World Mrkt
︎2018 | UX Design & Research
World Mrkt is an app designed to assist first-generation young adults to connect with their roots through cooking.
Food allows us to connect with our ancestors and build relationships with our cultures even when we're not physically in the countries where it is practiced. The process of cooking and sharing dishes allows cultures to be kept alive by making them tangible.
Food allows us to connect with our ancestors and build relationships with our cultures even when we're not physically in the countries where it is practiced. The process of cooking and sharing dishes allows cultures to be kept alive by making them tangible.
To better understand first-generation young adult's relationship to food, a series of focus questions were established and 4 user experts discussed their relationship to foods from their home country.
Core Values of World Mrkt: World Mrkt is an accesible bridge between first generation young adults and their culture. World Mrkt removes the barries of lack of affordability and physical accesibility to ingredients; to further connect people to their roots.
Core Values of World Mrkt: World Mrkt is an accesible bridge between first generation young adults and their culture. World Mrkt removes the barries of lack of affordability and physical accesibility to ingredients; to further connect people to their roots.
︎ Research
Target Audience:
- Early 20’s
- Low Budget
- Busy
- 1st Generation
- International
Top Research Questions:
- What are some obstacles when you are cooking?
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Where do you get your ingredients for cooking?
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Do you cook any dishes from your/your family’s native country?
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When you have food from your family’s native culture, how does it make you feel?
︎ Interview Notes from User Experts
International student from Mexico 🇲🇽
Student who migrated to the country during childhood from Haiti 🇭🇹
- Cooks simple foods, moderate expertise.
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Has generous budget.
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Has comfortable amount of time to cook.
- Cooks simple food from Mexico.
- Feels that sometimes it’s too complicated to make Mexican dishes because the grocery store doesn’t have ingredients needed.
- Finds that when you crave a certain dish/snack from back home you can go to a restaurant and find something close, it can be disappointing but sometimes it’s just enough.
Student who migrated to the country during childhood from Haiti 🇭🇹
- Doesn’t cook at all, low expertise.
- Low budget.
- Little to no time for cooking.
- Never learned to cook and was encouraged by family to stay away from the kitchen. Wants to learn how to cook food from back home but their mother the only one who knows how to prepare the traditional dishes and she is no longer around.
- There was a lot of gatekeeping when it came to family dishes due to gender roles in Haitian culture and that has kept the user from learning more about the food.
International student from Mexico 🇲🇽
- Has high interest in cooking.
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Has a moderate amount of time to cook.
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Has comfortable budget.
- Medium amount of free time.
- Often cooks food from Mexico, doesn’t feel like it’s hard for them to prepare the food although there are some tedious things to work with sometimes.
- Finds that there is access to common Mexican ingredients at Whole Foods where they do often do groceries.
- There are some family dishes that are impossible to reproduce due to the absence of the ingredients within the community.
- It is helpful when there is a alternative to a missing ingredient.
- Not having access to family dishes allows for them to have something to look forward to when they go back home. It allows for there to be a built sense of appreciation for the cultural significance of food.
1st Generation student with family who migrated to USA from Vietnam, South Korea and Cambodia 🇻🇳🇰🇷🇰🇭
- Cooks with family at home, moderate expertise.
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Low budget.
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Little to no time.
- Cooks at home with parents and has been exposed to food from family in native country.
- Has easy access to ingredients and snacks from back home in neighborhood, there are specialty Asian stores where he knows where to find exactly what he needs.
- Does miss some snack from South Korea.
︎Solutions
Each function is designed to solve a common problem discussed within the interview sessions.
Function 1
Concern: I need an ingredient
I can wait!
Order hard to find multicultural ingredients on the online store.![]()
Order hard to find multicultural ingredients on the online store.
I Need it now!
Find your ingredients somewhere nearby.
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Find your ingredients somewhere nearby.
Function 2
Concern: I need resources
Videos:Order hard to find multicultural ingredients on the online store. ![]()
Recipes:Order hard to find multicultural ingredients on the online store.
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Events:Order hard to find multicultural ingredients on the online store.
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Supplemental Product Offering
Concern: I don’t know where to start
Assorted snack bag
The assorted snack bag is an entry point to try new flavours from your home country. The snack bags are assorted by country.
