Michelle Broczek
Focus Group
To discover how expats currently source their national food products.
To discover their expectations of an app that would serve their pain points
6
participants from different countries
11
years lived abroad on average
2.5
foreign countries lived on average
Findings
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All participants find the locations of their national food items via social media such as Facebook groups, google, word of mouth, or through locating the communities.
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Participants wanted verification of products to ensure said items were in reality the same as their expectations.
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Participants wanted item costs and dates items were last seen stocked.
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Other suggestions included: Ideas for substitutes, categories by occasions, brand names.
One-to-One Interviews
To discover how expats currently source their national food products.
To discover their expectations of an app that would serve their pain points.
To compare group to individual responses using the same set of questions.
Secondary Research
Before diving into interviews and surveys, it made sense to learn from successful crowdsourced digital products. The aim was to discover how to launch, maintain, and grow a successful app; a Lean UX Canvas and UX Strategy Blueprint were used to help focus the research.
PROBLEM
FINDING
IMPLEMENTATION
Potentially launching an empty app and convincing potential users of its worth.
Wikipedia used an elite group of contributors to provide data before launch.
Have a small ‘army’ of users to create data before launch.
How to create a successful crowdsourced digital product.
Keep the product focused.
Provide a 2-way service like Uber and AirBnB.
Focus on hard to find food items. Form relationships with small businesses; app will be useful for them and expats. Potential for monetisation.
Creating a world-wide app without losing quality user experiences.
Facebook spread only as its growing infrastructure allowed.
Develop app city by city to manage the initial group of contributors and build data for better user experience.
Other relevant findings:
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Posting users’ locations has diminished in popularity for safety reasons.
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Majority of users do not actively contribute to content.
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Following friends in non-social media digital products is seen as superfluous.
Online Survey
After gaining a better understanding of current crowdsourced digital products, it was time to move onto the next phase lead by a Lean Survey Canvas.To discover the motivations of users who give unsolicited online reviews and to uncover the pain points of those who don’t.
FINDING
#1 reason for leaving a review is to help a business;
#2 reason is to warn others if they had a bad experience with a business.
#1 reason for not leaving a review is laziness;
#2 reason - uncomfortable with personal details being public.
IMPLEMENTATION
Users need to see that by sharing the product details and location they are helping a small business.
Post’s should be informational and public but all personal details should remain private.
5
participants from different countries
10
years lived abroad on average
3.2
foreign countries lived on average
Findings
-
All interviewees employ the same strategies as the Focus Group participants for finding food items such as using social media and online searches.
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All interviewees wanted the item name, price, and location.
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Other suggestions: brand names, reviews, verifications, categories, online shopping, notification when searched items have been included into the database.
02. DEFINE
Synthesise and Problem Statement
After collecting the initial background and user research, I synthesised it to find commonalities among them. There was also enough user research to define the 'problem statement'.
Find My Food
- a research focused project
Project Details
Role:
Personal Project
Duration:
21 July 2017
- 4 August 2017
Project Toolbox
Research:
lean UX canvas; secondary research; lean survey canvas; online survey; focus group; one-to-one interviews; UX strategy blueprint; benchmark analysis
Define:
affinity diagram; brainstorm; mindmap; empathy map; user persona; user stories; user journey; problem statement; HMWs; information architecture; user flow
Testing:
tree jack test; A/B testing; usability testing
Prototyping:
Sketch; Invision; Flinto
The Back Story
As a long-term expat I’m well accustomed to the routine of finding food items from my home country in foreign cities: trawling online expat groups and blogs, initiating posts when your search is fruitless and then waiting for a response, and finally searching through obscure little shops. It was during one of these searches that I first thought of the Find My Food app.
PROBLEMS
Expats want to source national food and drink products when abroad but:
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the search is time-consuming
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such items are often sold in small shops
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they assume such items are expensive
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they assume such items have expired their use-by date
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they question the authenticity of such products
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they question if information is out-dated
SOLUTIONS
Create an app with:
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quick search function
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crowdsourced data
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prices shown in search results
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information showing if item was last bought before sell-by date
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photo of product at the shop shows the brand
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date last seen at shop shown in search results
01. RESEARCH & EMPATHISE
MUST HAVE
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Item information
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Location
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Search function
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Verification
NICE TO HAVE
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Food substitutes
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Reviews from verified nationals'
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Categories
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Requests for and notifications of new listed items
Problem Statement
Expats need a way to find their national foods in one quick search because currently there are several non-efficient and time-consuming methods, such as Googling to find blogs, online forums, Facebook groups, word of mouth, or the accidental discovery.
03. IDEATE
Turning research into possibilities
The next stage was to get into the mind of potential users and start generating ideas .
User Flows
It was time to start to put putting everything together into flows. I quickly discovered that the task of creating a categorising system would be a mammoth task and one that could ruin the users' experience, so I decided to start again.
Version 2
Benchmark Analysis with Tree Jack Test
After the site map was ready, I went back to my initial research to complete a bench mark analysis. The point of doing so was to compare the time taken to get results on cempetitors' sites versus Find My Food.
Competitors: Facebook Groups; Google; Amazon: A Taste of Home; Angloinfo
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Several places to post/look for info
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Time consuming to get results, ex.
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A user in a FB group asked for the location of Marmite in BCN; received answer 24 hours later.
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Competitors
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One app to search and find food items
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Tree jack users took 10.42 seconds to search for an item and receive its price and location.
Find My Food
Mood Board
From the beginning of the project I had been interested in the gamification part of the app and had played around with ideas of Ambassadors and Detectives. However, after testing the different versions of the prototype, it was clear that the serious themes didn't match the expectations of users who wanted fresh colours.
04. PROTOTYPE
Paper Prototyping, A/B Testing, and Feasibility Discussions with a Product Manager and a Developer
Taking the ideas from the ideation stage, the app was ready for creation. As I worked through this stage, testing ideas and options with users was crucial. Furthermore, if I wanted this app to make its mark in a world of competing apps, showing the prototype to a Product Manager and a Developer was pivotal to see what was really feasible for the MVP. The result was a much lighter app - no profiles, notifications, star ratings, or reviews, and no toggle between list and map results.
05. Test
More Usability Testing
Finally, it was the day before our project presentations and despite knowing that more could be done, it was time to test the MVP prototype as it was. I discovered that although the search was simple enough, posting items was a tedious task. In future iterations I would test barcode scanners and OCR technology so users don't need to fill in the details themselves.
Testing
