Food Network Kitchen

Senior Product Designer

March 2020 – March 2023

My projects included oversight of FNK for Alexa and UX Design for Recipes, Personalized Exploration, Search by Ingredient and the Ingredient Lab. I played a significant role developing remote operations during the ongoing work-from-home situation and guiding and developing junior designers.

Designing comfort for a country cooking at home

I was hired to lead design for Food Network's hands-free cooking companion for Amazon's Echo Show. During my time with Food Network, I contributed substantially to many core features on our 2x Webby Award-winning application, delivering cooking and comfort experiences to a world that was isolating at home.

 

My work was recognized through the Creator Dreamers Award (June 2022), the Doers Award (November 2021) for building Food Network's cross-platform design system, and winning Discovery's Impact Day 2021 Urban Farming Hackathon.

FNK for Echo Show

Amazon Echo Show kitchen users needed hands-free cooking guidance without touching devices while preparing meals, so Food Network partnered with Amazon to create a multimodal culinary assistant. As UX design lead, I developed seamless user flows integrating Video Skill Kit, shopping lists, meal planning, and promotional upsells from free to premium tiers. I designed intuitive voice and visual navigation patterns for 80,000+ recipes and live cooking classes, ensuring Food Network's brand standards translated effectively to Amazon's smart display ecosystem.

Result: The platform achieved 5 million downloads within the first year and earned industry recognition from TechCrunch and Tom's Guide as a breakthrough smart display application. During peak usage, the design drove 50%+ growth in user engagement and successfully established Food Network as Amazon's exclusive culinary content partner, setting the industry standard for kitchen-focused multimodal experiences.

Recipe Page Enhancements

Food Network Recipes receive 400M views annually, but our most-viewed page type wasn't attracting new subscribers or delivering the premium experience existing subscribers expected. Users were reporting difficulty finding the right recipe to make and trouble cooking from the recipe due to poor page structure. I reorganized the entire page to align with users' cooking journey stages, conducted competitive analysis of 8+ platforms, elevated key decision-making factors to reduce selection friction, and designed premium features including step-by-step cooking modes and ingredient substitution guides that kept critical information accessible during preparation.

Result: The redesigned recipe layout, reduced recipe selection time, enhanced cooking preparation workflow and improved visibility and discoverability of premium features across Food Network's 400M annual recipe views.

Launch Prototype

Personalizing the Explore Page

With 3 out of 4 customers wanting personalized recommendations, Food Network Kitchen lacked personalized content discovery, forcing users to hunt through generic editorial picks to find recipes matching their individual cooking goals. I designed a scalable personalization system featuring behavior-based recommendation rails, dynamic landing page copy, and a Personal utility card that re-engaged authenticated users with prior session activity while providing editorial fallbacks for new users.

Result: Phases 1 and 2 launched successfully in 2021 with outstanding performance—authenticated customers were 4x more likely to save recipes, 14% of all app clicks shifted to personalized rails, and the new recommendations matched editorial rail performance despite being positioned lower on the page. Phase 3 was postponed due to the Warner Bros acquisition.

Search by Ingredient

Food Network Kitchen's most requested feature—search by ingredient—was drastically underutilized with only 1 in 250 users engaging with it nine months post-launch, despite being cited as a top subscription motivator. The feature suffered from poor discoverability through two minimal entry points generating only 1-3% usage. I redesigned the search landing page to prominently position ingredient search as the primary function, conducted competitive analysis of search acceleration patterns, analyzed user journeys for optimization opportunities, and created multiple layout iterations incorporating ingredient imagery to add warmth and branded personality while preserving all existing functionality.

Result: User testing showed 87% preference for the new experience, described as "warm" and "better structured." Within 30 days post-launch, 2 in 5 users were making ingredient searches, successfully transforming an underutilized premium feature into core user behavior.

Ingredient Lab by FNK

Food Network customers struggled to find recipes using specific ingredients they had at home, with keyword search returning inaccurate results based on recipe titles rather than actual ingredients. I designed a standalone ingredient-based search tool for Food Network Kitchen premium subscribers, creating two interaction concepts, developing wireframes and prototypes for both free and premium tiers, and building a freemium model that limited free users to one ingredient while allowing premium subscribers multiple ingredient searches.

Result: Delivered a validated solution addressing the #1 customer request, creating accurate ingredient-based search for 80,000+ recipes with a scalable freemium conversion model.

