Pantry Passport - Cross-Cultural Software Interface

Pantry Passport is a cross-cultural software interface that connects Australian users to Russian cuisine that they can cook using ingredients that they already have in their... Pantry! As a part of this project, we were tasked with developing a tool to help one culture learn from another, neither of which could be American English speakers.

Users are first introduced to a home page with two images selected at random from our catalog of culturally relevant food staples. They are presented with buttons to change the interface to their desired language, and once they are pressed the page will be reloaded to display changes (if any) that are made. They are then directed to the next page which features a checklist filled with kitchen staples, and instructions to select which ones they already have in their pantry. Once this data is collected, users will be recommended three recipes that align closest to the ingredients they selected. After one is selected, they are then shown their chosen recipe and description, along with a button that takes them back to the ingredient selection screen should they wish to choose a different recipe.

Users are able to change language at any step of the process with the language swap buttons located in the header bar at the top of the screen. The recipe selection algorithm worked by using a series of hash maps in an embedded for loop to compare the selected ingredients with those required for each recipe. From there, the three recipes with the highest percentage of matching ingredients are chosen and presented to the user.

We tested this project with several Australian and Russian users in order to confirm usefulness and accuracy, and also to gain feedback for improvements that would create a better user experience.

This project was created using Java to demonstrate our knowledge of the graphical library Java Swing, the Eclipse IDE, and Java programs. The team working on Pantry Passport consisted of Aaron Altman, Harrison Boerner, and myself (Owen Chaffin).