This was a class paper for my web publishing class where I conducted user experience tests and made recommendations to improve the site.

1. Usability Test for Chefd.com
Allie Weekley - Intro to Web Publishing
March 8, 2018
Test Preparation
In order to prepare myself to conduct a usability test for Chef’d, I reviewed the website
using Google Chrome on a MacBook with no plug ins or add on’s on my browser and was using
campus Wi-Fi on the second floor of the library. I re-familiarized myself with the homepage
layout and information available. The colors are super vibrant and almost remind me of the
colors of food I would like to enjoy. I was able to scroll down and see what the featured meals
are and who the celebrity chef of the month is. From a single scroll down the homepage I am
quickly able to see a few Chef’d partners as well as celebrities that use Chef’d. There is a lot of
info that tells me that Chef’d has a lot to offer a variety of types of customer needs. However, I
felt like I had to do a lot of scrolling to get information from the site. The choppy layout made it
more difficult to experience the site cohesively.
To get started on the usability tasks I was able to utilize the top bar drop-down menu to
search through meal plans to find the Spoon University meal plan which seemed pretty intuitive.
From there I had access to a lot of great information including a brief overview of what the
Spoon University meal plan offers as well as details of the meal plan and how much food I will
get and at about what average price. I was then prompted to “get started”. There were step by
step questions I was asked to tailor my meal plan to my likes and dislikes as well as allergies. I
don’t have any allergies and choose to eat poultry and vegetarian so I selected those options. I
again found myself doing a lot of scrolling up and down the page to get the full sentence of
information regarding these selections. Then I got to choose how many days I’d like to have a
Spoon University meal. I went with just one meal that my $65 budget would support. The last
step was the most exciting because I got to see my meal picks with bright vibrant pictures. I was
also given the choice to swap meals if there was something I wasn’t as fond of. I messed around
with the swap button just to see my options, however, didn’t like any of those as much as the
current one and was able to exit out of that window and return to my meals. The Spoon
University meal plan also provides “Grab n Go” meals that take less than 5 minutes to prepare as
well as fruit and healthy study snacks. The meals all looked delicious and easy and quick enough
for a busy college student to handle. The total price is $65 for one meal kit.
Moving onto my second task to add another meal, a 2nd meal in my case, I was able to
scroll back up to my previous selections made and add another where one more meal was added
to what I previously had. When I went to make sure it was a spicy meal, I noticed I really didn’t
have much of a place to select what the flavor of the meal would be. I could view my swap
options but couldn’t refine those results at all. I went to the progress bar of what information I
previously input to get to my current status. I was unable to go back to plan type, proteins, or
allergens. I finally noticed that under the description for each meal was details on the flavor,
nutrition facts, and prep time and other information. There were not any meals that were
classified as spicy under my meal preferences so I went with the buffalo sandwich which was the
spiciest out of all options.

2. For my third task, I went in to check on the caloric content
of my meals, “Grab n’ Go” meals, and snacks. I was able to click
each meal to see more specifics of them and the nutrition facts. I
checked each and was able utilize the provided exit button to
return to the view of all my meals. Once I got to my 4th “Grab n’
Go” meal to look at, I was met with a long loading wheel that
never did load (Image 1). I initially contributed this to overused
campus WiFi, as I’d been having troubles earlier that day but
found it odd that it loaded the info on the previous 3 meals just
fine. I couldn’t click any other meals but could click add to cart so
I proceeded.
For my fourth task, I added my meal plan to my cart and put in my residential zip code
and pretended it was Monday March 5th and I wanted to have my spicy meal on Saturday March
10th. Chef’d informed me that my only delivery options were 3/14, 3/15, or 3/16 so my meal will
not come in time for me to prepare the spicy meal then.
As I proceeded with checkout, I was given a message about an inventory issue with the
Four Cheese Mac N’ Cheese in a mug. The same meal I had issues loading. The message said
that meal was sold out so it was removed from my cart. I wish this was something I was made
aware of as I was selecting my meals where I could have easily swapped it out rather than being
short one “Grab n’ Go” meal. Overall my shopping experience with Chef’d for a Spoon
University meal plan was a good experience. However, I really wish the site would have let me
know sooner that one of my options was sold out and I didn’t have to do so much inferring to
understand what was going on with the site.
