Competitor Analysis - supercook.co.uk

Although this website is not a student centered service, it offers useful features which a student could utilise.

Site Description

Their "about" page states the following:

"Supercook wants to make life easier for everyone who cooks at home! Our mission is to enable smarter, quicker decisions about what recipes to make and what ingredients to use using advanced technology and all the recipe content on the web.

...distinct focus on solving the practical problems of modern home cooks: how to waste less food, how to use up perishable or seasonal ingredients, how to keep track of everything in the kitchen, how to save time and money."

Similarities and Differences in Concepts

The major difference here is the mission of both projects. supercook.co.uk target their services to everyone and therefore potential user group is endless. As my project is aimed at undergraduate students only, there is already a huge difference in how both sites should be presented both visually and the tone of voice used.

In spite of those differences though, supercook.com does not lend its style to any specific audience (their aim) so could easily be used by students.

The depth of content/ingredients certainly differs from what I aim to be offering. As stated in the aim, I plan to offer a service which is user generated and not tied to traditional recipes or methods - if students have found successes in odd combinations of flavours then they can upload this for others to enjoy.

Structural Layout

The website is completely dynamic in the sense that all of the main content loads within the page and doesn't cause a page load or redirect. This is a very useful feature as it decreases the time that you spend looking for recipes because they are constantly updated on the right hand side as you input which ingredients you have. The dynamism of the site is a quality which I will certainly consider when designing the architecture of my own website.

One confusing aspect of the site is that there seem to be four alternate ways to search for the recipe. The first is the "add" function which allows you to create a virtual 'list' of ingredients which you have (and therefore updating the recipes generated), the second being the "Do you have?" section of the page. This is essentially a mini list of potential ingredients and by clicking them they are added to your virtual 'list' of ingredients. The third way to search is by using the "Keyword search" located further down the left hand side of the page. This acts as a traditional search form whereby your searched word is scanned against the recipes and then they are filtered accordingly. Finally, the fourth method is by clicking on the "You will also need" ingredients underneath each recipe generated. This will also put this ingredient into your list and at the same time remove it from the "You will need" section of each of the recipes.

These four different methods are individually very useful but when trying to find a recipe you are confused as to which one to use. Do you be specific and search directly which would be quicker? Or do you gradually filter through using the list method? This could perhaps be cleaned up and an alternative search form provided allowing you to choose between one or the other method.

A hidden aspect of the recipes which you only find out once clicked is that they are not stored locally. Each recipe link is a link to another website where the recipe originates. The only real indication of this happening is the link underneath the title which is almost illegible. The site doesn't explain that their recipes are hosted elsewhere which could ultimately confuse users and deter them from entering the site again because it redirects you to other pages - pages which could contain spam or infected content.

Technically, there are a few ways in which this outsourcing of recipes could be achieve. The first being that they are developed a system whereby as the user searches for ingredients, supercook.com scours the internet and outputs relevant results. The second option is that every recipe has been manually inputted into a database hosted by supercook.com and each search is matched against this content. This is most likely to be the actual method they use as the pages load exceptionally fast and perhaps would not do so using the first method. This second method would also reduce the necessary amount of scripting because there would only need to be a database search facility using SQL put in place.