home-cook

Reading was excellent for robotics / cybernetics, I've got no idea if they're still teaching it - I know somebody who did that course in the late 90's. I don't miss Reading I live down by the seaside now! Thanks everybody for completing the survey so far - I'm looking forward to analysing the results and am getting a sample size that I'm happy with so will hopefully find something meaningful.

Just one other - I've only shared it with the ones that I've enjoyed the contribution of the members (even though I don't post much). I contacted a 3rd message board which had a very different (unhelpful) culture so I left that one alone. i.e. I'm seeking help from the boards that I intend to continue a relationship with

Thank you. I'm so worried about not getting enough responses to get meaningful insight so I really appreciate those few minutes

I forgot to say - it might look long but it shouldn't take more than 5 minutes. I've timed it with a few people

A couple of months ago, I sought your knowledge to hear about what you like / dislike from a cooking website. This has led me to the creation of a questionnaire so that I can quantify this information with the objective of understanding what the most important features are for a cooking website and any logical groupings. It would mean a great deal to me if I can get as many of you as possible to complete it - Once I've analysed the results, I intend to share the output with this forum and there's also the option to add an email address within the questionnaire if you'd like to receive this via email (no spam - I promise). I've sought permission from the message board admins to post this and really appreciate your help and support! >> Click here to start the questionnaire

I like the logic - it feels like a spreadsheet to get the ratios and how they change with regards to cheese, herbs, etc. is in order!

I've had my bread machine for about 2 years and love it - I love how quickly I can add the ingredients and a few hours later, I have a nice smelling house and often tasty loaf of bread. I don't remember buying a loaf of bread in these 2 years! Having followed numerous recipes, I feel I'm ready to get creative and try to devise my own combinations. But I'm scared - scared of wasting vast quantities of ingredients on recipes that fail to rise or are too stodgy. So, having seen the expertise available here, I was wondering if anybody can give me some tips on what ratios to absolutely stick to and how to adjust it for different ingredients - e.g. adding cheese = less oil. I know it's not this simple (and adding cheese probably doesn't = less oil) so I'm here to hear your wisdom and guidance! Apologies if this has been asked before - I couldn't find anything other than an extensive conversation about yeast

I've realised that I should stop giving an opinion through risk of biasing my questionnaire when the time comes! Oops.

Oh, and it'll also need to tell you: "that you need 15 other ingredients so you'd better go shopping"

That's what I end up doing! I think Google's fantastic for finding recipes but the struggle I have is that if I have 150g chicken, 400g chickpeas and 200g potatoes - what can I do with them? I end up finding a recipe that needs 1kg chicken, 400g chickpeas and 1kg potatoes or 50g chicken, no chickpeas and 1kg potatoes, etc. What the world needs is for somebody smarter than me to write a Google "plug in" that sieves through all of the recipes and finds the closest match (i.e. Jamie Oliver's chicken and chickpea curry served with sag aloo is a 91% match for your ingredients). That would be amazing. @DiggingDogFarm - I sense that you're good at coding - the world needs you!

I love that topic! I'd join in if it were still going - the reason sartoric started it is exactly the challenge behind my motivation (along with needing to find a dissertation topic!)

I'm hoping you're allowed to share links - would you mind sharing with me your favourite site? I've been through so many today and have found a mixed bag. What has surprised me is the number of features available - some really need stripping back!! I'm really looking forward to getting the results from the questionnaire I've not written yet to see what users actually want! They (you) can't possibly want all of the features I've seen today! I think I've just experienced what @Darienne was referring to. I had to close at least 3 different overlays whilst scrolling down the page of one particular website - More determined in achieving their objective (getting me signed up (for whatever reason)) than mine (reading the recipe!)

Does anybody else want to see inside the box?!

Thank you everybody for your thoughts - My research is supposed to be unbiased but I completely agree with everything you've all said. Steve Krug's book is one I know well and it reminds me of a quote I heard (I can't remember where) - "User experience is like a joke - if you need to explain it, it's not very good." It could well be that at the end of this (probably long) process following my dissertation, the only person who'll ever use my site will be me! Knowing that I share the same views as all of you though, there's potential for a few extra visitors (I won't have time to spam you with blogs and facebook articles!) I agree. There are literally thousands of existing websites - I haven't been able to find one which does the "using up ingredients" thing well but there's nothing to say I'll be able to do it well either. I enjoy cooking, have a passion for it and have worked in the web industry (with an accessibility and usability focus (well before it was called user experience)) for nearly 20 years so fingers crossed I have the right motivation and credentials! Success for me is to create something I'm really proud of and enjoy using myself - this has fared me well in the past so hopefully it will here too! Please keep the ideas and things to avoid coming. I really, really appreciate the time you're giving me and your input!

I completely agree with the quantity of ingredients and was hoping to do something like this as a differentiating factor (I'm also half hoping that it's already been done and somebody shares a link What do you mean by frequency of the downloads - do some sites force you to download the recipes or is it the amount of advertising?