UI Systems

I built a comprehensive multi-device design system in Figma that enabled seamless remote collaboration during the pandemic while establishing design consistency across multiple Food Network websites. To ensure adoption, I created a Squid Game-themed training program that guided the team through the new system and collaborative workflows.

Result: The design system improved visual consistency across all websites, reduced development time through streamlined handoffs, and established a scalable foundation with design tokens - work that was recognized with the Doers Award in November 2021.

Finding strength in turning tides

Food Network challenged me to adapt to unpredictable situations and grow from the opportunities created from them. While I was hired as a VUX designer, shifting business goals during the pandemic and the Warner Bros. acquisition created an environment where my versatile skillset could expand beyond emerging platforms to core devices, like mobile and web. I became more comfortable developing talent, working with and delegating work to associate designers, while also fostering their skills in Figma, design systems, and collaborative workflows that kept our team productive during unprecedented remote work challenges.

Moving beyond the kitchen

The Warner Bros Discovery acquisition that ultimately led to Food Network Kitchen's sunset also created an unexpected opportunity to lead design for Warner Bros Digital Studios—a newly consolidated group overseeing Foodnetwork.com, Food.com, HGTV.com, and other flagship media properties. This reorganization allowed me to apply the cross-platform expertise and collaborative leadership skills I'd developed during the pandemic to a much broader scope, designing experiences that would reach millions across multiple beloved lifestyle brands rather than a single app.

Warner Bros. Discovery

•

Food Network Kitchen

•

SiriusXM

•

All Work

Andrew Gatto © 2025. All rights reserved

work

blog

about

linkedin

Food Network Kitchen

Senior Product Designer

March 2020 – September 2022

My projects included oversight of FNK for Alexa and UX Design for Recipes, Personalized Exploration, Search by Ingredient and the Ingredient Lab. I played a significant role developing remote operations during the ongoing work-from-home situation and guiding and developing junior designers.

Designing comfort for a country cooking at home

I was hired to lead design for Food Network's hands-free cooking companion for Amazon's Echo Show. During my time with Food Network, I contributed substantially to many core features on our 2x Webby Award-winning application, delivering cooking and comfort experiences to a world that was isolating at home.

 

My work was recognized through the Creator Dreamers Award (06/2022), the Doers Award (11/2021) for building Food Network's cross-platform design system, and winning Discovery's Impact Day 2021 Urban Farming Hackathon.

FNK for Echo Show

Amazon Echo Show kitchen users needed hands-free cooking guidance without touching devices while preparing meals, so Food Network partnered with Amazon to create a multimodal culinary assistant. As UX design lead, I developed seamless user flows integrating Video Skill Kit, shopping lists, meal planning, and promotional upsells from free to premium tiers. I designed intuitive voice and visual navigation patterns for 80,000+ recipes and live cooking classes, ensuring Food Network's brand standards translated effectively to Amazon's smart display ecosystem.

Result: The platform achieved 5 million downloads within the first year and earned industry recognition from TechCrunch and Tom's Guide as a breakthrough smart display application. During peak usage, the design drove 50%+ growth in user engagement and successfully established Food Network as Amazon's exclusive culinary content partner, setting the industry standard for kitchen-focused multimodal experiences.

Recipe Page Enhancements

Food Network Recipes receive 400M views annually, but our most-viewed page type wasn't attracting new subscribers or delivering the premium experience existing subscribers expected. Users were reporting difficulty finding the right recipe to make and trouble cooking from the recipe due to poor page structure. I reorganized the entire page to align with users' cooking journey stages, conducted competitive analysis of 8+ platforms, elevated key decision-making factors to reduce selection friction, and designed premium features including step-by-step cooking modes and ingredient substitution guides that kept critical information accessible during preparation.

Result: The redesigned recipe layout, reduced recipe selection time, enhanced cooking preparation workflow and improved visibility and discoverability of premium features across Food Network's 400M annual recipe views.

Launch Prototype

Personalizing the Explore Page

With 3 out of 4 customers wanting personalized recommendations, Food Network Kitchen lacked personalized content discovery, forcing users to hunt through generic editorial picks to find recipes matching their individual cooking goals. I designed a scalable personalization system featuring behavior-based recommendation rails, dynamic landing page copy, and a Personal utility card that re-engaged authenticated users with prior session activity while providing editorial fallbacks for new users.

Result: Phases 1 and 2 launched successfully in 2021 with outstanding performance—authenticated customers were 4x more likely to save recipes, 14% of all app clicks shifted to personalized rails, and the new recommendations matched editorial rail performance despite being positioned lower on the page. Phase 3 was postponed due to the Warner Bros acquisition.

