Joe Song

The Site: A next-generation meal planning site from General Mills. [NOTE: This site is still in development. The features noted here are based on the prototype, information architecture and in-progress development.]
http://betterathome.com

The Client: General Mills has an extensive recipe collection (Betty Crocker is a flagship property) but they needed a way to stand out from the crowd of recipe sites and a way to connect with the current frugality of today’s families.

My Role: User experience development lead. My team worked onsite with internal General Mills task teams who were developing the browser output and deep data areas of the site. I also worked with another OLSON developer to create the prototype that helped win the job.

The Technology: The main elements of the front end are built with the MooTools framework which was coaxed to cooperate with generic ASP.net AJAX components. The recurring recipe tiles on the calendar, recipe box and search pages employ a micro format that allows identical markup to serve several purposes and designs around the site; this allows the back-end development to be more efficient while giving the JavaScript classes reliable semantic information.

The Highlights: The site’s most useful and interesting feature is the meal planning calendar that gives the user drag and drop capabilities and drill-down or -up views. Also of note is the recipe box which works easily with the calendar to bookmark and categorize recipes.