ingreedy
Mobile App | Won Best Designed @ Game of Apps
Ingreedy is a recipe discovery app designed to help users make the most of what’s already in their kitchens. Instead of searching endlessly for new recipes, users simply input the ingredients they have, and Ingreedy suggests healthy, easy-to-make meal ideas.
Role
UI/UX Designer
Tools
Figma
Date
September 2023
1. My Role
I served as the Lead Designer for ingreedy, responsible for driving the visual direction, user experience, and interaction design.
My work included:
Leading design brainstorming sessions with the team
Conducting user research and synthesizing findings
Building user flows, wireframes, and prototypes
Creating the visual brand (color palette, typography, UI components)
Implementing feedback from industry leaders
2. Project Goals
Through early user research and team discussions, we pinpointed several challenges home cooks face:
Ingredient Guilt: Letting food spoil feels wasteful and discouraging.
Decision Fatigue: Searching for recipes often leads to frustration and giving up.
Health Barriers: Users wanted healthier meals but struggled to adapt based on what they had on hand.
We aimed to design an app that would:
Make it effortless to input ingredients and get instant meal ideas.
Focus on healthy, achievable recipes.
Turn everyday kitchen moments into small wins, not chores.
3. User Research
I led the research phase by conducting surveys and interviews with a wide range of users — from college students to busy parents.
Key insights that shaped our direction included:
Speed is crucial: Users expected recipe matches within seconds, not minutes.
Flexibility improves loyalty: Allowing for optional dietary filters (vegan, gluten-free) was seen as a must.
Visual Inspiration Matters: Seeing appetizing photos makes users much more likely to try new recipes.
We also performed a competitive analysis of food and recipe apps, noting that many had cluttered interfaces or were saturated with ads
4. Feature Design
Ingreedy’s design philosophy centered around simplicity, encouragement, and clarity.
Key Features:
Ingredient Input: Easily add ingredients by typing or selecting from common suggestions.
Smart Recipe Matching: Find healthy meal ideas based on what’s available — no extra grocery trips required.
Personalized Filters: Users can toggle preferences like vegetarian, low-carb, or dairy-free.
Visual Recipe Cards: Big, photo-rich recipe previews with short prep time labels and difficulty tags.
Save & Share: Bookmark favorites or send recipes to friends in a tap.
Design Choices:
Fresh Color Palette: Greens, yellows, and soft orange accents to evoke freshness and simplicity.
Minimalist UI: Prioritized clean navigation, big tap targets, and minimal text to avoid decision overload.
Friendly Tone: Microcopy like "Let’s get creative!" and "Here’s what you can whip up" to keep the experience positive and casual.
5. Problems & Solutions
Problems:
Users found it tedious to re-add ingredients each time they reopened the app.
Early prototypes overwhelmed users with too many recipe results.
Users wanted to browse even if they didn’t have a specific ingredient list ready.
Solutions:
Introduced an Ingredient Pantry feature, allowing users to save frequently used items for faster recipe suggestions (to be implemented)
Introduced a new recipe each day on the home screen.
6. Personal Learnings
Leading the design for Ingreedy taught me the importance of collaboration, iteration, and creative flexibility.
Working closely with product teammates and developers sharpened my ability to balance ideal user experience with technical feasibility.
Key takeaways:
Small conveniences (like saved ingredients) go a long way toward user retention.
Designing for real-world uncertainty (like incomplete ingredient lists) makes a product more human and forgiving.
Staying visual and encouraging helps users overcome friction and feel proud of their everyday choices.
Through ingreedy, I deepened my skills as a design leader — not just solving UX problems, but helping guide a team toward building something genuinely delightful.