Chops
Chops is a cooking app designed to help busy adults build healthier eating habits by making home cooking fun, simple, and sustainable. This app was part of the Google UX Design Certification, but it’s more than just a project as it was a personal challenge turned design opportunity
Project Type
App Design
Project Duration
2 weeks (Aug 15 - Aug 29, 2023)
Role
UX Researcher and Designer
Responsibilities
Conducting interviews, paper and digital wireframing, low and high-fidelity prototyping conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, iterating on designs.
The Challenge
After a long, exhausting day, my partner and I often found ourselves stuck in the same frustrating cycle: What should we cook for dinner? We wanted something healthy and satisfying, but also quick and easy.
We would scroll endlessly through recipes, trying to agree on one. When we finally landed on a dish that sounded doable, we would discover we were missing a key ingredient. That meant starting the whole search over again. More often than not, we’d give up and order food. Again.
One evening, while reviewing our monthly expenses, we were shocked to see how much we were spending on takeout. And it wasn’t just a financial issue, it was also a health one. Convenience was leading us toward less nutritious choices, and that left us feeling sluggish and frustrated.
The worst part? It became a loop. The harder it was to cook, the more we ordered out. The more we ordered out, the more it affected our health and budget. This made me think if this was an issue experienced just by us or was this a challenge faced by others as well.
THE PROCESS
User Research
To determine whether this challenge was unique to my experience or part of a broader issue, I began by reviewing recent literature and data on eating habits, food accessibility, and health behavior. The findings revealed a growing trend where many adults want to eat healthier but face consistent barriers such as cost, lack of time, and limited cooking knowledge.
To validate this further, I conducted in-depth interviews with 10 individuals from diverse backgrounds and age groups. The goal was to understand their cooking habits, challenges, and motivations. The finding was that while most participants expressed a strong desire to adopt healthier eating habits, they often felt overwhelmed, unprepared, or constrained by daily responsibilities.
Importantly, participants were open and willing to change, but they needed a tool that could simplify the process, save time, and guide them in making better food choices.
User Personas
Based on the user research conducted, I created two personas with different needs and pain points.
User Pain points
1
Users wanted a tool that helped them learn to cook healthy meals based on their preferences and restriction
Lack of knowledge
Competitive Analysis
2
Use of existing ingredients
Users wanted a tool that suggested healthy recipes using existing ingredients and save money.
3
Users wanted recipes that are quick to make without compromising on taste at the same time satisfying their cravings.
Lack of time
I analyzed three popular recipe apps—Tasty, Yummly (discontinued), and Kitchen Stories—to identify gaps and opportunities in the market.
Kitchen Stories offers high-quality tutorials and personalization, but lacks a focus on healthy eating, habit formation, and doesn’t support cooking from existing pantry ingredients.
Yummly had ingredient-based search and personalization, but its content-heavy feed made decision-making overwhelming. Recipes often required extra ingredients, limiting convenience.
Tasty focuses on visual, video-driven recipe browsing. While it includes meal prep features, it lacks pantry integration and doesn’t support healthy habit-building.
All three apps are content-driven with features like meal prep, personalization, or ingredient search—but none deliver a holistic experience that supports everyday, healthy decision-making in a simple, habit-forming way.
Wireframes
After conducting a thorough competitive analysis and identifying clear user pain points, I began the ideation phase. I first translated early paper sketches into digital wireframes to explore layout and user flow.
Usability Study
I conducted an Unmoderated Usability testing for Chops low fidelity prototype with 5 participants and understood that the initial design failed to address a lot of the user pain points and worked similar to the existing apps.
Usability Study Findings
1
Clarity
Users wanted more information on nutrition for each recipe to check calories
2
Navigation
Users felt the user flow and experience typical and lacking motivation to cook healthy meals on a long term.
3
Interaction
The cook and grocery option in pantry was misleading the users causing a loop
Design Iteration
Based on the insight from usability study, I decided to change the user flow completely to create a more seamless experience. I sketched out the ideas again in paper adding elements which potentially would be more fun for users to interact with.
Refining Design
Navigation
As Priority, based on the insight from usability study, I decided to change the user flow completely. I removed the feed to start with and created a more simple userflow featuring two options: Cooking with existing ingredients or experimenting with new. After entering the available ingredients, the app reveals a recipe.
