Wanting to gain some valuable experience as well as learn more about user-centric design, I spent the past 6 months interning in the User Experience department at Schematic in Los Angeles. My time as a UX design intern has now come to an end and I just wanted to share a little about the type of work I was lucky enough to participate in.

Upon starting, I was quickly put on a team to help design an iPad app for Betty Crocker. The Betty Crocker Cookbook was already immensely popular for the iPhone and our job was to translate that app for Apple’s new device. The goal was to encourage the exploration and discovery of new recipes, while still being an effective tool in the kitchen. We were able to come up with a simple and elegant app that was not only great at finding recipes but also presenting them in beautiful ways.

User Experience Design

Wireframes are the main ways UX Designers communicate their ideas. Below I threw together a quick example of what wireframing for a specific state of the application would look like. It is essentially the blueprint of any interface and is focused on the organization of buttons, information, navigation, etc. It is the first step before creative design can be applied and its emphasis is functionality. Although this isn’t an actual wireframe from the Betty Crocker project, I think it conveys enough for those who aren’t familiar with the field to understand what UX design entails.

The key differentiator between this app and other cooking apps is its unique Cook Mode. To maximize utility and efficiency in the kitchen, we were able to think of some clever ways of handling timers for each step of the cooking process. Multiple timers means that users can easily multitask and plan ahead for each step.

Make sure to download the app and to check it out for yourself! Did I mention that it’s completely free?