tyler School of Art & Architecture
Case Study
“Cooking at home is more prevalent than ever”
Introduction
For many, cooking has always been stressful. Planning meals for you and your loved ones, nailing down what recipe to try (and hopefully succeed) all while trying to maintain a healthy diet. As the world continues to cope with the effects of the pandemic, cooking at home is more prevalent than ever.
So let’s make it more enjoyable.
Opportunity
With many people returning to the kitchen due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the work-from-home movement, it’s no wonder that new challenges have arisen. Planning weekly meals, grocery shopping, and attempting new recipes all bring fatigue to the kitchen. Many have found themselves in the kitchen more than ever before, but with little resources. Instead of branching out, people view cooking as a chore.
If there’s one thing we’ve seen is that there has been a disconnect between learning and enjoying cooking.
“An interactive stove where you can take online
cooking classes right in the comfort of your kitchen”
Solution
Stoven is an interactive stove where you can take online cooking classes right in the comfort of your kitchen. Instructors cook on those same exact stoves as you are, so you will never have to second guess yourself or your products. Instead of endlessly scrolling through Google-searched recipes every week, you could tune in to world-renowned chefs across the globe teaching you right in the comfort of your own home.
Stoven allows you to virtually follow along in real-time with world-renowned chefs. Tap into the thousands of recipes with both an interactive class and a list of ingredients you would need to participate in the class. Partake in challenges to help you become a better chef, all on a modern stove.
Everyone uses their stove differently so Stoven can also be used as just a normal stove. You could even display recipes for hands-free viewing for when you have a lot on your plate.
Research
Research Overview
When researching similar competitive products for cooking at home, it seems that many people are longing for the at-home experience to be reimagined. When thinking of successful at-home experiences, we thought of the company Peloton. Bringing fitness and convenience right into people’s homes, they helped create not only a healthier lifestyle for people but also a community.
What if we could do that with cooking? The modern stove hasn’t changed and many people rely on it regularly to help them cook. What if it could make them a better, healthier chef?
When looking at statistics about cooking in the past year, saving time in the kitchen and generally spending less time on meal preparation were common goals among those surveyed. On average people have been cooking the same meal 28 times since the COVID-19 pandemic started. 43% of respondents wanted to spend less time planning out their meals.
Ethnographic Research
Surveys
When conducting the survey we focused on trying to gather what issues people were having with home cooking. Through this research we found that most respondents were cooking more than 5 times a week at home, spending over 1 hour in preparation of cooking and over 85% of respondents were cooking the same dinner multiple times.
Survey Results
When we first started drafting this idea for Stoven, we originally focused on Stoven being an experience where you can cook with others. When we asked the survey respondents who they were interested in cooking with, many respondents said they were comfortable with cooking alone and wanted to focus more on learning more skills in the kitchen.
Without this survey, we would have not come to this conclusion. We decided to focus more on taking classes on the interactive stove instead of cooking together.
Survey Testimonials
When I shifted my focus to taking classes, we asked my respondents “What is one thing you wish you could change about your experience cooking?” Reading through the responses validated my choice to focus on taking classes on an interactive stove compared to being able to connect with friends and cook together.
One thing we learned through this research is that most respondents did not feel as comfortable in the kitchen as I thought.
Using Research for Design
User Personas
Based on my secondary & formative research, we were able to use the data we gathered to create user personas of potential Stoven users. The demographic of my survey included members ranging from young professionals to retired adults.
Having a diverse set of user personas helps me make better design choices for all. During the design process, our user personas helped us to visualize what problems we need to solve and the goals we will help our users to achieve when using Stoven.
Site Map
Creating the site map for Stoven was the most important part of the Stoven process. Mapping out each section of the interface helped us during our research as well as during the design process. Having a solid foundation to look back upon while designing and thinking about the user experience when using the stove.
User Journey Map
After creating the user personas, we used those to create user journeys. Each user journey was based on how someone would find and participate in a cooking class by using the stove or by the Stoven app. By writing out each step the user would have to take & their feelings while doing it, we made sure that the user would complete this task as easily as possible. These helped inform my design choices down the road when we were creating the interface.
User Flows
Next, we moved on to a more in-depth user flow. This user flow that we created for each of my personas informed all of the routes the user could take to complete different tasks throughout the Stoven experience. Since this is targeted to cooks of all ages and technical skills. We wanted to make sure that the experience of finding and participating in the class was as easy as possible with this being mounted behind the stove.
Wireframing
We start creating wireframes for what Stoven would look like. Many of the decisions we made were informed by our surveys and research that helped us create these wireframes. Including having a section that is dedicated to saved classes to go back to the classes they enjoyed. Since most who took the survey spent more than 1 hour in the kitchen cooking daily, we wanted to make the experience as quick and as easy as possible for users.
Design Process
Competitive Research
We first researched competitor stoves & interactive cooking branding & logos to see what was working and what wasn’t. We noticed that many of the stove companies used mostly typographic logos with minimal illustrations or design elements in the logo. When researching cooking logos were very friendly and inviting logos that involved some visual language that alluded to it was cooking.
