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.