Choosing Participants
Tester 1: Austin Casel, a 22-year-old college student studying finance and economics. He has
never heard of Chef’d before or used an online meal kit ordering service but he enjoys cooking
and healthy eating. Austin spends his time on the internet mostly at home at his desk or studying
in the library. He spends about 15-18 hours on the internet a week, answering emails, completing
classwork, and casually browsing. Austin said he primarily uses the computer to check out social
media rather than his mobile device so this adds to a little of the time he spends online. In total
this is about 75% browsing, emails, and schoolwork and 15% social media use. Austin considers
himself a pretty high experience user of the internet and says he basically grew up using the
internet and is comfortable navigating the internet and most websites. Upon talking to Austin, I
knew he was a great participant. He works out 5 days a week and follows a healthy diet and cares
about the food he eats on a daily basis.
Environment for Tester 1
Location of the test: Austin and I met in the university library on campus in the
Starbucks area.
Physical Environment: It was about 1 PM so there was decent light but a lot of people
around. There was a lot of noise coming from the Starbuck’s baristas and other students talking
and one student speaking loudly on the phone. We were sitting at a large round table side by
side.
Image 1

3. Technical Environment: Austin was using campus WiFi on his school issued HP
Laptop that he had plugged in and charging. He was using Google Chrome and didn’t have any
additional plug ins or add on’s but also had the Spotify application up but was not playing.
As Austin pulled up the Chef’d website he immediately commented that it seemed like
the same type of service as Blue Apron and HelloFresh. Furthermore, he commented that the
food on the homepage looked appetizing and continued scrolling, noting that Men’s Health was a
partner and he remarked that he is a reader of Men’s Health and recalls possible seeing
something about Chef’d in the magazine but wasn’t sure. He did verbally note that it’s cool that
Chef’d is a subscription free service and the site does a great job making users want to check it
out further.
I provided Austin with the instructions for the first task and he headed straight for the top
navigation bar, browsing through the drop-down menu to see where the option to build a Spoon
University meal plan would be. He ended up accessing it from the “Meal Plans” tab and clicked
Spoon University. Once on the Spoon University page, Austin took a second to scroll and I
noticed he was reading a little more about it and noted that this seems like it would be a handy
service to have as a student. He clicked begin and was greeted with the first question. “I’m not
allergic to anything,” he said in immediate response to the first question. “I’m trying to eat less
dairy so I’ll go with that” he said. At the next screen, Austin read the question out loud and noted
that he likes poultry and vegetarian options but seemed confused when those options turned grey.
He clicked the others to see if they did the same thing. “Oh, I guess they all came pre-clicked” he
said as un-clicked the others and made sure only vegetarian and poultry were selected in orange.
“That was weird,” he laughed but didn’t seem super put out or confused by that action. He rated
this as good for his satisfaction with this task.
At this point Austin was met with the following error
message (Image 1.1). He took a second to read it and said out
loud “what did I do wrong?” He scrolled back up and looked at
his selections again and said, “I guess I’ll just say that dairy is
okay” and clicked “None” under allergies. He was then okay to
proceed and wondered out loud how much each meal costs if he
only has $65. “I wish it said what it was per meal. I guess I’ll
just be safe and start with one.” He clicked one meal and looked
at his options. His meal was a smoky chicken buffalo grilled
cheese at a price of $13. “A grilled cheese?” he said almost
seeming confused. He scrolled down and noted that the Grab n
Go’s looked good but remarked again that he wished he got
something better than a grilled cheese. He scrolled up from the
Grab n Go’s back to his meal and said, “Oh I can swap out
meals”. He swapped his grilled cheese for a black bean chicken brown rice bowl and seemed
more satisfied. “I didn’t see that button at first,” he said. He noted that it would be $65 weekly
cost and that his satisfaction with this process was a 3 or neutral at this point.
