This document is the system plan and requirements document for the website "Tina's Cocina".
The site will be used by parents looking for inspiration in preparing their children's meals by an expert cook from a child care centre. Users will be able to find lots of information about recipes as well as organisational and nutritional tips for feeding their toddler. The site will predominately use XHTML and CSS to convey the information with some PHP to enhance the experience by introducing interactivity through recipe ratings.
This project's aim is to capture the knowledge and skills of the creative cook Tina, who works at a child care centre and to share her recipes and ideas for nutritious meals for toddlers. The site should be visually appealing and easy to read and follow.
The website is also a precursor to the release of the book Tina's Cocina which is being prepared. This book will be sold at local fundraisers now and into the future and additional sales through the website will be beneficial.
This website is designed for the local community of Canterbury in Sydney NSW. In particular it is initially aimed at the parents of one of the local childrens centres.
Beyond this audience, the website could also be used by any parent interested in the content. Any mothers and fathers with young children should be able to find some useful information from the site.
This site will be modelled on the concept of:
Other resources include:
This is a screen shot of an early prototype demonstrating colours and visual design.
A persona is a fictional character constructed to represent the needs of a whole range of real users. (Garrett, 2003) The website strategy already has in mind a target market and audience but these prototypes will help keep in mind particular users during the design process.
"I'm always looking for new ideas on what to cook for my son."
Katrina wants to make some special meals for her family, something different.
Katrina is a 37 year old who is married with a three year old boy. She is a former real estate property manager and sales executive who now runs a successful gourmet pizza shop with her husband from Tuesday to Sunday evenings.
Katrina struggles with balancing work life and family life especially since they live on the same premises as her shop. She often works through the day completing paperwork for the shop and then works in the shop in the evenings. She tries hard to maintain some separation between her work and her home and cooking meals for her family is one way she feels she can escape to something that is just for her and her family.
Katrina lives in Sydney's eastern suburbs and drives a BMW. In her spare time she likes to take her son to the park and the beaches or go shopping at the local shopping centre. She has a number of friends who also have young children and they often exchange information about their children for example tips on toilet training, activities for the children or managing toddler behaviour. She considers herself a very committed parent who wants the best for her child.
She has an efficient computer set up at home for her business which she also uses for personal use. Although she doesn't have much time she likes to use the internet in her own down time to browse shopping sites, parent forums and sites that contain information on how to bring up her toddler especially ideas for activities she could do with her son. She likes to email links to friends about interesting things she finds that she thinks they will also find interesting.
"We need some consistency in this household, I want something that will organise a weeks meals for me."
Chris knows how to cook most basic foods but is interested in getting some quick ideas about what to cook for the week.
Chris is a 35 year old male who is married with two children, aged 3 and 1. He lives in Sydney's south west in a 2 bedroom home that they renovated recently.
Both he and his wife work shift work. Chris is a fireman who is also an electrician by trade. Chris and his wife try to coordinate their shifts so that there is always someone at home for the children, but when they can't their parents who live across the road look after the children. Chris spends a lot of his time fixing his house and finalising the renovations including landscaping the garden.
Chris and his wife like to be extra organised but find it very difficult with the shift work. They have lots of strategies in place at home to ensure everything runs smoothly for the children and spend a lot of time talking about who will do the housework and cooking each week. He also spends a lot of time talking to his parents across the road about how the would like certain routines in place for their children so that there is as much consistency as possible across the different carers of the children.
They recently bought a laptop for use at home and have wireless broadband access set up. They don't really use the internet much but like to email friends regularly to stay in touch. Chris also has access to a computer with internet access at work which he can use if he is on night shift and it is a quiet night.
Finding a recipe
Before the scene: Katrina has a friend of her sons coming to visit her house for lunch. She would like to find new recipes to cook for the day that will appeal to both her son and his friend including son ideas for morning and afternoon tea.
During the scene: She accesses the recipes by clicking 'recipes' in the global navigation. She then browses the separate categories by clicking the navigation on the left. Katrina prints the recipes she wants by clicking on the print friendly version. She also checks the photo gallery for some general ideas of recipes by clicking back in the global navigation.
Can I find the recipe quickly? Are there photos of the recipe available? Can I print the information so I can use it while I'm in the kitchen?
Returning to the website
Future scene: Katrina has become a regular user of the Tina's Cocina site. She revisits the recipe to rate the recipes she tried and leave a comment. She accesses the recipes by clicking straight on the "meat" deep links from the main page. She access the rating under the recipe, clicks the number of stars she would like to apply to the recipe and when the page refreshes she can see that her rating has been applied.
Can I find the recipe I used quickly? Is the rating function easy to use?
Accessing sites general information
Before the scene: Chis would like to plan for the children's meals for the week. Chris is a good cook so he doesn't need instructions on how to prepare the meals, just ideas on how organise the meals.
During the scene: He goes to Tina's Cocina's website and goes straight to the sample menus from the home page using the deep links. He browses the information and finds the sample menus he likes. He would like to print the information to put on the fridge at home so that everyone can follow the plan for the week. He also notices the pantry tips section from this page from the left hand navigation items. As he is also doing the grocery shopping for the week he accesses this information and checks it against what is in their pantry. He notes some items that he doesn't have and writes them down on a piece of paper to take with him to the supermarket.
Are the meal plans easy to read and follow? Can I print the information easily? Can I print weekly plans as well as daily plans?
This is the site map for Tina's Cocina. This was developed by a process of content area brainstorming, organising and grouping of content and finally the creation of suitable labels for navigation. These ideas have been confirmed with potential users. Core information is held in the three main areas of recipes, Tina's tips and meal planning. The other pages "About Tina", "Photo gallery" and "Kids say" support these pages with either visual information or supplementary information.
These two wireframes illustrates how the areas of the home page and other pages will be organised.
Example second level navigation page
This provides a summary of the tasks and schedule planned for the Tina Cocina website project (created in Microsoft Project).
Schedule of Work for Tina's Cocina
Garrett JJ, 2003 The Elements of User Experience
Information Architecture Institute
Guide to creating website information architecture and content 2007, Office of Communications, Princeton University
Tools and Techniques: Task Analysis
