Yummy – The Interview

Yummy – A Multimedia Culinary Companion for the Entire Family was nominated in EuroPrix Multimedia Awards 2010 in the category of Mobile Content and Applications.

I had an intriguing afternoon chat with the four talented graduate students Sylvain Bernardi, Nicolas Pigelet, Muriel Bougherdani & Marie Laurent from Gobelins l'Ecole de l'Image, about their project and how it ended up in EuroPrix.


From Intelligent Fridge to Mobile Meal Planning

The idea for Yummy was not born all of sudden but as a result of intensive two-week brainstorming in a Parisian school of applied arts, Gobelins l'Ecole de l'Image in France. The whole class of students in digital design and production –course was striving to find a subject for the diploma project of the soon-to-be-graduates. The subject got picked out of seven different options based on the creators’ personal preferences: kitchen & cooking was the winning theme.

At first the team had an idea of an intelligent fridge that would synchronize its contents with an application that could then suggest feasible meals accordingly. However the team did not want to create something that requires a specific device for the kitchen and developed the idea of a meal planning service into a simple, user-friendly mobile application that anyone could use. “In the beginning there were so many ideas for the application that many of them had to be excluded in order to choose only the most useful features”, Muriel explains.

Do Your Research

Several mobile applications on kitchen- and cooking-themes were known to be available on the market but this didn’t slow down the innovative team. The background work was done carefully as the team created a poll directed to 100 families to identify the needs of the potential customers. The plans for the application were accurately based on user needs. Nicolas states accompanied with others that the users have been the greatest source of inspiration for the project.

Road to the Prototype

Usability testing was conducted observing the people using the software and studying their reactions in addition to other chosen methods. Creating such a versatile, multi-feature application only in eight months was a challenge but the team managed to overcome problems on the way to the successful prototype. The Yummy-team has plans for splitting the application in three parts in the future: schedule, recipe and profile parts. Then the user wouldn’t need to install all the features but he could only install the feature he needs, the recipe application for instance.

Yummy is different from other similar mobile applications on the market as it is not provided only for one specific device. Its tactile and mobile features can be used in several mobile devices and tablets. One of the strong points of Yummy is that it offers a personalized diet centered around the eating preferences, health and personal experience of each user in relation to cooking. Today it’s a completely usable, ready-to-sell prototype awaiting content to be implemented in it. The possibilities are vast. The team is now looking to develop Yummy or sell it to a company willing to develop it further and find content creators interested in the application. There are plans for future pricing of the product but all depends on the final content.

We are eagerly waiting for Yummy to launch! Meanwhile: Bon Appetit!

Website for Yummy