Common Cupboard - App Prototype
Interviews, Testing, Figma
Project Timeline: 12 Weeks
A cooking and planning app for roommates
In general, college students’ first time cooking on their own is when living in a dorm or apartment on or off campus. This often involves limited cooking supplies and pantry staples as well as sharing a kitchen space with roommates. This app serves as a way to engage roommates together to manage and plan their equipment and find recipes to cook together.
Key Features
Join Your Roommates
Customize your account by selecting eating preferences and join roommates in a shared kitchen
Find a Recipe
Sort by popular categories and get personalized recomendations based on what you have in your kitchen
Manage Kitchen
Share your equipment and pantry items with your roommates to keep track of who owns what
Add to Pantry
Add items to your equipment and pantry to unlock new recipes, or save them to your shared wishlist
Add Groceries
Add missing grocery items to list and select who's eating to estimate price
Share Groceries
View and text a shared grocery list between you and your roommates
User Research Process
Survey Data
39 total respondents
32 qualified respondents
-
Must be 30 years old or younger
-
Must have moved out of childhood home
During your first year living away from home, what access to cooking supplies / spaces did you have?
78%
Basic kitchen access or less
When you first left home, how would you rate your comfort level in the kitchen?
2.89
/5
Currently, what resources do you use to learn new recipes and/or skills?
91%
Online recipes
User Interviews
7 total interviews conducted
30-45 minutes
I was using all of the stuff that my roommate had, but then I started to accumulate my own cookware
I cooked in a kitchen while other roommates were preparing food, so I could see what my roommates were making and sometimes we would try each others food
Staples are shared, but the more specific things were kept separate
Common Themes
Kitchen Access
-
Limited equipment Freshman year (microwave, refrigerator, maybe one or two ranges and a small oven)
-
Users gained more independence from the school structure and meal plan, with many living in apartment with roommates
Shared Spaces
-
Some users shared having issues or being uncomfortable sharing a kitchen with acquaintances
-
Other described cooking as a social or communal activity with roommates, partners, or friends
College Experience
-
Users mentioned forming an early group of friends with either their roommates or others who lived in the same dorm as them
-
Speed and value, as well as repeatability, are valued in the kitchen
Learning Styles
-
All users express that simply giving new things a try and learning from their mistakes helps greatly
-
‘GoodReads’ and personal training apps provide increased sense of motivation to keep on task in a new hobby or activity
Competitive Analysis
Two types of popular applications were used for comparison: traditional cooking applications and pantry-management applications
Parsnip
+ Provides and quizzes to help ‘level up’ cooking skills
+ Geared towards users who are cooking for the first time
- ‘Inane’ quizzes and frustrating microtransactions
- No social element
- Not specific for college students
Zest Cooking
+ Michelin Star recipes simplified for the average home chef
+ ‘Easy to manage’ and ‘makes cooking less intimidating’
- Issues cited with cost, information accuracy, quiz ambiguity, and allergy information
KitchenPal
+ Tracks all ingredients in Kitchen
+ Custom shopping list with prices
+ Scannable items to add to app
- No kitchen equipment functionality
- No social element
Pantry Check
+ Custom shopping lists with prices
+ User driven shared data
+ Family sharing
- No equipment tracking
Initial Wireframes and User Testing Round 1
User Testing - Round 1
User Tasks - 3 Semi-guided User Tests
- Set up an account and join a roommate
- Find a recipe that the apartment has all equipment and pantry items
- Find a specific recipe, add a missing pantry item to the kitchen, and calculate price
Account Creation
-
Information gathered is in line with what the user expects from any account creation
-
More clarity on choosing one or more self-descriptions is needed
Recipe Identification
-
Users did not immediately understand the meaning of the icons, but eventually made sense of them by asking follow up questions
-
This style of overlays used was not easily closed
Recipe Card Info
-
All 3 users added the new pantry item right within the recipe card, rather than backing out into the ‘my kitchen’ tab
-
Missing information, including cooking time, adjusting serving amounts, allergens, and recipe tags
Mockup Screens and User Testing Round 2
User Testing - Round 2
User Tasks - 4 Semi-guided User Tests
- Set up an account and join a roommate
- Find a recipe that the apartment has all equipment and pantry items
- Find a specific recipe, add a missing pantry item to the kitchen, and calculate price
New for this round:
- View the list of shared items in your kitchen and identify the owner of a specific item
- Add items to the shared grocery list, view and text the list
Home Page
-
Users mentioned categories as the first place they are likely to interact with
-
Content like ‘recently viewed’ or more personal recommendations were listed as missing
Iconography
-
Filled in vs. empty icons for equipment and pantry items were unclear to some users, with one user suggesting that any presence of an icon implied the recipe was something to try
-
Navigation and category icons were deemed to be helpful and clear
Kitchen Items
-
Users noted that it could be hard to find a specific item they were looking for
-
Some users mentioned liking the pictures, while others said that it may be too much information
-
Users mentioned that a wishlist of items they would like to buy would be a helpful addition
Recipe Ingredients
-
Some users tapped on the ingredients that they already had and then added the remaining to the list, while others selected the ingredients that they still needed to purchase
-
‘Additional’ ingredients title was misleading
-
All users were able to successfully find the Pizza and add basil to their kitchen
UI Improvements and Final Designs
Home Page
- Prioritized categories and made them more personalized
- Added 'pick up where you left off' as requested for a more continuous user experience
- Increased amount of user funnels and introduced 'our apartment' dashboard footer
Find a Recipe
- Introduced more categories
-Highlighted popular categories
Recipe Tiles and Icons
- Instead of filled in / empty designs, added and removed icons to delineate having or missing items and ingredients
Our Kitchen
- Simplified UI by removing images and profile pictures from main page
- Added ability to pop-open items to see image, manage, and add notes
- Added ability to search for items for easy a
Our Kitchen
- Changed header text from 'additional ingredients' to 'grocery list' to better align with user expectations
- Updated item design and selected state to emulate user crossing ingredient off in order to avoid confusion
- Dynamically upated button text so users know exactly how many items are being added
Appendix
Thesis Proposal Sources
Cheng, Natalie. “The Ingredients of Design: Diving into the Ui of the Zest Cooking App.” Medium, Medium, 29 Sept. 2024, medium.com/@natjcheng/the-ingredients-of-design-diving-into-the-ui-of-the-zest-cooking-app-c76b8c737184.