Naming
The name Stoven comes from the combination of “Stove” and “Oven.” We wanted to create a name that felt fun and comfortable to say. I wanted to keep it to one word so that it could easily be said in conversation.
“I just took this class on Stoven last night, You should try it.”
Logo Design
Sketches
We went through many ideas in my sketches. In terms of style I wanted to pursue for the logo of Stoven, I took inspiration from both major stove companies and interactive cooking apps to create an inviting but trustworthy branding that can appeal to everyone. Quickly sketching thumbnail logos helped me consider all different directions and explore new opportunities for the face of Stoven.
Logo Direction
This logo is based on the ceramic heaters on top of the stove with one of the portions of the ceramic heaters mimicking the wifi logo to insinuate that this is interactive cooking where you can connect online.
In terms of style, I took inspiration from both major stove companies and interactive cooking apps to create an inviting but trustworthy brand that can appeal to everyone.
Style Guide
Bringing all these brand identity pieces together we created a style guide to use when designing the interface of Stoven. Having a solid style guide helped us make quick decisions and save time when designing the interface by already having a solid foundation to fall back on.
Designing the Stove
Blueprints
When this idea first came to mind we wanted the stove & the interface to be connected in some way. I thought of the company Peloton & how seamlessly the interface & the bike work together. When they deliver the bike to your house you just plug it in and start riding. We wanted the same experience for users when they were to receive their Stoven stove. When thinking of our users, research & talking to our professor we decided that so many people use stoves differently that there should be an option to have the Stoven interface retract if the users are not taking a class. We thought it’s important to think of every possible use this could have when designing
Features
Stove Interface
The interface of Stoven along with many things was informed by our research. Since most people feel stressed out about cooking, we wanted to make the experience as easy as possible for users. Since this interface will be incorporated into the stove we wanted to make the cards as readable as possible for people using Stoven while cooking. Getting the users into the app, choosing a class, and starting a class is something that we focused a lot of time on making as few clicks as possible.
Cards
When looking at the main screens of Stoven we wanted to create large cards of information so users to click on them easily. Since when we imagine this stove’s interface it would be behind the burners on the back part of the stove we wanted to limit the amount of time the user is leaning over the stove.
Onboarding
Since there would be so many different types of classes, not every person would have all the ingredients already in their house so we included a shopping list feature when viewing the specific class where you can click on what you need and it would get sent right to your Stoven’s mobile apps shopping list to help you while you are out shopping.
Challenges
We developed a challenges section because during our research we realized how many people love cooking shows & how these shows influenced them to become better cooks. We wanted to bring that same excitement that these cooking shows gave them right to the experience of Stoven.
Main Navigation
When designing something with so many different screens I wanted to create simple navigation that follows you during the entire experience of Stoven. When we were user testing this product we noticed that it was hard to navigate to other screens quickly without a navigation bar at the bottom.
Mobile Experience
Thinking about how many people access recipes, we thought about how the mobile app would play into Stoven’s experience. We thought it would be important that the app would mostly serve the purpose of choosing classes & getting ingredients since the main experience is the Stove.
Shopping list feature in the app would help users feel more comfortable and plan out their meals beforehand to get ingredients before their class.
Stoven’s mobile app you could have the ingredients sent right to your phone and swing by the grocery store before heading home to take part in the class.
Extenuating the Brand
Thinking of how this brand could be extenuated. We tried to think of what someone would want along with a stove we thought that the best thing to incorporate with the branding is cooking utensils. The biggest draw to buying a Stoven stove would be that you are cooking on the same stove as your instructor.
Including products that Stoven users could purchase so they have the exact same utensils as their instructor would help make the users feel more comfortable cooking & have a way to connect with their favorite chefs.
Promotional Videos
Thinking of how important social media plays into the overall branding and promotion of a brand I created two small video segments that could possibly play on billboards, television, YouTube ads or even bring it back to social media and post it on their page.
We thought these are important pieces to consider especially at the start up level of a company to drum up interest in the brand and want to learn more about it.
Conclusion
Working on this project helped solidify my choice to focus on UX/UI Design as a career path. I have learned so much about UX/UI design during this project, while also learning how to utilize branding to bring an idea to life.
One of the most unique takeaways from this project was learning the value of my research. Being able to effectively design using research & thinking of all users instead of designing what “looks cool’’ felt like a huge step in the right direction for my career.
Being able to work with my professor each week through the entire design process to craft this idea into what it is today was extremely valuable. This helped me become a better designer, constantly challenging myself each week. I look forward to pushing myself further in UX/UI design in my career moving forward.
Credits
Designer: Brett Sweeney
Art Direction: Abby Guido
Institution: Tyler School of Art and Architecture — Graphic and Interactive Design
Class: Senior Brand Identity (UX/UI Focus)
Medium Article: Stoven: Home Cooking Reimagined
Citations: How the pandemic is shaping home cooking trends, 2020. SmartBrief.