I then gave him his second task to choose an extra meal but make sure it is spicy. He
scrolled back up and clicked two meals instead of one had initially clicked. He was given the
smoky buffalo grilled cheese and a chicken quesadilla this time. “There’s the grilled cheese
again”, he said. “It’s frustrating it didn’t remember I said I wanted the black bean chicken bowl
as my first meal”, he said. He went to swap the chicken quesadillas out for something spicier. He
clicked on the healthy black bean turkey burger and said out loud “well that’s only mild”. He
Image 1.1

4. then clicked through a few other options noting that all of them were no more than mild so he
settled on the quesadillas. He also noted that this step was only 3 in terms of satisfaction because
it was annoying for him to have to reselect that he wanted the black bean chicken bowl as well as
the fact there were no spicy options for his diet preferences.
I instructed him for the third task to make sure none of his meals, Grab n’ Go meals, or
snacks were over 450 calories and to swap it for another option if it is. He scrolled around a bit,
looking for a place that offered more information on the meals or the meal kit he had selected.
Eventually he clicked on a food option and then clicked on the nutrition facts. He clicked
through all options and easily swapped them out if necessary before getting to the four-cheese
mac and cheese in a mug. When he clicked it, a loading buffering wheel came up (the same as it
did for me when I was testing out the site). He paused, giving it a few seconds and nothing
happened. He then tried to click his other Grab n’ Go meals to see if he could see the details of
those and the function did not work. He tried to then click add to cart and that function worked
while the other buffered. “Of course, add to cart works”, he said with a laugh. He rated this task
as a 1 for terrible because he had no idea what was going on and why he couldn’t continue with
that selection or look at his other meal selections but could still add to cart.
For the fourth and final task, he put in his zip code and selected that it would be a
residential address. He was taking this test on Monday March 5th and I told him he wanted this
meal kit by this Saturday the 10th and asked him if his meal will arrive in time. He was able to
visibly see that the soonest his meal would arrive was 3/14, 3/15, or 3/16 so it would not be there
in time. “That’s kind of a long time,” he commented. As he went to finalize his cart before
payment he received the same error message I did regarding the mac and cheese in a mug. That it
was sold out. “Sold out? Is that what the issue was?” he asked. “So, I will have to go all the way
back to add something else in place of that. Wish I would have known that sooner.” He clicked
continue and was then brought to the checkout page where he noted that his total price is the
same without the mac and cheese as it was with it. For this step, Austin was also super
unsatisfied and rated this a 1, seeming visibly frustrated that one of his meal preferences was
sold out and that he would have to go back now to replace it and that it might freeze up and start
loading and buffering again.
Overall, Austin commented that he thought Chef’d seemed like a good service especially
for those looking for easy to make meals that have all you need included but it wasn’t an easy
site to use for something that should be easy and a site that boasts making student’s lives easier.
So much of the process was frustrating and difficult. He also said the recipes were not that
special or necessarily difficult for a college student to purchase the ingredients and make.
Finally, he was super frustrated with the fact it didn’t remember his original meal choice when
he went to add another meal and most of all that it froze up when the mac and cheese was out
and didn’t even let him know earlier into the purchase process. That was super frustrating and
made me want to just exit out of the site because I didn’t know why it was doing that. When
asked if he would visit Chef’d again (provided it was still being paid for) he noted that he
probably wouldn’t because it just was unnecessarily difficult.
Tester 2: Jordan Poore, a 22-year-old female college student studying public and private
accounting and corporate finance. Jordan has never heard of Chef’d before but has heard of
several competitors such as HelloFresh and Blue Apron. Jordan spends between 17-20 hours on
the internet per week and attributes about 85% of her internet time to social media and 15% to
browsing. She considers herself a high experience internet user and overall enjoys spending time

5. online. Jordan is a great candidate because she has a variety of food allergies including dairy and
gluten sensitivities that cause her to have to be careful about her food choices.
Environment for Tester 2:
Location of test: I met Jordan in her living room of her college apartment where it was
just her, myself, and a few of her roommates also working on homework. We were sitting on the
couch while we worked. This is where Jordan spends the majority of her time on the internet
because she can relax and focus.
Physical Environment: The room was very well lit and there was plenty of room for
both her and I to sit side by side. It was about 8 PM at night so we didn’t have any natural light
and just utilized electric light. A few of Jordan’s roommates were also working on homework but
were working silently.
