L’Acquolina Pasta (which means“mouthwatering” in Italian) is a NYC based company that produces and sells a variety of fresh pastas.
Fresh pasta requires different preparation than dry pasta, and most people don’t have as much experience cooking it. Since results can vary with even the slightest changes, L’Acquolina wants to make sure their mobile website offers clear, concise instructions that will help all customers prepare the pasta correctly.
ROLE
UX Design/Research
SECTOR
B2C, Retail, Food & Hospitality
L'ACQUOLINA
"Mouthwatering"
PASTA
Designing Cooking Instructions for L'Acquolina Pasta
We want customers to feel confident, have fun, and enjoy cooking!
THE TASK
Define UX Writing Guidelines, and design the “cooking instructions” page for L’Acquolina Spaghetti.
As the UX Writer, I did this by conducting research and determining the brand’s personality, tone, and voice. I then used those factors to develop a “cooking instructions” page for their mobile website.
MY ROLE: UX WRITER
RESEARCH
I started stakeholder research by looking at existing writing from L'Acquolina Pasta, including instagram posts, cooking instructions, and website descriptions.
I then compiled 3 core brand voice principles...
VOICE & TONE BY SCENARIOS
Using the core brand voice principles, I created examples of tone use based on various scenarios a user would experience while using the site.
CONTENT MINING
After an interview with the Founder of L'Acquolina, I discovered several useful words & phrases
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Al Dente-pasta that is cooked to be firm to the bite.
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Cooking time is critical
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Cooking Time-timing is of the essence.
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Direct to sauce
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Directly into the sauce
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Don't forget to mix (mantecare), marry the pasta w/ sauce
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Don’t rinse the pasta, keep the beautiful starch on the pasta.
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Experience
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Fresh Pasta
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Local
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Mantecare-marry your pasta into the sauce.
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Marry and meld the flavors
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Pasta water is the magic ingredient
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Plan the timing: sauce and pasta should be done at same time
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Pull your pasta al dente (30 seconds before it’s done texture-wise and finish cooking it in the sauce)
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Rapid boil/ roiling boil
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Ready
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Salt the water (salty like the ocean)
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Salted water, rapid cooking, no rinsing or draining, mix pasta well into the sauce
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Salting your water
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Shy away from draining, pasta water is the magic ingredient
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The starch melds with and marries the pasta with the sauce.
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The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
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To mix or to whisk
SECONDARY & COMPETITIVE RESEARCH
I also conducted research from other sources to discover other useful words and phrases for the cooking instructions page.
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Rolling boil
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Remove promptly
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Fresh and delicate
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Remove promptly
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Stir to separate pasta
Fresh Pasta Cooking Instructions
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Fresh pasta tends to float when it’s ready
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Gently stir 1-2 minutes
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We’d like to share our cooking traditions with you
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See below on how we cook the perfect pasta.
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Add a little salt – It helps flavor your pasta
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Large pot
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Boiling salted water
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Watch it carefully
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Cook fresh pasta noodles in a large pot of boiling salted water.
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Fresh pasta takes less time to cook than dried, usually only 1 to 3 minutes, so watch it carefully.
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To test, remove a noodle with tongs or a long-handled fork and take a bite. Pasta is best when cooked al dente (tender but firm to the bite).
SKETCHES & WIREFRAMES
Cooking fresh pasta can be a nerve-racking experience, especially for first timers.
My goal was to give insightful and easy to perform instructions to make the experience less stressful and more fun.
I started the ideation process by creating sketches and low fidelity wireframes.
I created a pasta selection and cooking instructions page as well as a Pasta Tips and Tricks page as this would be the typical sequence of users on the L'Acquolina site.
PASTA COOKING INSTRUCTIONS
I then moved designed a low-fidelity wireframe that incorporates the L’Aquolina Pasta brand voice and tone giving users quick and simple instructions to cook fresh pasta at home. This was necessary to ensure we could concisely share all the necessary instructions while maintaining the brand's informative, inviting, and playful voice.
Since cooking fresh Cooking fresh pasta can be a nerve-racking experience, especially for first timers, I also created a "Tips and Tricks" page to ensure users had all they needed to ensure confidence in their cooking.
DESIGNING A BETTER ERROR MESSAGE
On the L 'Acquolina website, users can order “Pasta Packs” that include Pasta, Sauce, and Seasonings. If a user orders a certain pack and that pasta is out of stock, they will receive and error message. Using our writing guidelines, I rewrote the language of this error message to make it easier for users to place an order successfully. In the revised version on the right, customers can clearly see the specific problem and are offered a solution to complete their order.
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Cooking fresh pasta can be a nerve-racking experience, especially for first timers.
My goal was to give insightful and easy to perform instructions to make the experience less stressful and more fun.
I started the ideation process by creating sketches and low fidelity wireframes.
I created a pasta selection and cooking instructions page as well as a Pasta Tips and Tricks page as this would be the typical sequence of users on the L'Acquolina site.
PASTA COOKING INSTRUCTIONS
I then moved designed a low-fidelity wireframe that incorporates the L’Aquolina Pasta brand voice and tone giving users quick and simple instructions to cook fresh pasta at home. This was necessary to ensure we could concisely share all the necessary instructions while maintaining the brand's informative, inviting, and playful voice.
Since cooking fresh Cooking fresh pasta can be a nerve-racking experience, especially for first timers, I also created a "Tips and Tricks" page to ensure users had all they needed to ensure confidence in their cooking.
DESIGNING A BETTER ERROR MESSAGE
On the L 'Acquolina website, users can order “Pasta Packs” that include Pasta, Sauce, and Seasonings. If a user orders a certain pack and that pasta is out of stock, they will receive and error message. Using our writing guidelines, I rewrote the language of this error message to make it easier for users to place an order successfully. In the revised version on the right, customers can clearly see the specific problem and are offered a solution to complete their order.
I started the ideation process by sketching some wireframes.
I also created Low-fidelity wireframes of a pasta selection, cart and cooking instructions page as well as a Pasta Tips and Tricks page as this would be the typical sequence of users on the L'Acquolina site.
PASTA COOKING INSTRUCTIONS
I then created Hi-fidelity wireframes that incorporated L’Acquolina's educational, familial, and warm tone and voice, giving users quick and simple instructions to cook fresh pasta at home.
Since cooking fresh Cooking fresh pasta can be a nerve-racking experience, especially for first timers, I created a "Tips and Tricks" page.
My goal was to create insightful and easy directives to make the experience less stressful and more fun.
DESIGNING A BETTER ERROR MESSAGE
On the L'Acquolina website, users can order “Pasta Packs” that include pasta, sauce, and seasonings. If a user orders a certain pack and that pasta is out of stock, they will receive an error message. Using our writing guidelines, I rewrote the language of this error message to make it easier for users to place an order successfully. In the revised versions on the right, customers can clearly see the specific problem and are offered a solution to complete their shopping and checkout.
Error messages are a common area where writing can make or break a user's experience. My aim was to reduce technical terminology, in turn prioritizing language and design to offer solutions.
TITLE OF THE CALLOUT BLOCK
NEXT STEPS
In the future, I plan to:
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Conduct usability tests to asses users interactions with L’Acquolina’s mobile website and the error pop ups.
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Perform more research for content mining and vocabulary.
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More design iterations based on usability test results.