UI/UX, Service Design

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Chomp App

Overview

Food Tracking. Food Trucking.

Chomp App is a service project aiming to learn how people find, interact, and track food trucks.

Role

Daniel - Interaction & Service Designer, Ideation, Wireframing

Ricardo - Documentation & Service Designer

Francisco - Service Designer & UX Designer

Tools

Figma, GSuite, Adobe Suite

Prototype

Story

THE STARTING LINE

Food trucks are an integral part of the University of Houston campus experience. However, not all interactions are pleasant or frictionless ones and we aimed to address the pain points.

RECONNAISSANCE

CONTEXTUAL INQUIRY

We discovered that food trucks may be located in a different specified spot, all around campus, throughout the week. Some food trucks operate every day of the week and some only operate once per week. We found that some food trucks posted their schedule and location on Facebook, while others relied on the university's website.

We also discovered problems in certain clusters of food trucks, such as foot traffic in and around the area, long lines at the ordering window, long wait times after ordering, loud generators, and inconsistent order tracking.

Browsing food trucks can be time consuming and confusing.

There are long wait times during peak hours.

Often people have to order over loud generators.

Our findings also determined use of outdated software & hardware at the register - owner/employee-side.

Conduct more user research to enhance user flows and overall user experience metrics.

Continued competitor analysis may lead to better design with heuristics in mind.

DISTILLING ALL JOURNEYS INTO ONE

(*Is viewable in a larger device)

CUSTOMER JOURNEY & FOOD TRUCK JOURNEY

Through this retrospective customer journey map we found a quick way of following customers through their browsing and ordering experience with the food trucks on campus. We identified key actions, behaviors, and frustrations throughout their process of browsing for food trucks to ordering to eating.

We also identified and mapped out food truck owners' and workers experience backstage, such as food-prep, daily/weekly menus, etc. and behind-the-scenes, such as schedules, arriving to the location, set-up, etc.

DISTILLING ALL JOURNEYS INTO ONE

PROSPECTIVE BLUEPRINT

Considering our research findings and customer journey, we developed a service blueprint that would alleviate some of the backstage workload, while also considering how those changes could positively impact the front-stage interactions and experience between the employees and the customers.

(*Is viewable in a larger device)

We also considered research conducted on some of the things that happens behind-the-scenes, such as:

food truck agreements with the university and city,

food truck scheduling and locations,

prep-work,

and budgets.

Conduct more user research to enhance user flows and overall user experience metrics.

Continued competitor analysis may lead to better design with heuristics in mind.

ONE SCENARIO. ONE FLOW.

(*Is viewable in a larger device)

LO-FI WIREFRAMES

We first tackled the screens and interactions necessary to reach a MVP:

Focused on the customer facing side, because some food truck owners already had apps or systems they were satisfied with, we decided to place our efforts and limited time into a customer facing solution.

Onboarding/Sign up, was necessary to establish value for the user and customization.

Exploring and locating food trucks, was one of the primary frustrations for customers, since many food trucks would move locations around the campus throughout the week or be available only on certain days of the week.

Food truck details and menu, was necessary for customer buy-in before deciding on a food truck through availability and transparency.

Checkout process and order tracking, was another high frustration we found in our research, so we wanted to streamline the checkout process, while providing customers peace of mind.

Continued competitor analysis may lead to better design with heuristics in mind.

JUST THE ESSENTIAL FEATURES, SCREENS, AND CONTENT FOR A MVP

Featured Food Trucks Mockup (Popular / Trending)

The user gets food truck options on the featured page according to the amount of interest or returning customers.

Food Truck Info Mockup (At your fingertips)

Learn what the food truck offers
Check out their menu
Phone-in order or order online

Ordering Mockup (Beat the wait)

The app allows in-app ordering giving the user the option to order ahead of time for convenience, no-rush ordering, a decrease in incorrect orders being made.

On the food truck's side, this diminishes the number of times an employee must take orders in, which in turn frees more employees for other food truck operations.

Tracking Mockup (Peace of mind)

Part of the nuisance when ordering food in peak times is wondering when your order will be ready. By having order tracking, the user can plan around a pickup time.

MVP DEMO

Access the full prototype

SUMMARY

College students and staff are always on the move. Searching for a food truck can be frustrating when you don't have the time or knowledge. It can be equally frustrating for food trucks to connect with customers.

By talking to and observing food truck owners and employees we were able to see the problem as a whole. On a larger scale, the university grants a permit for food trucks to park on designated parking areas throughout the campus. Food trucks may operate on campus for a certain amount of time before they're off to their next location. Food trucks may be located at different parking areas throughout the week. Food trucks aren't the only businesses looking for customers, brick and mortar shops also fight for customers, with the added benefit of staying in a consistent location.

Information is the first step in the process. Although information can be found on the university's website, food truck's Facebook page, or food truck's website, having a single platform that brings it all together, would be greatly beneficial.

UPSKILLED

Upskilled

There are many facets that come into play in the service industry. Food trucks were no exception. We were forced to think holistically to arrive at the right solution.

The part that was most evident was of course all the forward-facing problems we could see such as long lines, wait times, loudness, etc. The parts that required deeper investigation were the components that happen backstage and behind-the-scenes.

Considering that each part played an important role was like a lightbulb moment and the catalyst for our design process.

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