Technical Environment: Jordan was utilizing her university provided HP laptop with
mid screen brightness. She was utilizing her home internet connection which is provided through
SuddenLink and was using Google Chrome as her internet browser. She had multiple plugins
and add on’s on her browser including: Disconnect, Ad Block, Honey, Wiki Buy, and Cisco Web
X. None of her add ons seemed to affect the test at all down the line as far as website
performance goes.
Jordan typed in the URL for Chef’d and scrolled through the homepage for about 15
seconds. She commented that it looked organized, that she liked the tabs at the top, and that she
thought the layout of the homepage looked very intuitive and universal. She then commented
that all of the food looked “yummy” and that she likes the slideshow that goes through different
food selections. “It looks like it is fairly easy to use and get started with,” she said.
I gave Jordan her first task to build a Spoon University meal plan and she immediately
went to the top home bar and clicked on the “Collections” tab and then clicked view more and
continued scrolling and scrolling down dozens of photos of food choices. “This is sort of
overwhelming,” she said as she continued to scroll, still looking for the Spoon University meal
plan. “I think I’m in the wrong place” she said going back up to the top home bar. She then went
to meal plans and dropped down to Spoon University and immediately commented on how easy
it seemed to get started and clicked get started right away. Jordan was very excited to see there
were options for allergens right away and commented “This is great! I’m allergic to dairy and
gluten and trying to stay away from soy.” So, she clicked all of those options and proceeded to
the next step, selecting her proteins. All of the protein options come pre-clicked which I could
tell Jordan didn’t realize as she clicked beef and poultry, actually unclicking those. As she
clicked the next button she was met with the error message that there are no meals for her
preferences. So, she clicked the back button in her browser and was taken all the way back to the
Spoon University homepage. “Ugh, why did it take me all the way back?” She asked out loud.
“I’ll try adding soy this time,” she said otherwise making all of the same meal preferences as
before and was met with the same error message. This time she started over again and tried
variations of just being allergic to gluten or just being allergic to dairy and selecting beef and
poultry every time and each time was met with the same error message. She gave it another try
and this time said she wasn’t allergic to anything and just narrowed it down to the meat that she
eats and was still met with the same error message that she should expand her options. She
finally went and selected that she will eat all types of meats with no allergens and said she was
frustrated she was made to do that because she wouldn’t consider buying any meal plan that
couldn’t cater to her allergens and favorite meat preferences. Finally, she was able to move on
and looked puzzled at the statement on screen saying, “I’d like to add” followed by various

6. clickable numbers. “I don’t understand what that means,” she said out loud. “I’ll just select 1,”
she said while scrolling down. “OH! I get it now…. I’d like to add ONE meal to my Spoon U
Box.” Once she was showed her meals she said, “okay well I can’t eat cheese or the gluten that is
in the mac and cheese” for her first meal. “$13 for that meal isn’t too bad though and it’s nice
that it only takes 30 minutes,” she continued. “What are the Grab n’ Go’s?” she wondered out
loud while continuing to scroll down. “I don’t even see what the price of all of this together is,”
she said trying to complete the task. She then realized she could swap meals out and said that
was a really nice feature. She swapped some of her Grab n’ Go options that had gluten in them
for options that did not before proceeding to swap out her actual meal as well and liked that all of
the individual meals she looked through cost the same thing. “Oh, my total looks like it is $62
she said.” She rated this task as a satisfaction level 1 because the site did not cater at all to her
allergies despite saying it did and the error messages got annoying.
After that, we moved on to the second task of adding one more spicy meal to her Spoon
U Box. She began clicking around and scrolled all the way back up to the meal plans on the top
home bar and started the entire process all over again with the same selections she made last
time, ignoring her allergens for the sake of moving on with 2 meals. She immediately went and
swapped out the grilled cheese because it contained dairy and while looking through her other
meal options noticed an option titled “gluten and dairy free Thai shrimp stir fry”. “Oh, so they do
have gluten and dairy free options but this has shrimp which I don’t like.” “I wish there was an
option to swap the meat on that.” She then continued clicking through the food options. “I don’t
see where a spicy option or indicator would be,” she said. “So, I guess I will go with the BBQ
Chicken Flatbread. That might be a little spicy.” Jordan rated task three as a 3 for “neutral”
because she was able add another meal to her box but it wasn’t super easy and she wasn’t able to
identify how spicy each meal is.
