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.