ANYWAY.
So Paul, Mike and I thought through a few ideas and even came up with needs like, entertainment for men when they go shopping with females (mother, wife, girlfriend, sister, friend etc) -- Paul and Mike's woes; how to shorten/ speed up queues at female toilets -- My woes..... and many others.
The Need
One danger we always faced was that when we thought of a need, we would be thinking of how to solve it already. And that was specifically what Mr Reddy warned us against! Being (intellectual) thinking beings who need to find reasons and solutions, I guess that came so naturally for us. We had to keep reminding ourselves not to fall into that trap :/
So we thought of one need that we deem is still pretty unmet:
BREAKFAST.
We all know breakfast is important and there have been many reports of statistics that breakfast is good but people are not having it. Breakfast is so important for people to start the day right. But it is the meal most people overlook because they are rushing to work, or they wake up late, or they have no appetite, or they are on a diet, and the list goes on.
But imagine waking up to glorious breakfast which look like this:
Coincidentally, a F&B company called 12 Hungry Men contacted us to help them design something that will help them reach out to the non-breakfasting/ unhealthy-breakfast-eating crowd. So that started out journey of user experience design.
Research
Through our primary and secondary research, we discovered that the crowd that does not eat breakfast most of the time is the young working adults. These are the people who do not have much time as they are usually rushing to work each morning and most of them lead hectic lifestyles due to career and success demands (both corporate and personal). We found that people with children have a greater tendency to have breakfast as they will make it a point to eat breakfast together before the children go to school and they go to work. Additionally, there are some people who eat breakfast but they eat really unhealthy food like kueh which are high in sugar and oil/ fat content. In the long run, this will be very detrimental to the body.
Target Audience
As such, our chosen target audience are the young working adults who are single, or married without children (or expecting, for that matter). These people do not eat breakfast. If they already do eat breakfast (on an everyday basis or from time to time), the food they consume is often not healthy for the body.
Our Product Idea
Our product will enhance the entire experience of waking up to great breakfast to start of the day. Our aim is that the users will feel a sense of excitement waking up early because they look forward to having breakfast. Perhaps it could be served to them or delivered to their doorstep. Most importantly, it has to be healthy. We have decided to target the organic foods industry. Knowing it is very niche, we maintain that this will still be a suitable market to target as there already is such a market.
The potential users expect food that are delicious and different from the typical breakfast available outside. In addition to that, they want a breakfast that not only taste good but is also healthy. At the end of it all, the users do not want to, nor can they afford the time to prepare such a breakfast. These are the needs and expectations that our product have to address.
Convenience is Key
With that in mind, we created our final product:
A website that will provide a platform for people to order breakfast, which will be delivered anytime, anywhere that is cooked to perfection by our resident chief.
This website aims to be:
- efficient - ordering food will be fast and frills-free
- Intuitive - able to find what you need/ want
- appealing - in design and approach
To go a little further, our target audience was refined to:
- affluent, upper class
- single or married without children
- enjoys a lifestyle of luxury
- no time to make breakfast but do not mind spending a little more to have someone else do it for them
- eat at restaurants regularly (i.e. 2 - 3 times a week)
- health oriented/ conscious - consumers/ believers of organic food
User Expectations
Our service must encompass great quality breakfast, food variety which is regularly updated to satisfy our users, the provision of nutritional value upon request, breakfast on demand and importantly, exude an air of exclusivity. (aka "atas" in colloquial terms!)
Product Requirements
Our website must be straightforward with no frills and unnecessary information clutter. There will be valuable information available but only for those who need it. i.e. We will provide information in "read more" links which users can click on to find out more about each food item and the nutritional values. However, for those who do not want that information, it will not be a distraction or clutter frustration.
Another specification that our product must have is to be able to select food in less than 3 clicks. This will lead to development of memberships, logins, registrations and storing such data into our consumer database.
There must be graphics to show the high quality of our breakfast items which will speak volumes over words. There is overall no time wasting - as such, we wish to do away with ideas of flash introductions.
The main goal of our website is to educate briefly about breakfast and make it readily available. We found that although form is important, users should feel that they are experiencing function over form, meaning the website should be efficient in carrying out their orders.
Low Fidelity Paper Prototype
Wishing to test for user feedback, we tested four users. We used the observation method where it was a two-to-one testing (one facilitator and one observer taking notes). In all our tests, we asked users to buy one non-daily special meal and a drink. Probing was also done to elicit more information. Questions asked included:
What do you like about the website?
What do you dislike about the website?
Was it hard to navigate around the website?
All users managed to finish the given tasks in less than 3 minutes. A few qualitative feedback were given that the registration/login option was not obvious and it would be great if a shopping cart could be added as well. Some also commented that there was no "back" function.
Low Fidelity Paper Prototype Design
High Fidelity Prototype/ Final Product
We changed our initial design of the document and the final website can be found here. (For the "statistical" details, it's in the report)
Heuristics Testings
The method we adopted to carry our test out was based on Jacob Nielson’s 10 Usability Heuristics:
Meet Expectations
Match the Real World
Consistency and Standard
Help and Documentation
User is Boss
User Control and Freedom
Visibility of System Status
Flexibility and Efficiency
Errors
Error Prevention
Recognition, not Recall
Error Reporting, Diagnosis and Recovery
Keep it Simple
Aesthetic and Minimalist Design
The general results from the user testings were that the website was overall pleasant to use and aesthetically delightful. The system status feedback of the entire purchase process gave clear indication of actions taken and actions to come. This increase the sense of security in one user (Terence). In addition, the "read more" option was very insightful and useful. Jeanette also commented that the website conveyed a sense of professionalism, different from the previous prototype.
The feedback of the highlighted links when mouseovered was greatly appreciated. The links are all arranged at the top and the left hand side and this consistency adds greatly to the efficiency of the site.
The general response was positive :)
Of course there are still some teething problems but these are due to the technical and time contraints that we face!
Our Functionality Creep
We were warned against it yet we still managed to fall into its trap :/ We intially thought of adding in lunch and dinner services, on top of our (already-magnificent) breakfast idea. This was perhaps a great idea to us at first, since we knew we already had the chef and transport system capabilities. However, after user testings on the paper prototype and feedback, we discovered that these services actually added to the information clutter that the users had to go through to seive out the appropriate information they wanted. It turned out to be counterproductive in our intention on focusing on providing breakfast.
Experience Strategy
Through our primary research, we discovered that there are no other companies that offer breakfast delivery in Singapore, apart from MacDonald's. Of course we are kind of worlds apart in terms of target audience, food provided and healthiness. Even so, we recognised that we needed a strong unique selling point. Here, we recommend the employment of our celebrity chef, Emmanuel Stroobant, who will certainly add that needed creative edge and culinary expertise to our breakfast experience. You can wake up each morning feeling wonderful you did, simply because you had a wonderful breakfast from 12 Hungry Men's Divine Breakfast Service.
No comments:
Post a Comment