For the third task, I instructed her to look closely at the caloric content of her meals, Grab
n’ Go meals, and snack options and make sure none of them were over 450 calories and to swap
them if they were. She immediately clicked on her first Grab n’ Go choice and saw right away to
go over to the nutrition facts tab and saw the calories. She clicked the back button in her browser
to go back to her Spoon U box but was taken all the way back to the beginning of the process.
“Now I have to completely start over,” she said re-selecting everything. She began clicking
through her meals, Grab n’ Go’s once more, looking at the caloric content of each and swapping
them out when necessary. “It would be nice if they could have the calories listed right on the
picture instead of the prep time,” she said. Once she got to the mac and cheese options she was
met with the loading issue. “Why is this taking forever?” she asked out loud. She tried clicking
on other Grab n Go’s to look at them but was unable to. “Okay I’ll just add to cart then since I
won’t be able to see the rest of the Grab n” Go’s. Jordan also rated this task as a 3 because she
found it annoying having to click on each meal to see the caloric content and experiencing
trouble on one meal in particular.
We began the fourth task by me telling her to pretend today was Monday the 5th and she
wanted her meal here by Saturday the 10th and asking her if it would arrive on time. “Okay I will
go to check out and enter my zip code and click residential,” she said. “It looks like the earliest
time it will be here is next Wednesday, 8 days from now. So, it won’t be here on time.” Jordan
rated this task as a 4 for “good” level of satisfaction because she was able to complete it but the
meal wouldn’t be there on time and she had no flexibility over the delivery date.
We wrapped up the test by me asking Jordan what her closing thoughts were. “I
personally don’t think it user friendly at all. When I first got to the site it looked nice and

7. organized and told me why I should choose Chef’d and what my meal boxes would include but it
didn’t show me what I look for like nutrition facts over meal prep time.” “It isn’t allergen
friendly for people like me at all, even though they give you allergy options, they don’t cater to
them at all. I did like how you can swap meals though if you don’t like what you have been
provided with.” “I probably wouldn’t make a purchase from Chef’d though because it just wasn’t
very easy.”
Test Results
Initial Site Thoughts
Both of my testers thought the site looked very sleek, appealing and easy to use initially and
upon first getting to the site. They both commented on how nice the photos of the food looked
and how well explained everything was on the homepage of the site. Jordan had a few more
thoughts than Austin because she commented on how she enjoyed the intuitive and universal
layout of the site where the login button is in the upper right and there is a top navigation bar.
Austin noticed more about their partners, celebrity chefs, and other publications they have been
featured in.
Task 1: Build a Spoon University meal plan and determine the total weekly cost.
Summary for Both Testers:
Tester 1 Tester 2 Average
Average Satisfaction 80% 50% 65%
Success Rate 100% 100% 100%
Highlights
1. A sold-out item showed as loading when the user tried to click on it to get further details
and the user wasn’t alerted that this item was sold out until they were nearly all the way
into the purchase process and would have to go back to replace that item in order to get
their full money’s worth because they were charged the same either way.
2. The user was given the option to identify allergies they have prior to receiving their meal
options however, both testers were met with errors and Chef’d was unable to
accommodate their allergens combined with their meat/protein preferences and ended up
having to proceed as if they had no allergens at all.
3. Users did not understand when they were being asked to select how many days they
would like meals for because of the way the website was laid out and where the fold of
the page was. They could not view the statement in its entirety.
Biggest Problem
What I identify to be the biggest problem with task 1 is the matching of a user’s allergies
to their meal plans and actually applying those preferences. It seemed as though Chef’d has
about 10-15 meals and they aren’t allergy friendly at all. So, if someone has two allergies but
wants 6 days’ worth of meals, it is unlikely that Chef’d could supply that and just leaves the user
with a frustrating error unsure how to resolve the issue to continue. The only way a user feels
like they can proceed with this task is to ignore their allergens which is not a possibility for some

8. people. Both of my testers had specific dietary wishes they wanted fulfilled that was unable to be
done which left both of them frustrated.