Before Usability Study
Interaction
After Usability Study
After Usability Study
To make interaction and user experience more fun and interesting, I added the "Surprise me" feature.
This feature is for the user who wants to cook something fun but also is ready to go shopping for that. (May be for a special day or for special someone)
Before Usability Study
After Usability Study
After Usability Study
The recipes once completed automatically sits in the user’s profile building their cookbook. This encourages users to add finish more recipes to add to their cookbooks.
Before Usability Study
After Usability Study
As a motivation, the app also rewards the users after each cooking with a Chef’s hat. This keeps upgrading based on progress.
After Usability Study
After Usability Study
Clarity
After Usability Study
Updated the layouts to create a seamless user flow.
1. Removed the “Cook” and “Pantry” tab which was initially designed to be part of the cooking process. In the revised design, the pantry is part of the profile, where the user can load in ingredients whenever they want. The app will suggest recipes based on available ingredients when “Cook with Pantry ingredients”
After Usability Study
2. I added nutrition facts for each recipe and compared it with daily consumption quantity using infographics.
Profile keeps track of calorie consumption based on meal made each day.
After Usability Study
Before Usability Study
Visual Design
Color Palette
I used a fun refreshing palette for Chops that was soothing and fresh with a color pop in intervals.
Typography
Chop's type scale provides the typographic variety necessary for the app content. All items in the type scale use Montserrat as the typeface, and make use of the variety of weights available by using Montserrat Regular, Medium, and Bold.
The Outcome
After several iterations and usability testing, Chops evolved as a simplified, fun app that surprises users with a new recipe each day, tailored to their food preferences and calorie goals. It provides them the flexibility to choose if they want to shop or use pantry ingredients. By using a gamified approach, cooking becomes enjoyable and habit-forming. Users earn rewards as they progress, gradually unlocking their personalized cookbook. Chops helps adults build healthy eating habits by making home cooking accessible, stress-free, and fun.
Unlike other apps that overwhelm users with endless recipe feeds and content, Chops offers a clean, distraction-free experience. No endless scrolling—just simple, smart suggestions that save time, reduce food waste, and make cooking stress-free.
The two main Key features in Chops are:
Surprise Me
For days when you're ready to shop and want to try something new, Chops suggests fresh, exciting recipes to expand your culinary routine.
Not today, I have a full pantry
When you're low on energy (but fully stocked), this feature recommends recipes based on ingredients you've already loaded into the app—no grocery run needed.
“Surprise Me”
A fun feature where the app chooses a surprise recipe for the user based on his preferences and restrictions provided during onboarding. The user also has an option to swap new recipe until they find an option of their liking.
Directions
After sorting the ingredients, Chops leads the user to a step-by-step cooking method which has a video as well as written instructions.
Ingredient List
Once the recipe is selected Chops displays ingredients required for the meal. It shows default serving size for 2. This can be changed based on need. The user can check off each ingredient once purchased.
Click and Share
The users get to take a picture of the dish they made and share it to their friends and family. The clicked picture gets saved in their profile gallery as well.
Pantry
The user flow is similar to the "Surprise me" user flow. The only difference is entering available ingredients before seeking recipe suggestions.
“Not today, I have a full pantry”
This option allows user to find healthy recipes using the ingredients available in their pantry. On selecting this feature, users get to enter each ingredient available or find recipes using already loaded ingredients.
Profile Design
The profile displays the user's achievements, their preferences and restrictions, completed meals and food images clicked by them on completion.
Rewards
Users are given chef's hat as a reward after each cooking as they progress. The rewards keeps upgrading as they progress. They also get access to the entire recipe anytime, once they cook that particular dish. Each completed recipe automatically builds their cookbook.
Pantry
Chops provides each user with their own pantry page where they can load the available ingredients anytime. That way Chops keeps track of ingredients, and also suggests recipes based on available ingredients.
MOVING FORWARD
Impact
Our target users found the interactions fun and interesting to use each time. The rewards kept them motivated. They liked having two options to choose from for cooking. They felt it would create more impact if they could share their cookbooks as well as view their friend’s cookbook.
I would like to build a community where users can share their cookbooks and also view other’s cookbook progress. The more the recipes, the more the progress and also integrate AI to curate more recipes.
What I learned
I learned that even a small design change can have a huge impact on the user experience. The most important takeaway for me is to always focus on the real needs of the user when coming up with design ideas and solutions.