Search by Ingredient

Food Network Kitchen's most requested feature—search by ingredient—was drastically underutilized with only 1 in 250 users engaging with it nine months post-launch, despite being cited as a top subscription motivator. The feature suffered from poor discoverability through two minimal entry points generating only 1-3% usage. I redesigned the search landing page to prominently position ingredient search as the primary function, conducted competitive analysis of search acceleration patterns, analyzed user journeys for optimization opportunities, and created multiple layout iterations incorporating ingredient imagery to add warmth and branded personality while preserving all existing functionality.

Result: User testing showed 87% preference for the new experience, described as "warm" and "better structured." Within 30 days post-launch, 2 in 5 users were making ingredient searches, successfully transforming an underutilized premium feature into core user behavior.

Ingredient Lab by FNK

Food Network customers struggled to find recipes using specific ingredients they had at home, with keyword search returning inaccurate results based on recipe titles rather than actual ingredients. I designed a standalone ingredient-based search tool for Food Network Kitchen premium subscribers, creating two interaction concepts, developing wireframes and prototypes for both free and premium tiers, and building a freemium model that limited free users to one ingredient while allowing premium subscribers multiple ingredient searches.

Result: Delivered a validated solution addressing the #1 customer request, creating accurate ingredient-based search for 80,000+ recipes with a scalable freemium conversion model.

UI Systems

I built a comprehensive multi-device design system in Figma that enabled seamless remote collaboration during the pandemic while establishing design consistency across multiple Food Network websites. To ensure adoption, I created a Squid Game-themed training program that guided the team through the new system and collaborative workflows.

Result: The design system improved visual consistency across all websites, reduced development time through streamlined handoffs, and established a scalable foundation with design tokens - work that was recognized with the Doers Award in November 2021.

Finding strength in turning tides

Food Network challenged me to adapt to unpredictable situations and grow from the opportunities created from them. While I was hired as a VUX designer, shifting business goals during the pandemic and the Warner Bros. acquisition created an environment where my versatile skillset could expand beyond emerging platforms to core devices, like mobile and web. I became more comfortable developing talent, working with and delegating work to associate designers, while also fostering their skills in Figma, design systems, and collaborative workflows that kept our team productive during unprecedented remote work challenges.

Moving beyond the kitchen

The Warner Bros Discovery acquisition that ultimately led to Food Network Kitchen's sunset also created an unexpected opportunity to lead design for Warner Bros Digital Studios—a newly consolidated group overseeing Foodnetwork.com, Food.com, HGTV.com, and other flagship media properties. This reorganization allowed me to apply the cross-platform expertise and collaborative leadership skills I'd developed during the pandemic to a much broader scope, designing experiences that would reach millions across multiple beloved lifestyle brands rather than a single app.

All Work

•

Warner Bros. Discovery

•

Food Network Kitchen

•

SiriusXM

Andrew Gatto © 2025. All rights reserved

work

blog

about

linkedin

Food Network Kitchen

Senior Product Designer

March 2020 – March 2023

My projects included oversight of FNK for Alexa and UX Design for Recipes, Personalized Exploration, Search by Ingredient and the Ingredient Lab. I played a significant role developing remote operations during the ongoing work-from-home situation and guiding and developing junior designers.

Designing comfort for a country cooking at home

I was hired to lead design for Food Network's hands-free cooking companion for Amazon's Echo Show. During my time with Food Network, I contributed substantially to many core features on our 2x Webby Award-winning application, delivering cooking and comfort experiences to a world that was isolating at home.

 

My work was recognized through the Creator Dreamers Award (June 2022), the Doers Award (November 2021) for building Food Network's cross-platform design system, and winning Discovery's Impact Day 2021 Urban Farming Hackathon.

FNK for Echo Show

Amazon Echo Show kitchen users needed hands-free cooking guidance without touching devices while preparing meals, so Food Network partnered with Amazon to create a multimodal culinary assistant. As UX design lead, I developed seamless user flows integrating Video Skill Kit, shopping lists, meal planning, and promotional upsells from free to premium tiers. I designed intuitive voice and visual navigation patterns for 80,000+ recipes and live cooking classes, ensuring Food Network's brand standards translated effectively to Amazon's smart display ecosystem.

Result: The platform achieved 5 million downloads within the first year and earned industry recognition from TechCrunch and Tom's Guide as a breakthrough smart display application. During peak usage, the design drove 50%+ growth in user engagement and successfully established Food Network as Amazon's exclusive culinary content partner, setting the industry standard for kitchen-focused multimodal experiences.

