Scenario 8: Budget‐Conscious Recipe Discovery and Meal Planning

Requirement Scenario: Budget-Conscious Recipe Discovery and Meal Planning

Actor

Registered User: Sam (A budget-conscious college student)

User Persona

• Name: Sam
• Situation: Sam is a college student on a tight budget who wants to maintain a nutritious diet while minimizing grocery expenses. He needs to find affordable recipes and create cost-effective meal plans.
• Goal: Sam wants to discover budget-friendly recipes with good nutritional value, compare costs, and create an affordable weekly meal plan that fits his limited budget.

Preconditions

1. Sam is logged into the Affordable & Healthy Eating Hub platform. (Requirement 1.7.2)
2. The food database contains at least 500 food items with nutritional details and pricing. (Requirement 1.1.1, 1.1.5)
3. Multiple recipes exist in the platform with calculated costs and nutrition scores. (Requirement 1.3.1, 1.3.5, 1.3.7)
4. Price data is available from marketfiyati.org API. (Requirement 1.1.5)

Main Flow

1. Sam navigates to the Recipe section to browse available recipes.
2. Sam filters recipes by cost selecting "Lowest to highest cost" to find the most affordable options. (Requirement 1.3.6.a)
3. The system displays recipes sorted by total cost, calculated as the sum of ingredient prices from marketfiyati.org API. (Requirement 1.3.5, 1.1.5)
4. Sam reviews the cost breakdown for several recipes, seeing both per-ingredient and total recipe costs. (Requirement 1.3.5)
5. Sam switches the filter to "Best cost-to-nutrition ratio" to find recipes that balance affordability with nutritional value. (Requirement 1.3.6.c)
6. The system recalculates and sorts recipes by cost divided by nutrition score, showing the best value options first.
7. Sam selects a high-protein lentil stew recipe with excellent cost-to-nutrition ratio (cost: 12 TL, nutrition score: 8.2/10.00).
8. Sam views the recipe's aggregated nutrition score and tooltip explaining the calculation. (Requirement 1.3.7, 1.1.3)
9. Sam views the detailed nutritional information for each ingredient linked to the food database. (Requirement 1.3.2)
10. Sam likes the recipe to save it for later reference. (Requirement 1.4.6.a)
11. Sam repeats the process to find 2-3 more affordable, nutritious recipes for his weekly plan.
12. Sam navigates to the Meal Planner section. (Requirement 1.5.1)
13. Sam sets a weekly budget of 200 TL for his meal plan. (Requirement 1.5.1)
14. The system generates a meal plan using a deterministic seeded algorithm that:
    • Selects recipes within Sam's budget
    • Targets macronutrient totals within ±10% of recommended daily needs
    • Uses Sam's userId + weekStartISO as seed for consistent results (Requirement 1.5.3)
15. Sam reviews the generated meal plan showing breakfast, lunch, and dinner for each day of the week.
16. Sam checks the nutritional summary for the entire week to ensure balanced nutrition. (Requirement 1.5.5)
17. Sam reviews the total weekly cost showing the plan costs 195 TL, within his budget.
18. Sam manually adjusts one dinner by replacing it with the lentil stew recipe he liked earlier.
19. The system recalculates the nutrition summary and total cost to reflect Sam's changes.
20. Sam saves the meal plan for future reference and reuse. (Requirement 1.5.4)
21. Sam decides to share his budget success with the community.
22. Sam shares his meal plan as a post in the forum with the title "200 TL Weekly Meal Plan for Students". (Requirement 1.5.2)
23. Sam adds appropriate tags including "Meal plan" and additional descriptive tags like "budget" and "student". (Requirement 1.4.1, 1.4.7.c)
24. Sam acknowledges community guidelines by agreeing to the responsibility prompt. (Requirement 1.4.14)
25. Sam publishes the post to the forum. (Requirement 1.4.2)
26. Other budget-conscious users like Sam's post and click "This helped me". (Requirement 1.4.6.a, 1.4.16)
27. Sam receives notifications about the helped count increasing on his meal plan post. (Requirement 1.2.16)
28. Sam's contribution is tracked in his personal dashboard, updating his impact metrics within 60 seconds. (Requirement 1.2.14)

Outcome

• Sam has successfully discovered affordable recipes using cost-based filtering and sorting options. (Requirement 1.3.6)
• Sam has compared recipes based on cost-to-nutrition ratio, making informed decisions about meal value. (Requirement 1.3.6.c)
• Sam has created a cost-optimized weekly meal plan that fits within his 200 TL budget. (Requirement 1.5.1, 1.5.3)
• Sam has received nutritional summaries ensuring his budget meal plan still meets his dietary needs. (Requirement 1.5.5)
• Sam has saved his meal plan for future reference and reuse. (Requirement 1.5.4)
• Sam has shared his budget success with the community through a forum post. (Requirement 1.5.2)
• Other budget-conscious users can learn from Sam's experience and use his meal plan. (Requirement 1.4.4)
• The "This helped me" feature provides Sam with meaningful feedback on how many students found his budget plan useful. (Requirement 1.4.16)
• Sam's contributions are recognized in his personal dashboard, motivating continued community participation. (Requirement 1.2.13, 1.2.14)
• The platform demonstrates its core value proposition of making healthy eating affordable through practical user examples.
• Recipe costs are automatically updated based on current market prices from the API, ensuring accuracy. (Requirement 1.1.5)

Mockups