Kaesberg, Zakary, et al. “Effects of video technology on cooking self-efficacy of college students.” Journal of American College Health, vol. 71, no. 8, 2023, pp. 2562–2568, https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2021.1978462.
Kelly, Ryan M., et al. “‘It’s About Missing Much More Than the People’: How Students Use Digital Technologies to Alleviate Homesickness.” Acm, 2021, pp. 1–17.
Soldavini, Jessica, and Maureen Berner. “Characteristics associated with cooking frequency among college students.” International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science, vol. 23, 2021, p. 100303, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijgfs.2021.100303.
Wang, Qingbin, et al. “Convivial cooking: Impacts of an educational intervention on college students’ food agency.” Journal of American College Health, vol. 72, no. 8, 2024, pp. 2652–2660, https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2022.2122721.
Competitive Analysis Sources
Parsnip
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tapforce.parsnip&pcampaignid=web_share
Zest Cooking
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.zestapp.mobile&pcampaignid=web_share
KitchenPal
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.icuisto.icuisto&pcampaignid=web_share
Pantry Check
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pantry-check-grocery-list/id966702368
All prototype images come from Unsplash and are free to use under the Unsplash license.
Below are the original web addresses for these images:
‘vegetable and meat on bowl’ by Anh Nguyen
‘toast bread with blueberry on black plate’ by Joseph Gonzalez
‘Pesto pasta with sliced tomatoes served on white ceramic plate’ by Eaters Collective
‘cooked tacos’ by Chad Montano
‘two sauces topped with seeds’ by Cala
‘red cherries on white ceramic bowl’ by Jimmy Dean
‘vegetable salad on white ceramic bowl’ by Taylor Kiser
‘shallow focus photo of hamburger’ by Deryn Macey
‘raspberry cake’ by Anna Tukhfatullina Food Photographer/Stylist
‘bowl of meat with sauce’ by khloe arledge
‘sliced tomato and green leaf vegetable on white ceramic plate’ by Luisa Brimble
‘meat balls on oval white plate’ by Emiliano Vittoriosi
‘person dipping fried cuisine on dip’ by Léo Roza
‘potato fries on white ceramic plate’ by Ben Lei
‘a pepperoni pizza sitting on top of a wooden cutting board’ by David Foodphototasty
‘closeup photography of woman smiling’ by Michael Dam
‘a young man wearing glasses standing in front of a mountain’ by Diego Hernández
‘a man with a goatee smiles at the camera’ by Wellington Ferreira
‘a group of people preparing food in a kitchen’ by sweetlifediabetes
Additional Prototype Sources
Google Logo
"File:Google Favicon 2025.svg." Wikimedia Commons. 5 Jun 2026, 20:46 UTC. <https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Google_Favicon_2025.svg&oldid=1226434824> 28 Jun 2026, 14:38.
Facebook Logo
"File:2021 Facebook icon.svg." Wikimedia Commons. 24 Apr 2026, 21:59 UTC. <https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:2021_Facebook_icon.svg&oldid=1203019625> 28 Jun 2026, 14:54.
Recipe Ingredients Images
All recipe ingredient images come from https://www.instacart.com/
Pexels Stock Images
‘cooking asian dish in a home kitchen’ by Huỳnh Như Mavi
‘pizza on tray’ by Vinícios Ramos
Recipe Text
https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/homemade_pepperoni_pizza/
Figma Plugins and Libraries
Mockup Plugin
https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/817043359134136295
Sign-in with Google Template
https://www.figma.com/community/file/1311813378663535937
Iconify Icon Library
https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/735098390272716381
iOS UI Kit
https://www.figma.com/community/file/1527721578857867021/ios-and-ipados-26