Crust – a Sourdough Doula

Client: School project)
Year: 2020
Service: UX Research, Concept & Visual Design
My role: Researcher & Designer

Summary

The pandemic turned everyone into sourdough bakers – but few learned to master the thousand year old craft. Crust is an imaginative app, designed to guide the novice baker to a perfect loaf.

We interviewed five sourdough bakers to learn about their struggles, motivations and needs. Using a semi structured approach we learned:

Novice bakers spends a lot of time on google/youtube/blogs to identify what's causing their dough to fail. Help with identifying the underlying issue – and the fix – is a need that has to be satisfied. Video is often their preferred medium.
Bakers often form an emotional relationship with their dough, naming it and often refer to it as a pet.
Sourdough baking is complex, and for sourdough bakers the challenge is what makes all the excitement. It's not supposed to be for everyone, and it's not supposed to be simple.
They like to document their achievements, and also brag about them to friends. Helping them document, rate and share their breads could be a way of satisfying this need.