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problem
Many people experience decision fatigue when cooking, often staring at a full fridge wondering “what can I make?” or throwing away spoiled food they forgot about. In the U.S., nearly one-third of all food is lost or wasted each year, much of it at home. Busy families, students, and professionals struggle to keep track of perishable items and to plan meals around what they already have. Forgetting ingredients at home leads to extra grocery runs or impulse take-out orders, wasted money, and unhappy stomachs. Surveys and interviews reveal users who say things like “I always overbuy veggies and then throw them out” or “I have all these ingredients but no idea what to cook.” Existing solutions are fragmented: simple inventory apps lack meal planning, and recipe apps don’t know what you own
solution
Cookd’s approach is to reframe meal planning around what you already have. Instead of making the user search for recipes and then add missing ingredients, Cookd guides the user from their existing pantry to a dinner plan in just a few taps. The home dashboard highlights critical info: a list of expiring items (e.g. “Milk expires tomorrow”) and a “Cook Tonight” suggestion that uses soon-to-expire foods. Adding items is quick: users can search from a common food database, scan barcodes, or even take a photo of their fridge contents (leveraging simple image recognition as a bonus feature). Every item includes an optional expiry date, which the app uses to color-code urgency (red for expiring soon, yellow for upcoming).
II often found myself standing in front of a fridge full of ingredients but still asking, "What should I cook?" After speaking with friends and researching existing pantry management apps, I noticed a common problem: most solutions either focused only on recipes or only on inventory, making meal planning feel complicated.
This inspired me to design Cookd, a mobile app that helps users keep track of what's in their kitchen, receive reminders before food expires, and discover meals based on the ingredients they already have. Throughout the project, I explored user research, user flows, wireframes, and multiple design iterations to create a simple, intuitive experience that reduces food waste and removes the stress of deciding what to cook.
The final design focuses on helping users complete their goal in just a few steps—from adding ingredients to cooking a recommended meal—while keeping the interface clean, approachable, and easy to use. This project strengthened my skills in product thinking, UX research, interaction design, and designing solutions around real user problems rather than adding unnecessary features.
year
2026
timeframe
working
tools
Figma
category
UI/UX
see also