Recipe Page Enhancements

Food Network Recipes receive 400M views annually, but our most-viewed page type wasn't attracting new subscribers or delivering the premium experience existing subscribers expected. Users were reporting difficulty finding the right recipe to make and trouble cooking from the recipe due to poor page structure. I reorganized the entire page to align with users' cooking journey stages, conducted competitive analysis of 8+ platforms, elevated key decision-making factors to reduce selection friction, and designed premium features including step-by-step cooking modes and ingredient substitution guides that kept critical information accessible during preparation.

Result: The redesigned recipe layout, reduced recipe selection time, enhanced cooking preparation workflow and improved visibility and discoverability of premium features across Food Network's 400M annual recipe views.

Launch Prototype

Personalizing the Explore Page

With 3 out of 4 customers wanting personalized recommendations, Food Network Kitchen lacked personalized content discovery, forcing users to hunt through generic editorial picks to find recipes matching their individual cooking goals. I designed a scalable personalization system featuring behavior-based recommendation rails, dynamic landing page copy, and a Personal utility card that re-engaged authenticated users with prior session activity while providing editorial fallbacks for new users.

Result: Phases 1 and 2 launched successfully in 2021 with outstanding performance—authenticated customers were 4x more likely to save recipes, 14% of all app clicks shifted to personalized rails, and the new recommendations matched editorial rail performance despite being positioned lower on the page. Phase 3 was postponed due to the Warner Bros acquisition.

Search by Ingredient

Food Network Kitchen's most requested feature—search by ingredient—was drastically underutilized with only 1 in 250 users engaging with it nine months post-launch, despite being cited as a top subscription motivator. The feature suffered from poor discoverability through two minimal entry points generating only 1-3% usage. I redesigned the search landing page to prominently position ingredient search as the primary function, conducted competitive analysis of search acceleration patterns, analyzed user journeys for optimization opportunities, and created multiple layout iterations incorporating ingredient imagery to add warmth and branded personality while preserving all existing functionality.

Result: User testing showed 87% preference for the new experience, described as "warm" and "better structured." Within 30 days post-launch, 2 in 5 users were making ingredient searches, successfully transforming an underutilized premium feature into core user behavior.

Ingredient Lab by FNK

Food Network customers struggled to find recipes using specific ingredients they had at home, with keyword search returning inaccurate results based on recipe titles rather than actual ingredients. I designed a standalone ingredient-based search tool for Food Network Kitchen premium subscribers, creating two interaction concepts, developing wireframes and prototypes for both free and premium tiers, and building a freemium model that limited free users to one ingredient while allowing premium subscribers multiple ingredient searches.

Result: Delivered a validated solution addressing the #1 customer request, creating accurate ingredient-based search for 80,000+ recipes with a scalable freemium conversion model.

UI Systems

I built a comprehensive multi-device design system in Figma that enabled seamless remote collaboration during the pandemic while establishing design consistency across multiple Food Network websites. To ensure adoption, I created a Squid Game-themed training program that guided the team through the new system and collaborative workflows.

Result: The design system improved visual consistency across all websites, reduced development time through streamlined handoffs, and established a scalable foundation with design tokens - work that was recognized with the Doers Award in November 2021.

Finding strength in turning tides

Food Network challenged me to adapt to unpredictable situations and grow from the opportunities created from them. While I was hired as a VUX designer, shifting business goals during the pandemic and the Warner Bros. acquisition created an environment where my versatile skillset could expand beyond emerging platforms to core devices, like mobile and web. I became more comfortable developing talent, working with and delegating work to associate designers, while also fostering their skills in Figma, design systems, and collaborative workflows that kept our team productive during unprecedented remote work challenges.

Moving beyond the kitchen

The Warner Bros Discovery acquisition that ultimately led to Food Network Kitchen's sunset also created an unexpected opportunity to lead design for Warner Bros Digital Studios—a newly consolidated group overseeing Foodnetwork.com, Food.com, HGTV.com, and other flagship media properties. This reorganization allowed me to apply the cross-platform expertise and collaborative leadership skills I'd developed during the pandemic to a much broader scope, designing experiences that would reach millions across multiple beloved lifestyle brands rather than a single app.

All Work

•

Warner Bros. Discovery

•

Food Network Kitchen

•

SiriusXM

Andrew Gatto © 2025. All rights reserved