Sunny Consolvo

1

• Sunny Consolvo
• Alan Coopersmith
• Anthony Polito
• Cliff Tham
• November 17, 1997

2
The Problem

• Traditional Paper Cookbook
• Cannot customize recipes
• Sometimes ingredients or terms are unfamiliar
• Extensive glossary frequently not present
• Recipes and unfamiliar terms may be in more than
  one book
• Cannot automatically create a shopping list for
  you
• CUIZINE solves all these problems
• Recipe database with user friendly front end
• Contains extensive collection of recipes and
  cooking terms
• Gives the user the power of modern database access

3
The Tasks

• Simple task - Find a recipe for chocolate chip
  cookies
• Searching for a recipe is one of the most basic
  tasks that users will perform using a cookbook.
• If this task is not effortless for the user to
  accomplish, we have a serious problem.
• Almost everyone will know what a chocolate chip
  cookie is.
• If the users werent sure what they were
  searching for it might skew our results.

4
Tasks (cont)

• Moderate Task - Your friend has just told you
  about this great new ingredient called radicchio.
  You want to try some, however you are unsure
  about exactly what it is. Do some research on
  radicchio, including finding a recipe that uses
  it. Make sure you feel comfortable with all of
  the recipes ingredients.
• This tests two features that are major selling
  points for using CUIZINE over a traditional
  cookbook.
• Glossary
• Search Engine
• In order to perform the task, the user will have
  to use multiple features together.

5
Tasks (cont)

• Difficult Task - You want to throw a dinner party
  and need to create a menu for your party. It
  should include at least one entree with chicken,
  one alcoholic beverage, and one fruit dessert.
  You would like to give a copy of the menu to your
  friend.
• This task requires the user to use many of the
  features of CUIZINE.
• The user may perform this task using a variety of
  methods.

6
Heuristic Evaluation Results

• Problems found in the Recipe Finder
• The meaning of the Search for Any and Search
  for All buttons could have been confusing to the
  novice user.
• Fix These buttons now say Search for Any Words
  and Search for All Words

7
Recipe Finder Problems (cont)

• In order to clear the search criteria in the
  Recipe Finder, the user needed to close and
  reopen the window.
• Fix A Clear Search Options button was added.

8
Recipe Finder Problems (cont)

• The Choose Ingredient and Choose Category
  selections did not work similarly to the
  listboxes in the Glossary and Recipe Index.
• Fix This works correctly now. (We meant to have
  this working in the last prototype but didnt
  have the time to implement it.)

9
Recipe Finder Problems (cont)

• In order to view a recipe in the Recipe Finder,
  the user needed to press View Recipe, but in
  the Recipe Index a user could also double click
  on a recipe to view it.
• Fix Double clicking on a recipe throughout
  CUIZINE now brings up that recipes card.
• CUIZINE gave no feedback when no recipes matching
  the search criteria were found.
• Fix Search Results now displays none found
  in this circumstance.

10
Recipe Finder Problems (cont)

• The user could search for both the item and NOT
  the item. E.g. the user could search for a
  recipe containing both BEER and NOT BEER.
• Fix We realize this is a problem but have not
  yet fixed it. We dont feel it is as important a
  problem as the evaluators seemed to feel, and we
  did not have time to get it working correctly.

11
Menu Planner Problems

• Problems found in the Menu Planner
• Adding recipes to the menu from within the Menu
  Planner was not elegant.
• Fixes The Menu Planner window has been
  completely redesigned.
• There is now a large alphabetical list of all
  recipes that the user can scroll through (that
  includes a text field) to add recipes to the
  menu.
• The Recipe Finder and Recipe Index buttons have
  been made less conspicuous.

12
Recipe Card Problems

• Problems found in Recipe Card
• There was no confirmation when a user added an
  recipe to the Menu Planner.
• Fix The status bar now alerts the user that the
  recipe has been added.

13
Recipe Card Problems (cont)

• When there are no ingredients in a recipe there
  was no indication of their absence in the
  Ingredients box.
• Fix Now the Recipe Card indicates when there are
  no ingredients (though, in a consumer-ready
  version of CUIZINE, all recipes would have
  ingredients)

14
Recipe Card Problems (cont)

• There were no headings for the instructions and
  ingredients boxes.
• Fix Now there are headings for these boxes.

15
Other Problems

• General problems with the interface
• The Exit button did not ask for confirmation when
  exiting from the program.
• We were not quite sure if this was a problem.
• As a compromise for users who do not require
  confirmation, they may choose not to see this pop
  up window again.

16
Other Problems (cont)

• There were no close buttons other then the
  standard Windows x in the top right corner.
• Fix Now every window has a close button in the
  lower right corner.

17
Other Changes To CUIZINE

• Color Scheme
• CUIZINE no longer has the dull gray Windows
  look.
• Icons
• Many of the button icons have been changed.
• Visually pleasing
• The relation to the icons and the function they
  perform is now more obvious.

18
Other Changes (cont)

• More complete recipes added
• Real recipes have been added
• Most original recipes were short and incomplete
• New recipes have full ingredient lists and
  preparation instructions
• Mirrors the real world better (lets us test the
  scroll bars in those boxes)
• Favorites have been implemented
• The user can select favorite recipes
• the Recipe Index now has a section for favorite
  recipes.