Blog

Six Recipe Sites: Taste-tested

November 26th, 2007
Chris Palmieri

We at AQ love to bake, steam, stew, chop, and peel, and eat; we spend about as much time talking about food as we do about design. So we decided to see what happens when the two meet, by dissecting a handful of the most popular recipe sites. Bon appétit!

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All Recipes

http://allrecipes.com/

Wooden Spoon rating:
If All Recipes was a chef it would be: Your mom

Umai! (tasty!)
  • Postcard-sized printouts show respect offline traditions - Chris
  • Handy shopping-list tool keeps you from forgetting that crucial sprig of cilantro. - Paul
  • Cook of the week shows appreciation for valuable user contribution. - Christophe
  • It’s easy to compare recipes with user-ratings built right into the search results. - Eiko
  • Amount converter for US/Metric and number of Servings. - Chris
  • Ingredient Search reveals recipes matching the contents of your fridge. - Paul
  • Nutritional information is dynamically generated for many recipes. - Christophe
Needs salt:
  • These user-generated recipes have a limited repertoire: an American home-cookin’ slant, with no easy way to find exotic alternatives. - Chris
  • Too many links everywhere kills your appetite. - Paul
  • Bland color scheme and simple presentation don’t lead your eyes to important areas. - Christophe
  • Red-orange color scheme too close to the color of food. - Chris
  • Top navigation lacks the umph to carry this dish. - Christophe

CookPad

Cook Pad

http://www.cookpad.com

Wooden Spoon rating:
If CookPad was a chef it’d be: The neighbor’s wife: folksy, with that easy-to-love homemade touch, but lacks some refinement.

Umai!
  • Step-by-step photos keep you from losing the script midway. - Eiko
  • Users can subscribe to other users’ favorite recipe lists, one of several ways CookPad keeps a tight community. - Christophe
  • “Tsukurepo” user reports allow the community to discuss how the recipe worked for them and how improvements and improvisations can be made. - Eiko
Needs Salt:
  • Gloomy colour choices for the interface and poor photography make me want to go and eat at McDonald’s - Paul
  • Search refinement choices are too limited. - Christophe
  • Putting high-ranking recipes behind a pay firewall, limiting new visitors to the worst content, sounds like a recipe for failure. - Chris
  • Brewing controversy over the originality of user recipes threatens to quickly poison this melting pot. - Paul

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Food Network

http://www.foodnetwork.com/

Wooden Spoon rating:
If Food Network was a chef it’d be: Rachael Ray, a little familiar, a little bland

Umai!
  • Progressivelyu narrow search results by ingredient, type of dish, type of cuisine, etc. - Chris
  • “Commonly-searched keywords” is a handy touch. - Eiko
Needs salt:
  • Fatty Javascript and Flash sends my browser into cardiac arrest. - Christophe
  • Recipe pages have poor hierarchy. The main recipe text is tiny and unformatted, while huge titles for other recipes steal the show. - Chris
  • Uninspiring photography - Chris

recipe-opensource.jpg

Open Source Food

http://www.opensourcefood.com/

Wooden Spoon rating:
If Open Source Food was a chef it’d be: your teenage brother: more experimental than mom, but can’t cook for crowds and sometimes lights the kitchen on fire.

Umai!
  • This site could totally become the most delicious dating site around. - Paul
  • Individual User pages give the content a personable touch. - Christophe
  • Creative Commons License make it easier to share your recipes. - Chris
  • Easy-to-use peer review elements. - Christophe
  • Nice big photos – Paul
  • Tips section lets users to share kitchen secrets that don’t fit neatly in one recipe. - Chris
  • Uncluttered interface lets the recipes sing. - Paul
Needs salt:
  • This black color scheme doesn’t do these delicious-looking recipes any justice. - Eiko
  • No way to do all but the simplest keyword and genre searches. - Chris
  • Who wants to go through 39 pages of Western-influenced dishes. Needs more powerful ways to filter content. How about “Sexy recipes”, “Get-Well-Soon recipes”, “Make-The-Kids-Sleepy recipes”… - Paul
  • No real sense of how fresh the content is. - Paul
  • Succulent data is begging to be cut by a sharper search interface. - Christophe

recipe-epicurious.jpg

Epicurious

http://www.epicurious.com/

Wooden Spon rating:
If epicurious was a chef it would be: Gordon Ramsay: sophisticated and bold, maybe a little overaggressive.

Umai!
  • Attractive and vibrant rotating color scheme. - Christophe
  • Mail to your cellphone let’s you take your recipes to the supermarket. - Chris
  • Those are some tasty-lookin’ icons! - Eiko
  • Personal notes on recipe pages helps you keep track of your own improvisations. - Chris
  • Video area with lots of content, supported by well-targeted ads. - Christophe
Needs salt:
  • Important links like “My recipe box” tucked under pesky drop down menu. - Chris
  • It’s hard to cook off the screen with half the recipe below the fold. It’s hard to scroll with flour-caked hands! - Eiko
  • Pacing is a little off: it seems like my table is being stacked with too many options at one time. - Christophe
  • The user ratings look shady without any rating counts to back them up. - Eiko

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