While Cookidoo excelled in recipe curation and UI design, premium subscriptions stagnated and time spent in the app declined. User interviews and usability testing revealed major choke points behind low engagement—namely, the cumbersome process of acting on a chosen recipe. Users first had to manually list every ingredient, then search for those ingredients online or visit local stores, and finally switch between multiple apps and platforms to complete their grocery purchases.
That convoluted workflow discouraged busy users from engaging deeply—or upgrading to premium—since they still needed external apps or marketplaces to finish the meal-preparation cycle.
1. Research and User Interviews
• Conducted surveys and interviews with users
• Key insight: Users wanted minimal friction between recipe selection and grocery shopping,
and maximum autonomy over shopping lists.
2. Wireframes and Prototypes
• Created wireframes for the new shopping list and vendor
integration screens.
• Prototyped the “Add to Cart” and “Order Now” workflows to ensure intuitive navigation.
3. UI Design Enhancements
• create minimal confusion while highlighting essential features (e.g., vendor options, edit buttons).
4. Testing and Iteration
• Conducted usability testing with target users. after witch 2 more iterations were made
• In second iteration added ability to add "Items you have".
• In third (final) iteration added "Add button"
I automated the shopping list creation based on chosen recipes, allowed users to edit the shopping list by adding or removing items they already had. Enabled seamless integration with external API marketplace of vendors (Walmart, AmazonFresh, Vons, and Instacart (US version)). Provided location-based store recommendations, helping users find the nearest or preferred vendor. Offered a one-click grocery order feature, reducing the time and effort needed for meal preparation.
After the initial test release and user interviews, we discovered that although we’d added the ability to adjust grocery orders by including multiple recipes and quantities, the “one-click order” still lacked an option to remove ingredients the user already had.
In the final version, users gained full freedom to add or subtract items, and usability was enhanced by introducing a large green “+” button in the shopping list. After two iterations, the finished product looks like this.
Metrics Before Redesign:
User engagement: 25%
Premium subscriptions: 18%
Metrics After Redesign:
User engagement: +40% (Time spent on app increased significantly).
Premium subscriptions: +30% (Users found added value in curated content).
Shopping list usage: +70% of active users utilized the new feature regularly.
User satisfaction: 87% of surveyed users found the grocery integration “extremely useful.