Cozzzi

Product Design — Recipes that work in your everyday life

About Cozzi

Cozzi is a mobile application that facilitates the planning and execution of recipes. The app offers personalized recipe recommendations based on the time of day, provides tools for customizing recipes to meet individual needs, and helps users easily organize their shopping lists.

Context

This project originated from my personal frustration with existing recipe apps and websites. After identifying some pain points, I spoke to friends and family who also cook and follow recipes online. Through this research, combined with my study of existing recipe app features, I set out to design a product that could showcase my expertise in UX/UI and visual design.

Process

The design process included the following steps:

• Goal definition
• Journey analysis
• Hypothesis formulation
• Product structure design
• Improvement proposals
• Effort vs. impact assessments

Goal

Identify improvement opportunities in the online recipe-following experience.

Defining the Project Scope

Through close analysis of existing recipe apps and user journeys involved in cooking, I identified several areas for optimization. Many apps serve as recipe repositories with clear information, but they lack functionality to aid the actual execution of recipes. I wanted to design an app that not only provides a recipe database but also offers features to assist users during the recipe process. Key issues I sought to address include:

• Ease of adjusting portion sizes

• Editing measurement units for different systems

• Substituting ingredients and accessing alternatives

• Managing the recipe execution process hands-free (e.g., when your hands are dirty or occupied)

• Receiving recipe suggestions based on seasonal ingredients, local festivities, and time of day

Journey Analysis

I analyzed several recipe apps and websites, including:

• Panelinha (website)
• Kitchen Stories (app)
• Tasty (app)
• Listonic (app)
• YouTube (cooking channels)

Pain Points & Hypotheses

Serving size adjustments: Many apps lack an easy way to modify serving sizes, which would be useful for both single-person and group cooking.

Measurement units: Users would benefit from the ability to switch between measurement units (e.g., Imperial to Metric).

Ingredient flexibility: Recipes often allow for substitutions, but apps don’t make these alternatives easily accessible.

Hands-free recipe execution: Users struggle with accessing the phone while cooking, especially when their hands are dirty.

Recipe suggestions: Personalized suggestions based on the time of day, seasonal ingredients, and local events would enhance the experience.

Watching recipe videos on Youtube is frustrating due to interruptions from ads or autoplay, and the difficulty of accessing the ingredient list on mobile. Youtube is not ideal for recipe execution videos, as it’s not designed for this purpose.

Shopping list management: Users want to easily create and edit shopping lists, ideally auto-populated from selected recipes.

Only one app allows automatic addition of ingredients to the grocery list, but it lacks essential editing features, such as adding unrelated items, editing, and reordering the list. This limits the functionality of creating a dynamic shopping list from selected recipes.

Sitemap

I designed a sitemap based on evaluating the user flows from other recipe and shopping list apps.

Visual Structure

A simplified visual identity system, including design tokens and components, was created to test screens and solutions.

High Fidelity Screens

I developed high-fidelity screens based on the sections and content defined earlier, leveraging the design tokens and components created.

Shopping list Screens.

Recipe Screens

Ingredients, step-by-step, ste-by-step mode and widget screens.

Effort vs. Impact Matrix

Using an Effort vs. Impact matrix, I prioritized features based on their technical feasibility and the value they would bring to users.

Improvement proposals

Easy serving size adjustment: Users can adjust the number of servings, and the app will automatically update the ingredient quantities.

Measurement unit flexibility: Users can toggle between different units (e.g., grams, milliliters, etc.) and have ingredient quantities automatically converted.

Automatic addition of items from selected recipes to the shopping list: The number of servings selected by the user determines the quantity added to the shopping list. The measurement units are adjusted according to the market standards (grams, milliliters, units, etc.).

Easy editing and organizing of the shopping list: Users can add items unrelated to a chosen recipe, edit the list, and reorder items manually. Additionally, the list can be reset to sort by category or alphabetically.

Hands-free recipe following: A step-by-step mode allows users to follow the recipe with voice commands and read, see, or hear each step while cooking.

Seasonal and time-based recipe suggestions: The app suggests recipes based on the season, time of day, and even local festivities.

De-prioritized Features for Future Testing

Some features were identified for future versions of the app:

• Ingredient substitutions and alternatives within recipes.

• User profile-based filtering for dietary preferences (e.g., vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free).

• Video integration for step-by-step recipe execution.

• Social features like sharing recipes and following other users’ cooking profiles.

Conclusion

The app design aims to address real pain points in the recipe-following experience and improve usability in a way that existing apps have not fully covered. By optimizing for both recipe execution and shopping list management, Cozzi helps users enjoy a smoother cooking experience, providing both a reliable recipe database and tools to support real-time cooking needs.

Prototype

See also