MerryKitchen
Services:
UI/UX Design, Mobile app Development, Web Development
Industry:
Social
Duration:
9 months
Team Size:
6 people
About the client
As a company, MerryKitchen has two areas of interest. They create recipes and distribute them on popular social networks or video hosting sites,as well as engage in the production and sale of natural food products.
Business challenge
MerryKitchen wanted to create a unique mobile & web app for users from all over the world, where users could learn how to cook from scratch, improve their skills, share their cooking tips all from within a user-friendly and Instagram-like experience.
Delivered solution
The project included a considerable number of components that needed to be combined properly to build the architecture of the digital product.
Our team implemented various solutions during the development process that led the project to excellent results.
UX and UI prototyping and approval stage
Regarding the project's business model and customer's requirements, the target audience of the app should have included users of all ages.
Our designers had a task to create a prototype for a graphic interface that would facilitate the user experience.
In combination with the colors of the client's brand book, including successful solutions for navigation and placement of UI components, we created a universal but, at the same time, unique UI design that satisfied the client's and the users’ needs.
Media files storage
The source database of recipes was rather large. We needed to come up with a solution that allowed users to store a vast number of media files and expand favorites based on the recipes added to the database. We have previously managed Amazon's capabilities for other projects with similar tasks, and following the experience, we chose S3 data storage. Before storing the recipe images, the server's organic algorithm would create several versions of the uploaded images in different resolutions for different sections of the app. This way, we set a specific file size threshold. The server transmitted high-quality images to the client applications while saving user traffic and improving performance.
User content
User-generated content always raises issues concerning the validity and accessibility of added data for users. We decided to include a two-step analysis of the new recipes’ input text, locally and on the server. The app and server contain a considerable list of “stop” words that are used for the review. As a second verification step, we integrated a moderation system handled by a specialist through the web system of the administrator. We implemented this system to protect users from potentially dangerous products. Additionally, we applied a notification system based on Google Firebase tools so that users were always up-to-date and informed about the status of their recipes.
Technology stack
IOS:
iOS SDK / Alamofire / RealmSwift / IGListKit / R.swift / Crashlytics / Firebase Analytics /
Android
DataBinding / Room / Retrofit / Moshi / Cicerone / Firebase Analytics / Crashlytics /
Web Admin:
JavaScript / SCSS /
Backend:
Symfony / MySQL / AWS /
Project results
Working on the MerryKitchen project was compelling and thought-provoking. It helped us widen our expertise with Instagram-like social service. The results we achieved with this product make us confident that the app will be successful and competitive on the market. The MerryKitchen app has been released, and our team is continually working on new features and ideas for it.
