The purpose of this project was showcase our UX Design skills we had obtained throughout this bootcamp. We collaborated as a team to create a company using UX methods such as branding, interviews, competitors analysis, research, and website mockup and prototype.

Spicely’s Mission

Spicely’s mission is to provide culture-specific spice blends inspired from various regions around the world.​

My Contributions

While working on Spicely I contributed to the branding, competitive analysis, and helped design the mid-fi and high-fi mockups.

The Design Team

Robert Chacon - UX/UI Specialist

Otito Ihebuzor - UX/UI Interactions Designer

Christiana James - UX Writer

Miranda Kemp - UX Manager

Beverly Unegbu - UX Researcher

Tools

Spicely

Project Overview

Research Plan

For our research plan we looked to gain insight on the following:

  • Target market’s positive and negative points when looking for ingredients and spices

  • What ingredients and spices they use to cook

  • Their cooking process

  • Interest in an all-in-one spice blend that could cut down the hunt for authentic cultural spices

Competitor Analysis

We completed a competitor and comparative analysis of Spicely’s main competitors. We analyzed the following:

  • their target audience

  • unique value

  • product offerings

  • price points

  • marketing tactics

  • customer reviews

  • retail options

  • market share

  • websites and applications

Target Audience

User Research

Problem Statement

The audience we wanted to target is the following:

  • 24 – 60 years old​

  • Cook their own meals for themselves and/or family. ​

  • Cook at least 3x a week​

  • Apt to making and trying  ethnic cultural dishes

To obtain participants for user interviews, we created a screening survey and distributed it through social media and personal networks. We identified 5 qualified individuals and conducted an hour long interview (each) to identify positive and negative pain points when it comes to purchasing and using cultural spices and spice blends.​

Data from the interviews revealed to us a few interesting behaviors of our target audience:

  • More than 50% participants have difficulty finding spice blends authentic to their cultural spices,

  • 54% purchase spice blends once every 3 months, and

  • 29% of participants travel 10-15 miles to purchase their preferred cultural spice.

Due to the lack of access to authentic cultural spice blends, our users need a website where they can purchase these blends online or locate stores that sell them.

Through our user research and problem statements, we were able to create a user persona, Mia XU! Mia was key to leading our decisions for what our main target users would need and want.

We created an empathy map for Mia to help us understand her user experience, motivations, and concerns.

User Persona

Empathy Map

Journey Map

We created an empathy map for Mia to help us understand the path she may take to reach her goal of finding authentic cultural spice blends she needs.

Low-fi Sketches and Mid-Fi Wireframes

We then designed sketched wireframes and then created a Mid-fi wireframes of the Spicely website. Below are examples of the work we did.

Filter Page - Sketches

Filter Page - Mid-Fi Wireframes

The color palette for the website was derived from the color of various spices.

Style Guide

Usability Testing

Once our high-fidelity was complete, we did a round of usability testing. The following are the tasks users had to complete and the results from the testing.

Tasks

Task 1: This is your first time on spicely.com. Look into Spicely's History

Task 2: You want to try to cook a new dish called Chimichurri Carne Asada Tacos. Locate on this website where you would go to find instructions to cook this new dish

Task 3: Find the closest store that sells Spicely Products

Task 4: Purchase the Ras El Hanout 2.2 oz Spice Blend

Results

Top takeaways are as follows:

  • 100% Success rate of completing tasks

  • 100% Success rate of completing tasks in under 5 mins

Iteration

While we did have great results, there was also room for improvement. We had a list of 5 items that we needed to fix based on user feedback. 

  • Headers could use some color

  • "Our Story" is text heavy​

  • Spacing on product page too much​

  • Home page carousel is too fast​

  • Plane icon too confusing

High Fidelity Prototype

We implemented user feedback and created the high fidelity prototype. Please feel free to click through the prototype.

Next Steps

While my group focused on the purchase of a product, we recommend exploring the following options for future iterations:

  • Create a favorites page

  • Create a user profile page

  • Sign In/Up page