Attracting users with smart filters, themed recipes, and an engaging user interface
Saturdayat7 aims to make putting on dinner parties for friends, colleagues and special occasions an enjoyable experience, offering unique recipes, dinner party themes, and the option to curate entire menus.
Challenge
The challenge was in the interface design and the interaction capabilities of this project. With varying tastes, possible dietary restrictions, and diversity of cuisine and theme interests, this website needed to offer a spectrum of options within an organized, smart filtration system. The design of a user's account needed to integrate shopping list items, saved items, a dinner party component to hold curated selections, and an area for suggested table settings focused on thoughtfully accommodating every guest. Key focus needed to be placed on optimizing the enjoyment of the dinner party experience as well as creating an easy-to-use tool for dinner party planners.
Model
B2C
Category
User Interface Design
Year
2023
Process
Researching the problem space
The research goals of this project included understanding who needs this tool and their motivations. It was also critical to understand target-user frustrations with competitor resources and identify features that would be the most valuable to these users.
Key research findings
One of the important takeaways from user research included the frustration experienced in gathering all of the necessary components to host a dinner party. Many users reported using 5-6 different resources for finding recipes, using pinterest to explore party themes, and creating their own from-scratch shopping lists they kept track of manually for buying ingredients. 70% of users reported being disappointed by some of the recipes they made and wondered why they had been included on such discerning sites.
Translating needs into features
From the touch points and needs gleaned from the research and empathizing phases, I created a Roadmap to outline specific app features and organize upcoming design efforts.
With a better understanding of the users and the priority of website features, I began designing how those features would be realized. Saturday at7 would focus on three main capabilities:
Find Recipes
Find Themes
Find Menus
Sketching user flows
To establish user flow and content layout, I sketched wireframes for screens that users would need to complete the three main tasks. One of the biggest considerations was the filtration system that would offer users a comprehensive list of options for diet preferences including gluten-free, keto, raw, and nut free options. Also, filters for dish type, ingredients, and cuisine type were included. Higher fidelity wireframes and prototypes were produced after flow refinements were made.
With so many diverse tastes and possibilities, this project allowed me to get very familiar with a wide range of user preferences all within a target market of discerning, sophisticated users. The final user interface and interaction design received enthusiastic praise by users. I was surprised myself by the number of UX cognitive patterns and the 19 UI patterns I integrated to complete this design. Clear entry points, progressive disclosure, module tabs, and dynamic queries were a few primary ones.
A few firm favorite party themes: Ode to Jimmy/Margaritaville, Athena at the Acropolis/Greek, We Did It Our Way/Sinatra + Cigars, 1940s Chic/Ritz, Amalfi On My Mind/Amalfi Coast, The Gilded Age/NY in the 1900s.
While a dinner party planning app that brings many resources together to create efficiencies in executing a dinner party can't solve every problem, this approach offers entertainers several high-quality party planning options—within one website—to appeal to a diverse and unique set of party planners and special guests.
