Wokworks: Food Truck Ordering App
Wokworks Food Truck App: Order with Ease
Sept 2023 - Dec 2023
Team of 5 : UX Research & Design
My Role
Primary Project Manager, UX Designer
Overview
In this comprehensive 11-week project, our team undertook the ambitious task of crafting a mobile food truck ordering app for Wokworks, renowned for its Southeast Asian-inspired cuisine. The primary goal was to create a seamless and efficient ordering app catered for pick up that not only aligned with but enhanced Wokworks' established identity & addressed the problem of long wait hours.
Stakeholders:
Wokworks Food truck
Customers (Drexel Students, Professors, Gymrat)
Philadelphia Local Community
Problems ⚠️ :
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⏱️ Long Wait time: Minimizing wait times during rush hours, Lengthy queues and time constraints may deter potential customers from joining the line
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📍Poor Visibility and Accessibility: Difficulty in locating the food truck could result in missed opportunities for sales and inconvenience for potential customers.
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🎨 Rebranding challenge: Differentiation & Improvement, needs to offer unique features or improvements while ensuring it remains user-friendly and efficient.
Approach: Agile Framework
01 Plan 📝
Project Goals and objectives
02 Research 🔍
Market & User Research
03 Design 💎
Sketches, Wireframing, Prototyping, Iteration
04 Test ✨
Usability Testing, iteration
05 Reflection 🎊
Embracing Agile & Excited for the challenges
01 Plan📝
Project Goals and Objectives:
01 New Branding:
Implement re-branding for a modern and diverse audience, blending innovation with the essence of Southeast Asian-inspired cuisine.
02 Enhance Customer Experience:
Minimizing wait times during rush hours, providing diverse and convenient payment options, and improving the visibility and ease of locating the food truck.
03 Smooth ordering process:
Building a seamless and efficient ordering experience for customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Recognizing the need for structure and organization, I saw an opportunity to help and took the initiative to plan, break down weekly deliverables, schedule meetings, and handling submissions of our team deliverables. It was important to ensure that everyone was on the same page and had a clear understanding of what needed to be done.
In terms of roles and workload, I simply wanted to ensure that tasks were distributed evenly and that each team member had an opportunity to contribute their unique skills and talents. By coordinating our efforts and keeping communication open, we were able to work efficiently towards our objectives.
02 Research 🔍
Understanding Wokworks :
In the business analysis phase, I did a examination of the then-current menu, website, and any active social media channels to gain insights into the target audience, the nature of their culinary offerings, and overall business operations. While my other team members explored physical location.
Understanding Customers :
Observational Studies
For researching the target audience, I employed the research methodology involved a combination of observational techniques like "Fly on the Wall" studies, and also interviews with customers. The "Fly on the Wall" observations provided valuable insights into the demographic composition of our customers, revealing a predominant presence of college students in the 18-20 age range, potentially from Drexel or Penn. Additionally, occasional older individuals, possibly professors, were observed with formal attire and laptop bags.
key points from my condensed notes:
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Customers displayed a decisive initial approach to WokWorks.
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Menu decisions varied, with some patrons browsing extensively and others placing orders immediately.
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During non - rush hours, the average wait time was short, averaging 4-5 minutes
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Customers’ behaviors remained consistent while waiting, engaging in activities such as phone use or listening to music.
User Interview & reflection notes
Employing the 5 Whys" technique developed by Sakichi Toyoda, I conducted Interviews with 2 customers of local food trucks to gain insights into potential users' perspectives. Interviewees shared their thoughts on various aspects such as prices, convenience, and food quality, providing valuable insights into their preferences and expectations. For a detailed view of interview notes, click the button below.
Competition Analysis
I dove into digital realm, conducting research on top 3 food delivery apps : Uber Eats, Grub hub, and DoorDash. Focused strengths & weaknesses, examining the respective apps & their features, and factoring in google reviews as well.
User Personas
Together as a team, we collaborated and consolidated our findings into three main user personas, each representing a distinct demographic that patronizes the Wokworks Food Truck. These personas predominantly include students, professors, and gym enthusiasts, collectively constituting a significant majority of the customer base.
04 Design💎
Visualize the Customer Experience
After synthesizing our research findings through affinity mapping and applying the NUF (New, Useful, Feasible) framework, we we transition to the intricate task of journey mapping for the app. This helped us identify various touchpoints, emotions, thoughts, and actions of the user throughout their journey, providing insights into their needs, preferences, and pain points at each stage.
