Interruption-Friendly Cooking Mode
Design a hands-busy recipe mode that preserves progress across interruptions, parallel timers, substitutions, and device changes.
The brief
Understand the problem
Background
Home cooks may leave a recipe to answer a call, care for a child, wash their hands, or check another dish. A linear step carousel loses context when several actions and timers overlap.
User context
Noor is making lentil soup and flatbread while supervising her son. She uses a tablet on the counter, starts timers from her watch, and expects at least one interruption.
Product problem
Noor needs to know what is active, what can wait, and where to resume without rereading the whole recipe or missing a safety-critical step.
Objective
Create preparation, active-step, interruption, and resumption states for a recipe with two concurrent timers.
What to design
Define the experience
Required experience
- Review equipment, ingredients, and parallel tasks before starting
- Follow an active step with hands-busy controls
- Pause attention while timers continue appropriately
- Resume with a concise state summary and next priority
Screens and states
- Recipe readiness
- Active cooking step
- Interruption summary
- Resume and timer coordination
Core user flow
Follow the critical path
- 01
Noor starts the soup simmer and flatbread rest timers
- 02
A call arrives and she marks the current chopping step as interrupted
- 03
The rest timer completes while the simmer continues
- 04
She returns to a summary showing elapsed time, completed work, and the safe next action
Product rules
Requirements and constraints
Requirements
- Separate recipe progress from real-time timers
- Keep active heat, resting, and completed tasks visible
- Support large targets, voice-free controls, and screen wake settings
- Explain whether pause affects a timer or only guidance
- Allow corrections when a step was completed off-screen
Constraints
- The product cannot assume unattended heat is safe
- Timing depends on equipment and observable food condition
- Essential instructions must remain available without audio
Reality check
States worth considering
Finish line
What to deliver
- Four tablet or mobile screens plus one watch timer state
- An interruption-state diagram distinguishing guidance, task, and timer status
If you want more
Optional extensions
Optional direction
Visual resources
Use these as a starting constraint if you want one. They are not part of the required solution.