Connecting To Cultural Identity Through Food
Enabling Chinese adoptees to explore their cultural identity by pairing guided cooking with community and shared meals
Duration
15 weeks
Team
Solo
Responsibilities
UX/UI Design
User Research
Branding
Prototyping
Industrial Design
Opportunity
2 of 3 Chinese adoptees experience a disconnect from their birth culture due to limited access to authentic experiences, guidance, or community.
Result
A monthly Chinese meal kit paired with a companion app that guides users through recipes while fostering connection through shared cooking experiences and community interaction.
01
App
A companion app that guides Chinese adoptees through the monthly recipes and acts as a platform to share and connect with other adoptees.
02
Monthly Meal Kit
A once a month delivery meal kit that explores the various cuisine of China to connect adoptees to their culture through the power of food.
03
Discovery
Conducted surveys and interviews with Chinese adoptees to better understand their experiences growing up and in adulthood to surface needs and attitudes around identity, connection, and their relationship with their own culture.
Survey participants
Participants interviewed
Hours of interviews
Survey Results
A majority of Chinese adoptees reported participating in very few cultural traditions or activities, yet they actively seek out that connection and community.
User Journey
This journey map draws from multiple interviews with Chinese adoptees. It follows adoptees' relationship with culture and identity as they grow up. Starting from childhood unawareness to an adult desire for reconnection, throughout surfacing recurring feelings of isolation, shame, and confusion.
Pain Points
Isolation
Adoptees often feel isolated, not only from their heritage, but also from their family and friends who cannot fully understand their experience
Confusion
Many adoptees struggle with their identity and balancing their birth culture with American culture, feeling like they don’t fully belong to either
Overwhelming
Due to the richness and complexity of culture, adoptees struggle to identify a clear starting point to explore and learn about their culture
How Might We…
04
Co-creation
Conducted interviews with Chinese adoptees to gather reactions of six initial app concepts. These sessions captured candid feedback and ideas, creating a collaborative space where participant insights directly shaped the app’s final direction into a more meaningful experience.
Concepts
Participants interviewed
Hours of interviews
Concepts
Design Goals
These design goals grew out of pain points surfaced through surveys and interviews with Chinese adoptees. Then, co-creation sessions with participants shaped those pain points into clear, actionable goals.
Group activities
Group events were favored because they create a collaborative, engaging environment that is less intimidating than one-on-one interactions
Personal pacing
Users preferred features that allow them to engage at their own pace and gives them control of their journey
Reflective
Users want the ability to reflect on their experiences to better understand how cooking connects them to their cultural roots, making the process both educational and personally meaningful
05
Exploration
Focused on community features that let users connect with other adoptees on the same journey in a collaborative and low-pressure way, flexible pacing that lets users engage on their own terms, and reflection touch points that tie each experience back to discovering their cultural identity.
06
Branding
The goal of branding was to feel warm and welcoming to encourage Chinese adoptees to begin their journey of reconnecting with their heritage through food, storytelling, and shared experiences.
In many Asian cultures, care is often expressed through acts of service like preparing and sharing food. This is reflected in the familiar greeting "Have you eaten?", a simple phrase that conveys love and concern.
In Chinese culture, the five traditional colors (red, yellow, blue/green, white, and black) are tied to the Five Elements (Wuxing) and cardinal directions, appearing throughout clothing, architecture, and festivals to represent harmony and balance.
07
App Features
Onboarding
Quick and seamless onboarding that matches users with communities aligned to their interests, making it simple to begin their journey and start connecting right away
Simple quiz to determine how the user intends to use the app.
Option to immediately join communities, providing an engaging screen as soon as the app is opened
Livestreams
Cook alongside the featured chef in a guided livestream where users can ask questions in real time, learn new techniques, and connect through a shared cooking experience
Engage with other adoptees and chefs
Recordings of lives automatically save for users to view later
Discussion Boards
A welcoming space to share stories, ask questions, and answer given prompts to help users connect with others who share similar experiences, creating a sense of community
A place for both serious and unserious topics
Encourages conversations which strengthens the sense of belonging among adoptees
Features topic prompts and curated questions that can direct conversations towards meaningful discussions
Reflections
Given guided prompts encourage users to process and reflect and gives each meal the chance to turn into a moment of personal growth and cultural connection
Users can view past recipes and reflections
Journal entries are prompted with approachable, easy-to-answer questions