Site Description
-stylish and informative website that shows students how to cook great tasting, nutritious meals on a budget
-creative ideas for cooking during the student experience
-Students can search for recipes
-online videos, upload videos of their own
-talk about the issues regarding food
-balanced diet
-encourage interaction with our content, building an online community that can enrich and improve young peoples' lives through food"
Similarities and Differences in Concepts
Narrowing down their objectives I propose that they are the following (both technically and conceptually):
- Educate through their recipes the importance of a balanced diet
- Offer creative solutions
- A search facility
- A forum whereby students can talk about food
- Build an ongoing 'project' which is centered around students
Now although my project doesn't aim to target every single one of these objectives, there are definitely similarities. I aim to offer a service which does offer unique recipes not seen in cookbooks or on online recipe hubs as they will be completely student generated. Meaning that some students may eat odd combinations of food but their ideas won't be rejected because that's the concept - student generated and on a budget.
An issue with studentcooking.tv is that they do not offer a rough price to their meals. This means that essentially they can advertise the use of any ingredients which may be out of the budget of students. This is something that I will definitely try to add to the site as it is an essential element to student cooking.
The 'community' aspect of studentcooking.tv is not necessarily something that I aspire to develop. Although there will be user generated content, there is no aim to incorporate a blog or forum into the site - it will be strictly about the recipes.
Structural Layout
The homepage is very busy and provides the user with a lot to take in initially. So much so that the navigation is actually difficult to identify at first until you have properly scanned the screen. This lack of clarity is something which needs to be reversed in my project as I want users to be able to quickly identify possible recipes and get cooking without the hassle of not being able to find one.
On to the 'recipes' page this theme continues as there is a considerable amount of content with not very much 'breathing space'. Although there is a lot to take in, the recipes have actually been ordered very well. There are useful categories which help to break the content down into sub-sections. These are:
-Healthy
-Cheap
-Vegan and Vegetarian
-For Groups
-Posh Nosh
-Your Recipes
These six sub-categories allow for you to quickly locate the theme of what you're looking for without having to decide for yourself which recipe fits your requirements. This simplicity of categorization is certainly an aspect that I must consider as it benefits the user experience greatly and saves time because you are not scanning through reams of text to find what you need.
A very useful addition to the recipe method is the inclusion of photographs which document the making process. Although some of the images used could be seen as an unnecessary extra, it adds a personal touch which makes you feel that this recipe is achievable as a student.
An issue with the architecture of the site is that when a blank search is done there is no acknowledgment of you doing so. You are simply thrown a blank page with no text on it. This will be dealt with when designing my page structure.
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