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 we looked to gain insight on our target market’s positive and negative points. We wanted to know what they use to cook, how they cook, and what outcomes they expect when they utilize spice blends in their dishes. Our goal was to understand if these cooks would be interested 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 decided to analyze the target audience, unique value, product offerings, price points, marketing tactics, customer reviews, retail options, market share, and websites of the above brands.

Target Audience

The audience we wanted to target is the following:

  • 24 – 60 years old​

  • Individuals who live on their own ​

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

  • Cook at least 3x a week​

  • Apt to making and trying  cultural dishes

User Research

Knowing that we would need to get in-depth understanding of our target market's user habits, we did some research and found that conducting interviews would be the best way to gather this information. So we decided to conduct 5 contextual interviews (lasting one hour each) with participants from our target group.​

​In order to obtain participants, we created a screening survey and distributed it among populations gathered through social media and personal network​. After participants took the survey, we identified which ones qualified for us to be able to interview. We then held interviews and we were able to identify positive and negative pain points when it comes to purchasing and using cultural spices and spice blends.

We also created a survey to see if there was even a need in the market for authentic cultural spices. Survey results are the following:

  • More than 50% of our participants have difficulty finding spice blends authentic to cultural cuisines in their local market

  • 44.6% of our participants ranged between age 24-30, with 92% of them cooking culturally cuisines often and 95% of them using cultural spice blends in their meals

  • 54.2% respondents purchase spice blends once every 3 months

  • 29.2% of participants travel 10-15 miles to purchase their preferred cultural spice

In short, more than 50% of our qualified participants are in need of a cultural spice blend that is more easily accessible without compromising the authenticity. ​

Problem Statement

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.

User Persona

Empathy Map

Journey Map

Sketches and Low-Fi Prototype

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

Individual Product Page

Cart Page

Filter Page

Home Page

Filter Page

Product Page

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