Aykys Salchak
A graphic designer with 4+ years of experience working as a creative, guided by market trends and design expertise. Currently designing at Whalar, Part of Accenture Song, and pursuing an IDM, M.S. degree at NYU Tandon.
A graphic designer with 4+ years of experience working as a creative, guided by market trends and design expertise. Currently designing at Whalar, Part of Accenture Song, and pursuing an IDM, M.S. degree at NYU Tandon.
+ Info
Playful Interfaces
October 9, 2026
We Need to Talk....
Typing...typing...typing...everyday. It is something I do non-stop. Whether it is for class, work, or just random scrolling, it is an integral part of my life. Actually, I am literally typing this right now!! While sitting and thinking about this project, I thought deeply about an interface that I use so much. But then I got distracted thinking about my 6am Monday wake up time and how I need to prepare a nutritious meal during for my upcoming work day. I noticed myself non-stop typing into the search bar, hunting for my next recipe. I realized just how big a part of my life this has become. I prepare meals almost every night and my social media pages are filled with the next new recipe for me to try. Although it is so vital to my weekly schedule, it has become...quite boring and monotonous, despite it being efficient at generating many recipe searches.
After much thought, I started to think about ways to change this interface. Maybe it was time to go back to the basics, perhaps as far as my childhood. Instead of typing out “recipe with broccoli, steak, and rice”, why not stack building blocks of those ingredients? My design consisted of childhood building blocks that you can stack on top of each other that then can help you find your next recipe. These building blocks would then be bluetooth connected to your phone, and once they are stacked, your phone can find you recipes based on the building blocks you chose. No more monotonously typing, but stacking interactively colorful blocks! I found this to be a fun and engaging way of doing something that I have to do every single week.
I also thought this would be a great way of collaborating. If you have a partner or friend that meal preps or just wants to cook with you, both of you can stack ingredients together to find recipes. I think the visual aspect can be helpful, as well. Typing does not help you see what you are constructing, but stacking different colors helps you see that...maybe your meal is a little too yellow and maybe you need to add a veg...for some color and health benefits.
Process Documentation
Design Takeaway
01. typing
02. scrolling
03. selecting
I then thought of how I can tackle these interfaces and create affordances. I intially thought of three different ideas
01. typing - building blocks for ingredients
02. scrolling - playing cards with that you flip through to find a recipe
03. selecting- joy stick to select and move through recipes
However, after some deliberation I realized that with the “selecting” idea, I was not thinking creatively enough, while “scrolling” was a bit too similar to my first idea. I think “typing” was the much stronger choice because it included several physical affordances of stacking, assembling, and touch. It even allowed for an even more visual and collaborative interaction that you otherwise will not get with simply typing on the phone screen.
The construction of the blocks was a great experience. I reused the cardboard from previous projects and learned how to construct blocks from online videos. In the beginning, it was very hard for me to understand how to create this box because of the cardboard’s thick material, but after many tries I was able to construct a clean and sturdy shape. I even had to learn to be very precise with my measurements and account for the scorring and shaping of the cardboard. At the end, I then painted the boxes in bright colors with fun illustrations to fully enhance the visual and child-like aspect of this physical affordance.
By physcially making these blocks, I learned more about the importance of the physical. I think I achieved what I was initially thinking of when ideating. I wanted to make someone be more present when constructing their next meal, for them to be able to see the ingredients that they would want in their recipe. They would be physically touching their cubes and then seeing the colors that would go into their meal. Sometimes when we are typing, we don’t think about what goes into the meal. Our recipes may be boring because maybe we did not add enough veggies or we did not experiment enough. Looking at these cubes now makes me want to stack and build my next meal plan for the week.