The NYT Cooking app is a recipe discovery and cooking guide developed by The New York Times, a popular American newspaper company with over 11 million subscribers. The app stands on its own apart from other NYT content, dedicated solely to helping users explore, save, and cook tested recipes from NYT Cooking editors, chefs, and contributors, offering step-by-step instructions and personalization options. A subscription costs $6/month.
1. Saving a Recipe into the Recipe Box
The save function allows users to save recipes they are interested in and store and organize all ‘saved’ recipes in the recipe box.
- Pros:
- Easily discoverable — the save button is represented with a clear, recognizable bookmark icon (a popular icon saved in people’s heads), and an entire tab is dedicated to the recipe box where the recipes are stored
- Good conceptual model — ‘saving’ is a common concept seen on Instagram, TikTok, etc. Upon saving, the recipe gets stored into a “Recipe Box” which is logical and also draws nostalgia to a physical recipe box in the kitchen.
- Instant feedback — there is an instant visual cue upon clicking the bookmark icon, and the recipe can be found in the recipe box immediately after
- Suggestion:
- Currently, the Recipe Box is divided into two large sections “Recently Saved” and “Your Folders”. Getting rid of the “Recently Saved” section would improve the experience, as it would remove clutter and the user would be able to just see all their folders in a cleaner, more straightforward layout. If a “Recently Saved” section is needed, it should just take the form of a folder rather than the entire top half of the Recipe Box.
2. Recipe Page
The recipe page provides users with all procedural knowledge needed to prepare the dish.
- Pros:
- Good conceptual model — the page follows a logical order (a large image first to draw users in, followed by the ingredients needed for users to understand what is needed to be prepped, and then finally the cooking steps)
- Constraints in place — users cannot modify the recipe
- Suggestion:
- Many users who are making a different serving size than the recipe is defaulted to may do mental calculations in their head which can lead to mistakes when handling many ingredients (I have personally made this mistake more than once.) Adding a feature to allow for different serving sizes with an automatic recalculation feature of ingredients for error proofing can improve this experience.
3. Recently Viewed
The recently viewed tab aids the human memory and provides a space for users to look back at recently viewed recipes that the user accidentally may have not saved.
- Pros:
- Highly discoverable — in many apps like TikTok, if you want to look for something that was recently viewed, it is hidden behind 4 buttons before you can find the page. Other apps like Instagram do not have this feature at all.
- Affordance — the page affords scrolling and clicking into recipes
- Clear mapping — recipes are organized into different boxes
- Suggestion:
- Currently, the page is only an endless scroll that scrolls in descending order from most recent to oldest. Adding an organizational element to sort recipes viewed by the month can improve the navigation experience for a user who may be trying to find a recipe from a while back.
Overall Review:
NYT Cooking comes at a steep price of $6/month, yet it remains popular because it satisfies the human desire of seeking and learning new knowledge in the world. It also serves as a valuable tool for revisiting saved recipes, helping users overcome the inherent limitations of memory.
The product succeeds across the DOET’s 3 emotional processing levels:
- Visceral: the high-quality images and clean design make it visually appealing and enjoyable to browse.
- Behavioral: The interface is logical and highly usable, allowing users to quickly find and follow recipes.
- Reflective: The easy-to-use app and good recipes builds user loyalty, bringing users back again and again for long-term use.