Ember

  • USER RESEARCH
  • UX/UI DESIGN
  • PERSONAL PROJECT
  • 24 HOURS

Ember

What if a recipe app never neededa fingertip once the cooking started?

Five tilted iPads on orange: Ember’s splash screen, the Creamy Garlic Chicken recipe page with Start Cook Along, the Done screen, three timers on the heat, and a step that heard “next”.

BRIEF

A 24-hour solo design sprint: a hands-free cook-along mode for a recipe app on an 11-inch tablet.

THE PROBLEM

Messy hands, trying to tick off a step with an elbow or a knuckle. It misclicks and sets something else off in the recipe app.

THE RESEARCH

I spoke to 5 people I know who regularly use a screen to see recipes or follow along a recipe while cooking, to understand them better. To empathise with them even better, I went ahead and used a screen to look at the recipe while I cooked.

FROM INSIGHTTO DECISION

Insight

Decision

Nobody touches the screen with messy hands (5 of 5).

Nothing to set up once hands are dirty.

Nobody reads the screen from beyond 3 feet.

Answer the glance.

Losing your place in the recipe is costly (4 of 5).

The screen stays put.

THE GAP

Every app has a step view. None ismade for messy hands.

Only 4 add hands-free input, timers and scaling, and each still falls back to touch.

THE SOLUTION

Speak, while your handsstay in the dough.

  • Servings are set before the mess. After “Start Cook Along” nothing needs a fingertip.
  • “Hey Ember” runs every step by voice, from up to 5 feet away.
  • When it’s too loud, two full-height edges take an elbow or a knuckle.
  • The screen never locks, never skips ahead, and keeps every timer in sight.

EDGE CASES

Voice mishears

Ember shows what it heard and does nothing.

A step reading “Didn’t catch that”, the four commands listed under it, the 2:41 timer unchanged.

Too loud for voice

Both edges turn solid orange and take over.

Both edges solid orange and labelled Back and Next, the mic crossed out: “Too loud to hear you. Use the edges.”

Wet screen

The edges switch to hold, so a splash can’t change the step.

Both edges reading Hold, the right one half filled with orange: “Screen seems wet. Hold an edge or just speak.”

Nothing to do but wait

The timers take the whole screen.

Three full-width timers, Veggies 1:30, Rice 4:15 and Sauce 7:42, the step shrunk to one line under them.

Want to see everyscreen and state?

Check out the full project

NEXT UP

PlanitUX/UI Design, User ResearchOpen
© 2026Sagnik Mukherjee