Guardian Feast
native Apps 0-1 design branding
the guardian, uk
The new staple in your kitchen
Feast app unlocks the Guardian and the Observer’s +30,000 recipe archive, help our readers grow their confidence in the kitchen, and connect through food.
From concept to phone in 6 months.
● Business needs
Use an accelerated innovation process to launch a reader-centric product or service within the food & drink space that can generate a new revenue stream.
Develop a 12-week repeatable process for innovation.
● Production
Our recipe content wasn’t structured. We couldn’t tell apart the recipe title from an ingredient or an instruction.
The first step of the process is to create a language model that can help us structure our 30,000 recipe archive.
● Research
Thorough UX research informed the UX and design decisions by categorising how readers interact with food content depending on their mindset.
It also guided us around the areas of opportunity in a competitive market where we are not only facing other classic media organisations (NYT cooking, BBC Good Food), but also social media (TikTok and influencers) or innovative services like Cherry Pick.
● User insights
Readers love our food&drink content. They print our recipes, engage with our content but also feel like some of them are quite complex in terms of number of ingredients.
● Editorial insights
We have been publishing food content for decades and we always collaborate with very experienced and valued cooks. From Nigel Slater, to Yotam Ottolenghi, Meera Sodha, Felicity Cloake or José Pizarro.
Our food content has a loyal reader base.
Our food content is also commisioned thinking about print first.
● Design
Feast is not only a new app in the Guardian’s product portfolio but also a new brand.
When designing the new brand, we were inspired by spices, herbs and cooking staples like oils, which are present in kitchens across the world and used by home cooks with beginner to advanced skills.
When designing the app, we were conscious of people’s mindsets and how they might interact with the app when they are looking what to do with the last courgette in the fridge vs. planning a birthday party vs. planning the weeknights dinners for their kids vs. multitasking while cooking.
The photography was a key element for both the editors and the readers and the app design had to take that into consideration.
● Implementation
We considered multiple tech approaches and ended up going down the native app route, designing an app for mobile and tablet.
A Feast-specific design system, pairing sessions between devs and design and close collaboration with the food desk were key in successfully launching an app in 6 months.
Feast’s brand commitment matrix, based on Marty Neumeier’s Brand Flip framework.Just like garam masala in India, basil in Italy, smoked paprika in Spain, and bay leaf in Nigeria.
Just like salt and pepper, or eggs and butter.
Feast is the new staple in your kitchen
Cook mode enables readers to easily follow each recipe step by step, prevents their screen from locking and provides easy access to ingredients and notes.
Early cook mode designs
Final design for iOS
Early ad drafts to test the personalisation value proposition (Q2 2023/24). Unused.
Final ads for the value proposition blind test.
v1 focuses on our collaborators, v2 on an app that guides you from planning to cooking, and v3 on sustainability.
Q1 2023/24 (April-June 2023)TEAM FOCUS
Discovery & research
Accelerator workshop
Hack day (P&E department)MY ROLE
Support for Accelerator workshopCORE HUDDLE
1 lead researcher & strategist
1 Business lead
1 innovation lead
Head of product design
Q2 2023/24Kick-off
Value proposition tests
Web-first approach
Visit to Guardian archiveUX+UI (web focus)
Design system kick-off1 lead researcher & strategist
1 Business lead
1 innovation lead
Head of product design
1 Sr. Product Manager
1 Sr. Product designer
2 Full-stack devs
Food desk editor
Q3 2023/24Internal iOS beta deployed
Moderated testingUX+UI (web and iOS app)
Design system development1lead researcher & strategist
1 Business lead
1 innovation lead
Head of product design
1 Sr. Product Manager
1 Sr. Product designer
2 Full-stack devs
Food desk editor
1 Food desk production editor
1 Principal iOS dev
1 Sr. UX researcher (support)
1 Sr. Visual designer (support)
Q4 2023/24External iOS beta deployedUI (iOS app focus)
Design system development and maintenance1lead researcher & strategist
1 Business lead
1 innovation lead
Head of product design
1 Sr. Product Manager
1 Sr. Product designer
Food desk editor
1 Food desk production editor
1 Sr. iOS dev
1 UX designer
2 Android devs
1 Engineer Manager
1 Sr. Agile leadQ1 2024/25External iOS soft launch
Internal Android beta launch
External Android beta launch
Marketing launchUI (iOS and Android apps)
Design system development and maintenance1 lead researcher & strategist
1 Business lead
1 Sr. Product Manager
2 Sr. Product designer
Food desk editor
1 Food desk production editor
2 Sr. iOS devs
1 UX designer
3 Android devs
1 Engineer Manager
1 Sr. Agile lead
1 Service Design lead
1 User help managerQ2 2023/24Feature development, bug fixing and product maintenanceUI (iOS and Android apps)
Design system development and maintenance1 lead researcher & strategist
1 Business lead
1 Sr. Product Manager
1 Sr. Product designer
Food desk editor
1 Food desk production editor
2 Sr. iOS devs
1 UX designer
2 Android devs
1 Engineer Manager
1 Sr. Agile lead
1 Service Design lead
1 User help managerCORE HUDDLE team members in its different iterations:Dominika Swierard, Tricky Bassett, Hannah Quinn, Rory Keddie, Ara Cho, Fred O’Brien, Matt Ho, Ben Wuersching, Ben Briggs, Simon Haley, Michael Chapman, Mohammed Haque, Daniel Okworonko, Shradda Pande, Rob Krentz, Murray Sim, Paul Browne, Luke Wilkins, Tim Lusher, Anna Berrill, Ugne Maceviute, Rosh Gedia, Noemi Santzai. With support from the Observer’s food desk, the Guardian’s food desk, Product design team, CAPI team, Data&Insights department, US and AUS editorial teams, Oliver agency, and marketing department.