iCookbook

From late 2009 through the autumn of 2012 I lead the content development team that created, released and marketed iCookbook, a mobile cooking app for iOS, Android and Win8 devices.

During the development phase I contributed to the conception and creation of the app’s functions (such as the integrated recipe box and shopping list). Drawing on more than 10 years experience editing cookbooks and recipe magazines I acted as the lead advocate for a simple, satisfying user experience. I argued that the UX should mimic the act of flipping page by page through a recipe magazine or cookbook. I reviewed and approved each version of the user interface built by the company we hired to write the app’s code to ensure it stayed true to our vision of iCookbook’s look and feel.

As we moved into the next phase of iCookbook’s development I took on the role of lead content developer. I was personally charged with selecting the recipes and photos included in the app from among the nearly 36,000 recipes available. I was able to balance the recipes’ ownership/licensing agreements, recipe type, main ingredient, and style of cooking among other factors such as app store file size limits. I selected 2,059 recipes for the inclusion in the app. I created and formatted the recipe records using basic HTML coding in a custom content management system built by our in-house developers.

Following the successful launch of iCookbook I created an editorial calendar of themed recipe collections sold through the in-app store. In addition to continuing to select and format recipes for these collections and upload them through a web-based CMS, I also wrote and managed an integrated social media marketing campaign across Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest platforms. The processes and procedures I created for iCookbook were then adopted by the growing iCookbook team to create single-brand and themed versions of iCookbook for our corporate clients.