Alignment to Heuristic: Error Prevention
Users are met with an error message multiple times when making their meal sections and
when trying to align them with their preferences they are met with an error message. According
to this heuristic, the site should prevent this problem from even happening in the first place and
make sure the users doesn’t run into any issues and therefore no error messages.
Task 2: You have the budget to cover one extra meal per week, but you want it to be a spicy
meal. Determine your spicy meal options and choose one meal that you are willing to prepare.
Summary for Both Testers:
Tester 1 Tester 2 Average
Average Satisfaction 90% 80% 85%
Success Rate 0% 0% 0%
Highlights
1. Testers felt the need to go all the way back to the beginning to add another meal to
their meal plan. They didn’t find it intuitive to scroll back up and click the next
number to add another and simply edit their current preferences. This caused
frustration for the user to begin the process of starting completely over all over again.
2. The user was unable to determine where information on the flavor or spiciness of
food would be located which leaves them feeling like they have few options and little
control over the meal kit they are getting.
3. While looking through meals, users saw meals that would have fit their specific
dietary needs but those meals weren’t offered when the user was being given the error
message in task 1.
Biggest Problem
The biggest problem that users faced in this task is that they had no clue where to look to
find out how spicy the food is and were made to feel like that is information they had to
essentially figure out themselves. The site made them take multiple steps to figure out this
information and didn’t do much to help them or guide them to where more information is located
on the flavor of the product would be.
Alignment to Heuristic: Flexibility and Efficiency of Use
Users are forced to look all around their meal kit box for some potential information on
the meals they have been given and what the more in-depth details of the meals are. Users have
to click on every individual meal to get this information which isn’t efficient or intuitive at all
and causes users to take a lot of extra steps. Additionally, users are not encouraged to “click for
more detail” or given any indicator that more information on the meal waits for them if they
click on the meal for a closer look.

9. Task 3: Ensure none of your meals, Grab n’ Go’s or snacks are more than 450 calories per
serving. If the calorie count is too high, swap it out for another.
Summary for Both Testers:
Tester 1 Tester 2 Average
Average Satisfaction 70% 50% 60%
Success Rate 0% 0% 0%
Highlights
1. Users had a hard time knowing where exactly to look for caloric information in the same
way they didn’t know where to look for taste and spiciness information. They seemed very
puzzled and took a long time clicking and looking around for it.
2. Once users would click on the food item to see more details about it, they wouldn’t know
how to return to the screen they were previously on that had an overview of their total meal
kit.
3. When an item was sold out like the mac and cheese in a mug was sold out, it would not let
the user click on it for further information. Rather, the user was met with a long loading
wheel that kept them from being able to click any other meals to look at them closer and left
the reader wondering what the issue was. The only option for them from there was to click
add to cart and proceed.
Biggest Problem
When an item is sold out, the users have no knowledge of this while they are browsing their meal
options and have the option to swap an item out still. Rather they are not made aware of sold out
items until they are in their shopping cart, ready to make a purchase and have to go back multiple
steps in order to add a replacement item in place of the sold-out item. This is something that
should be made aware to the user to eliminate the strange loading wheel that causes the user to
wonder what is going on and leave them confused and frustrated.
Alignment to Heuristic: Visibility of System Status
When the user is not informed of the status of the products they are preparing to purchase
they feel out of control. Especially when the website isn’t providing adequate information on the
status of the items they intendent to purchase. There are plenty of ways to keep the user informed
throughout this process. Additionally, simply allowing the user to easily glace around and get the
information they need would allow them to feel more in control and aware of what is going on
with the site.
Task 4: Assume/pretend that it is Monday at 3:30 pm and you plan to prepare the spicy meal on
Saturday night. Will the meal arrive in time?