Mood Board
Entering the ideation phase, as part of this process, each team member created a mood board to visually capture the essence of our design direction and inspire creativity. Here's my moodboard, every component on the mood board reflected understanding of Wokworks.
Combined Mood Board & Style Guide
After combining our mood boards, it reflected our collective understanding of Wokworks. Next, we created a style guide embodying Wokworks' brand identity with design elements, color palettes, typography, and imagery. I contributed variations of logo concepts from my mood board to the one featured in the final style guide.
Sketching UX Solutions
I love this phase, it opens up brainstorm possible UX solutions to address the pinpoints. I engaged in a brainstorming session to ideate screen layout ideas. The result was a series of screen layout ideas that aimed to enhance user experience and align with Wokworks' brand identity. These layouts were informed by user needs and preferences, with a focus on clarity, simplicity, and efficiency with a pop of color.
Ideating Sketches: Task Flows
The brainstorming persisted as my preliminary sketches evolved into potential task flow diagrams tailored for two distinct archetypes: students and professors. These were then subjected to user testing, and I meticulously documented the feedback received.
P.S. Just a heads-up: the order status screen shows a human 🚶🏻♂️➡️, not an insect 🐜. Ahem! My sketching skills definitely need the matte finish of my iPad screen guard...
The Blueprint
At this stage, Skeletal Wireframes acted as the blueprint, detailing the screen layout and essential elements. Some of my proposal featured in this stage are the : Order status screen, inclusion of diverse payment(include cash option), and location based ordering.
Flow challenge encountered :
My initial pick up mode of the home screen, featuring different locations to pick up was chosen as the default, was based on user feedback. As, during testing, it became apparent that users found this choice confusing to enter pick up mode on home screen.
After presenting this to the team with qualitative data. we decided to adjusted the flow: users now select a location, which then directs them to the corresponding menu (accounting for variations based on location), initiating the ordering process.
Prototyping Solution
Agile Process :
The design process for the app unfolded through three key iterations, progressing from low fidelity to mid-fidelity and culminating in high fidelity. These iterative phases allowed for incremental improvements and refinements, ensuring a comprehensive and user-centric final solution.
In the early stages of low fidelity, our focus centered on critical aspects of the user journey, including onboarding, menu exploration, and the checkout process. Each team member conducted individual usability testing with prototypes, gathering valuable insights and reflections through post-interview questions.During the usability test analysis, our team systematically categorized insights into four distinct groups: critical, serious, minor, and scope creep. Notably, the critical and serious sections, highlighted in red and yellow, held more significance compared to minor and scope creep issues.
Advancing from low-fidelity to mid-fidelity marked a substantial stride in our design journey. Screens began to evolve with intricate details, introducing a more tangible representation of the app's interface. The iterative cycle of testing, learning, tweaking, and refining continued to shape the user experience.
In our third and final iteration at the high-fidelity stage, our design artifact showcased detailed visual polish, enhanced interactions, and pixel-perfect precision. This stage represented the culmination of our iterative process, with the team making final tweaks to achieve a polished and refined solution that aligns seamlessly with the project goals.
Snippets From my Usability Testing Sessions
Final Solution
After the executing of 3 sprint cycles, the final solution features the app's primary focus is on the task flow of ordering Dan Dan Chicken Lo-mien. I wanted make it more functional, but our journey was marked by collaboration and a user-centric approach, successfully meeting the goals and objectives of the project.
05 Reflection🎊
Embracing Agile & Excited for the challenges
I thoroughly enjoyed my involvement in my favorite project, that deepended my passion for UX & accessibility. By meticulously defining essential features and tasks, and assigning priority levels, I learned to effectively navigate potential scope creep while ensuring the completion within schedule.
This experience has fueled my excitement to apply my research skills to future projects and tackle new challenges head-on. I'm particularly enthusiastic about continuing to embrace methodologies like Agile and usability testing, along with user-centric approaches.
These key takeaways have equipped me with valuable insights and tools, such as recognizing the importance of recognition over recall and employing techniques like 'What would my User do' and the '5 Whys' to uncover root problems during interviews. I am excited for future projects where I'll continue to apply and expand upon these learnings.