D-Caf

Problem

Hong Kong has a growing coffee culture, and with so many new coffee shops sprouting up in an already crowded space, figuratively and quite literally, businesses need a competitive edge to attract customers and afford the rising costs of rent. Holly Brown’s, a franchise cafe, needed a way to revitalize their brand and improve their build a larger customer base.

My Role

I took part as one of the main UX Researchers and Prototyper for this international team. In my efforts to break through the language barriers (the rest of the team were Hong Kong locals), I sought to help out in all aspects of the design process, as well as in staging it at the end for a truly immersive experience.

Seeking an Advantage

They needed a competitive edge; they were already quite well-known and so our approach was to prove their worth and improve the services they had to offer. My team created a more digitally connected system for their stores, with an Interactive “Smart” Table at the core of this plan, in order to promote their commitment to listening for areas of improvement whilst providing more value to their customers. I went and surveyed their staff as well as a few willing customers about what would attract them to visit Holly Brown's more:

Business and User Goals

1. Attract and retain customers, in an effort to gain recurring business

2. Improve the customer experience

3. Provide more communication channels between staff and customer

4. Utilize this as both a customer experience enhancement as well as a potential marketing tool

5. Allow for ways to interact with their barista and seatmate(s)

6. Make it both easy and enticing to use

User Research

Observing customers and researching articles/trends on HK’s caffeine landscape came first. But it was equally as important to take note of the various behaviours of consumers within their space. By utilizing the AEIOU framework (Activities, Environment, Interactions, Observations, Users), I spent several hours inside, and right outside of, their Haysan Place Mall Location in order to get a better grasp of consumer behaviour.

After a few days of note taking, I requested to interview cashiers and servers as well as coffee drinkers (who were willing to). Doing so gave me a better understanding of their general reasons for being at cafe(s), and if/why they may have had a preference for Holly Brown's. This led to identifying Key Drivers that influenced stakeholders (staff and customers alike).

Experience Mapping

1. What/Who does the customer interact with before, during, and after the coffee buying experience

2. What services and activities does the cafe provide

3. Where do the two converge? These would bring about which activities during the process provide a connection that we can improve. By identifying which are the most frequently used connections, we can find starting points to build off of.

User Journey Mapping

Armed with direct feedback from our clients, I sought to align all of their goals together and incorporate them into a more purposeful approach to FleetLogic. Essentially, I wanted to define just what it was used for, whose needs were resolving with it, and why they would choose us over the competition

With this and in identifying the convergence points, I began to build on top of these interactions in ways that would add value to our users. Where there is a crucial/frequently used interaction sequence, I have designed a feature that can improve the customer experience, as well as provide opportunities for staff to contribute to this.

Prototyping and Functionality

Each cup of coffee has a unique QR code printed at the bottom of the cup. Once the cup is placed on the table, the QR code is scanned and enables a list of activities (that spreads out across the table) that the user can choose from.

It would be great if the cup can be scanned from anywhere on the table, but for feasibility purposes, there is a specific area that tells the user to “to place cup [t]here to activate”.

Table Functionality

Despite designing various activities, importance has been placed on functions that can provide as much value as possible (both to the customer and staff) before creating those more so built for entertainment purposes.

1. Deemed most effective for the business

- Changing taste preferences and requesting that the coffee be remade

- Sharing feedback to the barista and/or the drink itself

- Ability to share/broadcast their drink

2. Entertainment purposes for the single-user

- A drawing board

- Write a message out to the barista

- Sharing their design online

3. Entertainment purposes for a duo or group setting

- Playing a game

- Sharing media, video or reading material

User Testing Our Prototypes

In hosting 2 testing sessions with our prototypes, we gained valuable insight into the expected behaviours in dealing with a digitable table, as well as which functions actually seemed useful.

Final Product

Due to the experimental nature of our product, iterations after our higher-fidelity prototypes proved useful to help our user identify what further adjustments were necessary.

Simulations

From our tests, we narrowed down which activities to capitalize on, and thus, live examples were designed for 3 particular features first.

A. User to Barista/Staff

Tweaking the mix of their drink so that it is based on their preference

B. User by Themself (User to Computer)

Playing games, watching videos, and even a drawing board (not just for illustrations, but even for note-taking).

C. For 2 or More Users

Much like the User to Comp activities, except for an element of interactivity and sharing with their seatmate(s)

Staging a Real-World Model

We set up a mini-scale version of the cafe to showcase what it would look like once implemented.

Retrospective

Technology is almost there; although these and other IoT/Smart Digital devices are not yet considered mainstream, there will continue to be a growing market for it. Especially since students and young adults alike are often inhibited by the tech they are using.

Challenges

Understanding each other was our largest struggle. All the members of my team were born and raised in Hong Kong, and neither of us spoke the other’s language too well. This may have made it difficult to speak, but they were patient with me and I in turn made it a point to maximize my mastery of english to reach out to our stakeholders and international users. This opened up even more opportunities to explore further for this project than we otherwise would have been able to.