PANTRYPAL – RECIPE SHARING APP

Lab project

A household recipe book that turns any recipe into a shopping list you can share.

Client: AmaliTech
Service provided: Mobile app
Duration: 1 week
Year: 2025
Tools: Figma
Platform: Mobile (iOS & Android)

PantryPal – Recipe sharing app: Shared households plan meals and shop from one list

BACKGROUND & CONTEXT

In shared homes, recipes live in screenshots and group chats, and nobody is sure what to buy.
The person who cooks isn't always the person who shops, so ingredient lists get retyped or forgotten.
The lab brief was mid-fidelity wireframing; I took the same flows on to a high-fidelity prototype.

TARGET USERS

Home cooks: saving the recipes the household loves, deciding what to cook this week
Housemates and family members who shop: needing the list, not the recipe

THE GOAL

Keep a household's recipes in one place, and make the step from 'let's cook this' to 'here's what to buy' one tap.

MY PROCESS

Concept
User flows
Mid-fidelity wireframes
High-fidelity UI
Prototype

KEY DECISIONS

Every recipe card shows time, servings, ingredients and steps, so choosing is quick
Adding a recipe is a three-step wizard (details, ingredients, steps) with progress you can see
Each recipe generates its own shopping list, with 'Share List' and 'Export as PDF'
Posting is public by default, with a clear switch to keep a recipe private
A side drawer instead of a tab bar, keeping the screen for food photos

THE SOLUTION

Browse: latest recipes, search by recipe or ingredient, all recipes and saved recipes.
Cook: a recipe page with ingredients and numbered preparation steps.
Shop: a shopping list made from the recipe's ingredients, ready to share with whoever is going to the shop.
Contribute: add a recipe in three steps with photo upload, units like tbsp and tsp, and a public/private toggle.

KEY FEATURES

Household recipe library
Search by recipe or ingredient
Recipe → shopping list
Share list or export PDF
3-step add-a-recipe wizard
Saved recipes

DESIGN SYSTEM & ACCESSIBILITY

A warm, editorial system: Lora serif headings, Lato body, forest green #3D7C30 on cream #F9F7F2, Lucide icons.
Text labels sit beside every icon in the drawer and on recipe chips; step progress is written ('Step 1/3'), not only shown.
Next round: the grey #898787 (3.6:1) used for small text and the up/down number steppers (under 24 px) need attention.

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Mid-fidelity home and shopping list wireframes beside the high-fidelity versions — The lab was about wireframes. The structure didn't need to change to go high fidelity.

PantryPal onboarding: household recipes, plan together, one list — Three promises, in the order a household meets them.

Home with latest recipes, recipe page and shopping list — From 'what shall we cook?' to 'what do we need?' in two taps.

Three-step add-a-recipe wizard: details, ingredients, steps — Adding a recipe in three short steps, with progress you can see.

All recipes, saved recipes and the side drawer — Your recipes and the household's, one drawer away.

PantryPal colours and Lora and Lato type scale — A kitchen-table palette: green, cream and a serif that feels like a cookbook.

Contrast checks for PantryPal greens, browns and greys — The warm palette passes where it matters; small grey text is the fix.

BY THE NUMBERS

From recipe to shopping list: 1 tap
Steps to add a recipe: 3
Lists ready to share or print: PDF

OUTCOME

A clear wireframe-to-prototype story: the mid-fidelity flows carried through to the final screens unchanged.
The core household loop works: find a recipe, cook it, send someone the list.
A defined next step: a shared weekly planner that merges lists across recipes, promised on onboarding and ready to be designed.

What I learned

Multi-user products need a clear owner for every shared object; the list belongs to whoever is shopping, not whoever cooked.