grandPalate
Connecting generations through cooking and conversation prompts.
Time
2 Weeks
Team
2 Product Designers
Role
UX Research, UX Design, UI Visual
Deliverables
Design System,
Figma Prototype
Product
grandPalate creates opportunities for conversation and transfer of knowledge between grandchildren and their grandparents.
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grandPalate is a tablet application that is designed to mimic the experience of grandchildren cooking, conversing, and sharing a meal with their grandparents. grandPalate gives young adults the setting to ask intimate questions of their grandparents while affirming their interest in the grandparents’ answers. Through three levels of conversation prompts of escalating self-disclosure, users will have the opportunity to discuss and learn about each other’s lives, learning the answers to questions that they would never have known how to – or even thought to – ask.
As a capstone project for UI/UX coursework at Dartmouth, my teammate and I aimed to create a digital solution that would bridge the generational divide.
For grandchildren and grandparents that are not physically together, there are few opportunities and settings to interact in meaningful ways, and existing digital methods fail to adequately consider the accessibility needs of older generations.
HMW create more opportunities for geographically-separated grandparents to share their life experiences with their grandchildren?
We designed grandPalate - an application designed to bridge generations through cooking and conversation.
Background & Starting Challenge
PROCESS
RESEARCH
Competitive Market Research
In order to gain insight into apps that attempt to bridge the generational gap and promote conversation and sharing of cultural knowledge, we researched similar products. These include card games aimed to facilitate conversations – including some geared specifically toward grandparents and grandchildren – as well as experiences designed to create connections in a virtual setting.
From this research, we drew the following takeaways:
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Conversation prompts are effective at facilitating conversation between
grandparents and grandchildren-
They are most effective when both parties answer questions​
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Grandparents need validation that grandchildren want to hear their answers
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Levels of conversation prompts can be used to build intimacy
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Connection happens through shared goals or experiences, such as cooking
User Research
In order to better understand the perspectives of grandchildren and grandparents, we conducted in-depth user interviews with both user groups.
This process involved several rounds of user interviews as we honed in on the needs of our users.
We began by seeking to understand the conversations that grandparents and grandchildren have and the opportunities grandchildren have to learn about their family members. We synthesized our user interviews, created seven empathy maps, and based on these insights, we created two user personas and two journey maps.
DEFINE
Pain Points and Guiding Principles based on User Research:
Based on the key user quotes we groups and identified, we synthesized our key insights into the following five major pain points:
Older and younger generations need to connect and have more conversations in order to understand and learn from each other.
IDEATE
Brainstorming solutions
Drawing on our user research, we used mind mapping to brainstorm different ways to facilitate intergenerational interactions.
The idea of cooking together emerged as a successful way to connect generations, inspired by our research into League of Kitchens – a cooking class where an older chef will share their culture's recipe and cook with an audience.
From here, we did some rapid prototyping using Crazy Eights and began to map out the User Flows.
PROTOTYPE
Visual Design System
Clean UI
We chose high contrast, clean, and simple colors and font to make our design easier on the eyes for older users.
Large Text & Buttons
We used large font and button size to increase the readability for older users who might have vision impairments.
Recognizable Icons
We intentionally used icons that resembled the most familiar and common icons across other platforms, and included text explaining the features' function.
Zoom
FaceTime
GrandPalate
Large Screen
From our user research, we learned that older users prefer larger screens. Given this, we designed for the iPad Pro 11", the dimensions of which allow for larger buttons and text.
Low Fidelity to High Fidelity Screens Wireframes
From our sketches, we built out high-level low-fidelity wireframes to visualize our idea and evaluate its feasibility. Through these low-fidelity wireframes, we identified our key navigation bar features and experimented with possible interface layouts.
Final Interactive Figma Prototype
TEST
User Testing
Through UserTesting.com, we recruited 6 users that fit our target demographic to evaluate the usability of our interactive Figma prototype.
We designed screener questions and a series of tasks and questions for the users to complete. After, we reviewed the qualitative and quantitative data, analyzing the recordings and key metrics that helped us identify areas for improvement. By watching recordings and reviewing the user data, we incoprorated suggestions from users to improve the user experience.
REFLECT
Takeaways & Next Steps
Our design has turned out to be especially relevant and resonate with people during this socially-distanced era of COVID-19 and we have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from people saying they would love to use this app if it were to be developed. I have really enjoyed this project and would love to pursue turning it into a real app!