Allrecipes – Banana Banana Bread
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/20144/banana-banana-bread/
Simply Recipes – Banana Bread
https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/banana_bread/
Natasha’s Kitchen – Moist Banana Bread
https://natashaskitchen.com/banana-bread-recipe-video/
I visited three sites for a Banana Bread recipe. Allrecipes, Simply Recipes, and Natasha’s Kitchen. There were elements common to all three sites. For example, each site highlighted the title of the recipe in a large bold font. Underneath the title, each recipe was subdivided into both ingredients and instructions. Ingredients for each site were comprised of a bulleted list and instructions were numbered according to steps. All three sites also featured nutrition facts, a button to open a printable version, reviews, and a section for Cook time and servings. Natasha’s Kitchen chose to offer a checkbox for each ingredient, which is helpful. Simply Recipes and Allrecipes took a simpler approach with standard bullets. Allrecipes and Simply Recipes included a photo after each numbered step. I think this might be helpful for some but did not seem worth the extra scrolling.
Natasha’s Kitchen has the most streamlined layout. Each of the sites contains a variety of additional information, such as step-by-step photos, a short blog post, a history of banana bread, other banana recipes ETC.. Natasha’s Kitchen, however, also condenses the recipe down into a single scannable block. The recipe has all the information you could need and nothing else. There is even a small toggle switch to keep your screen from turning off while you reference the recipe. The other two sites have all the same information but spread out so much that it requires multiple scrolls to get from the title to the ingredients, through the instructions, past multiple pictures, and finally down to the reviews. If you are also trying to crack an egg and sift flour while finding the information that you need, this is a dealbreaker.
I think the five most important elements of a recipe layout are the title, ingredients, instructions, nutrition facts, and reviews. The condensed recipe from Natasha’s Kitchen had a few more bonus features such as a star rating, buttons for the print version, a save button, and a social media button, but those are extras. Once you start to add more the recipe starts to get lost in verbiage and photos. None of the recipes from the sites mentioned here were missing any of these critical elements, but all had more than was necessary.
A recipe layout is most effective when it contains the five major elements mentioned above and not much else. A photo or two showing the finished product is nice to have, but ultimately unnecessary. The section headings should be bold and stand out easily, the ingredients and instructions should be bulleted or numbered for quick scanning, and all elements should follow one another in their natural order.