Problem Statement Analysis of the Problem

Adrian Ferrer
CSE510P Project Proposal “Refrigerator Fairy”
Problem Statement
People with time-consuming jobs or hobbies end up eating out or eating
instant food a lot. In the long run, this becomes unhealthy, expensive, or both.
Analysis of the Problem
To get these people to cook their own food more, two things must be
implemented:
1. Engage the user. The process of preparing food from raw materials
must be made rewarding enough, so that these people make time
for it even with their jobs or hobbies. There is no point in an elegant
application if the end user won’t even use it.
2. Continuous assistance. It has to be easy for these people to go
from one step of the food preparation process to the next, so that
they don’t lose motivation between steps.
Refrigerator Fairy
The Refrigerator Fairy is an application for iPhones and similar mobile
devices that will implement the two parts of the solution in this way:
1) Engage the user: A personalized mascot and unlockable content to
make a game out of food preparation.
2) Continuous assistance: Assisting with tracking ingredients from
shopping list to refrigerator to recipe.
Engage the User
Microsoft introduced a cartoon girl mascot named “Nanami Madobe” to
represent Windows 7 in Japan. By putting a face on the application, Microsoft
hoped to make their product easier to relate to. The worldwide popularity of
anime shows how people can become attached to cute fictional characters.
Refrigerator Fairy uses Cirno, the ice fairy from the popular Toho game series,
as its default mascot. Sadly, not everyone likes Cirno. Other mascots, not
necessarily from games or anime, can be used to cater to different fanbases.
In addition to the mascot walking the user through the interface, the
application will reward users with points whenever they complete a recipe.
These points can be used to unlock comics, illustrations, and other content
related to the mascot character.
Continuous Assistance
Refrigerator Fairy stores two lists:
1) A list of the contents of your refrigerator. Enter these contents
whenever you bring home stuff from the grocery.
2) A shopping list. Enter these contents whenever you plan to buy
something. You then move them to your refrigerator after buying.
Refrigerator Fairy has access to two searchable online data banks:
1) Recipes. You can select ingredients from your refrigerator and
search for recipes with those ingredients. Also, if you are missing
ingredients, you can add them to your shopping list. After
completing a recipe, the ingredients disappear and you get points.
2) Unlockable content, purchasable with points. There is nothing to
prevent you from lying about recipe completion, but hopefully once
you get into the game, you will play fair.
Example Scenario
Kaguya decides to stop by the grocery on the way home from work and
consults Refrigerator Fairy. She notices that she has chicken, carrots, and soy
sauce in her refrigerator. She enters those into Refrigerator Fairy and comes
up with a chicken stir-fry recipe (provided by Kikkoman and Sunbird).
Kaguya finds that she still needs mushrooms, onions, green pepper, sugar,
and the Sunbird brand Szechuan seasoning packet. Refrigerator Fairy adds
them to her shopping list, which she then takes to the store.
After buying the missing ingredients, she returns home, completes the recipe,
and has dinner. She spends the points she earns from this on a comic strip
about her favorite character, Mokou.