L'ACQUOLINA PASTA
Designing Cooking Instructions for L'Acquolina Pasta
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
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.
THE TASK
I started stakeholder research by looking at existing writing from L'Acquolina Pasta, including instagram posts, cooking instructions, and website descriptions.
RESEARCH
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
Al Dente-pasta that is cooked to be firm to the bite.
Cooking time is critical
Cooking Time-timing is of the essence.
Direct to sauce
Directly into the sauce
Don't forget to mix (mantecare), marry the pasta w/ sauce
Don’t rinse the pasta, keep the beautiful starch on the pasta.
Experience
Fresh Pasta
Local
Mantecare-marry your pasta into the sauce.
Marry and meld the flavors
Pasta water is the magic ingredient
Plan the timing: sauce and pasta should be done at same time
Pull your pasta al dente (30 seconds before it’s done texture-wise and finish cooking it in the sauce)
Rapid boil/ roiling boil
Salt the water (salty like the ocean)
Salted water, rapid cooking, no rinsing or draining, mix pasta well into the sauce
Salting your water
Shy away from draining, pasta water is the magic ingredient
The starch melds with and marries the pasta with the sauce.
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
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.
Rolling boil
Remove promptly
Fresh and delicate
Remove promptly
Stir to separate pasta
Fresh pasta cooking instructions:
Fresh pasta tends to float when it’s ready
Gently stir 1-2 minutes
We’d like to share our cooking traditions with you
See below on how we cook the perfect pasta.
Add a little salt – It helps flavor your pasta
Large pot
Boiling salted water
Watch it carefully
Cook fresh pasta noodles in a large pot of boiling salted water.
Fresh pasta takes less time to cook than dried, usually only 1 to 3 minutes, so watch it carefully.
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 & FINAL 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.