Summary for Both Testers:
Tester 1 Tester 2 Average
Average Satisfaction 65% 90% 77.5%
Success Rate 100% 100% 100%

10. Highlights
1. This is where users were met with the sold-out information when they had something in
their cart that was sold-out. At this point the users feels like it is such a big hassle to go
all the way back and swap out the item and add something else and additionally the site
does not provide a way to go back and edit your Spoon U Box once you have made it to
the “my cart” view. So, it leaves the user feeling like they need to start over.
Additionally, the user wouldn’t want to continue on without the sold-out item because
they are getting charged the same amount with or without it.
2. Users are able to select their delivery date but they are only given 3 options. If a user is
ordering a week or two in advance for a meal and wants it to arrive closer to that date
they are not given any flexibility with their date choices.
Biggest Problem
Users are given little flexibility over when their meal kit will arrive and have no way to
edit their cart selections. If they realized they don’t like a meal that got added they don’t have a
way to edit it or if a meal they selected is sold out, they don’t have an easy way back to add
another one in its place. For busy college students, they might prefer their meal kit be delivered
in time for a busy week they have 3 weeks from now and want to be able to set the delivery date
for then and not have to worry about it. Chef’d only provides 3 days in the next week for
delivery and don’t provide it on any type of calendar view or something that users can quickly
glance at to make sure it works with their schedule.
Alignment to Heuristic: User Control and Freedom
Users are not given a way to control or correct mistakes they might have made when
creating their meal plan or adding meal items to their cart. They also have minimal control over
the delivery process and have to accept the dates that Chef’d gives them in regard to delivery and
don’t get to tailor that to their lifestyle and preferences. When particular items are sold out or if a
user has changed their mind they are not given any way to go back and correct that.
Final Site Thoughts
Overall both of my testers were not impressed with Chef’d and thought the experience
was unpleasant and would not order from there. Austin commented that for a site that boasts that
they are working to make student’s lives easier it was a pretty difficult process that left him
pretty confused along the way. Jordan experienced similar frustrations with the sites inability to
provide adequate outcomes for her allergy needs. If there are no gluten free or dairy free meals
available, why put those on the site? Finally, the difficult process of accessing product
information frustrated both testers. Austin had fewer issues that Jordan but didn’t have the same
allergy constraints but both testers found the site to need quite a few improvements.
Recommendations to Improve User Experience
Single Problem Being Fixed:
The biggest and most frustrating problem is that the user was not made aware of a sold-
out item until they are all the way deep into the purchase process and don’t have an option to go
back and replace that item with another option. (Task 1)

11. Problem Improvement:
This problem could be fixed at the stage in the meal plan building process where the user
can see all of their meal options along with the option to swap them.
Image 1.2
Image 1.3

12. In the above screenshots, Image 1.2 is a screenshot of the current layout of the Chef’d site
where the user is able to see all of the meals currently in their Spoon U Meal Box. This is the
area that needed the biggest improvement to help the user select what they want in their box.
Users have no idea they can click on meal photos for more info and are not made aware of
products that are currently sold-out. Image 1.3 is a screenshot of my changes that will improve
the site’s user experience. These simple changes will solve a variety of issues, confusions, and
frustrations that come up with site users when editing and making selections for their Spoon U
box.
First, a copy overlay has been added to the food photos reading “Click for details” to
inform the user that if they click the photo they will receive more information of what the meal
has to offer. A simple fix like this isn’t difficult and doesn’t have a negative effect on the site’s
appearance because it is just a few words that push the user in the right direction to be able to
easier access the information necessary to make a purchase. Another modification for
improvement is letting users know which products are sold as they are making their selections
not after. This change includes a greyed-out photo of the product with an alert to the user that the
item is sold out as well as a message informing them that they should select something else in its
place. The swap button is made green in this case so the user knows where to go to swap it out
for a different meal. This ensures that users don’t get all the way to the shopping cart to be told
their meal is out of stock.
Finally, I made the small modification to change all of the “swap meal” buttons from
white to “Chef’d” orange so they stand out more and the user knows this is more of an option
because initially my testers did not see that they had the option to swap their meals.
These changes are simple and only address this page of the Chef’d site and a few of the
issues that came along with this page but with these modifications, users will be able to better
complete tasks and have a better user experience overall.