Spring 2021
UX Case Study
Role: User Interviews, Affinity Diagram, UX/UI, Rapid Prototyping
___________
This virtual restaurant combines in-person and virtual environments while connecting people across the country and around the world. My final idea is a traditional chain restaurant setting which provides semi-private booths to video chat your friends while eating at other locations.
The Problem
Many people eat together over video calls during the pandemic including on work lunch calls, family dinners, and quick meals with friends. In the virtual world, it can be difficult to have a natural conversation as one would in real life, sparked by what is on the menu or the surrounding environment. In our experience, the more people who join the virtual meal, the more difficult it is to engage in a typical conversation. But even with close friends and family it can be difficult to eat over video-chat.
Interview Goals
To understand why users eat on video calls
To understand how users eat while on video calls
To understand what makes a successful and unsuccessful meal over video calls
To understand how users eat while on video calls
To understand what makes a successful and unsuccessful meal over video calls
User Interviews
Two in-depth user interviews highlighted this problem. The discomfort in both cases seemed to stem from an innate self-consciousness and personal insecurities. The role of social perception and judgement from others also shapes this common discomfort. On the flip side, a shared comfort seemed to lie in a more intimate Facetime setting with close friends and family. This seems to suggest we are more comfortable eating with people we are already close to. However, even eating with close friends and family is strained over video-chat because of technological and social barriers.
Takeaways
Our affinity diagrams helped us to identify the main factors which shape the experience of eating on video calls. Users discussed the overarching factors of: conversations they had, the people they ate with, the food they ate, and the frequency of their experiences.
When translating our affinity diagram to a journey map, our team chose to graph our journey map based on the number of participants on the video chat while eating. We felt that our user interviews suggested this criteria had a direct impact on their emotional experience. And thus, as an x-axis, provided better insights than time.
The User
Comfortable in Small Group
This user feels comfortable eating in a small video chat with 1-3 other people, mostly friends or family, and does so often. They love to eat on FaceTime and hate to eat on large video calls. This user is considerate of others and feels self-conscious easily. As a result, they avoid eating on large group video calls. They favor an experience as close to real life as possible.
This user feels comfortable eating in a small video chat with 1-3 other people, mostly friends or family, and does so often. They love to eat on FaceTime and hate to eat on large video calls. This user is considerate of others and feels self-conscious easily. As a result, they avoid eating on large group video calls. They favor an experience as close to real life as possible.
Design Opportunity
" How might computational technologies help people who eat together over video calls foster natural conversation virtually?
Prefered Future
The preferred future: People can visit virtual restaurants to eat over video chat while fostering a comfortable eating environment.
Rationale: This future is an exciting opportunity to design for our identified user group which includes the most common video-chat while eating experience. Because these users are most comfortable eating in a small video chat setting, our preferred future seeks to build off of the user’s comfort and happiness by bringing the best qualities of in-person social eating to a virtual environment. The execution of this preferred future can be fulfilled through a variety of solutions. This makes our implementation natural and especially exciting; The sky’s the limit!
The storyboard captures the ability to interact with friends in semi-private booth-like seating. The screen will be placed in the exact spot where a person would normally sit across from you. This way it visually looks as if the person is actually in the same space as you. A main interview take away that will be carried out in the design is that the closer to a “real life meal”, the better.
Move to sketch and then, Sketch
Based off of the storyboard, I developed possible lo-fi wireframes by hand and then in Sketch and settled on the one which most clearly fulfilled my previously defined objectives.
Screens (L to R)
Searching Restaurant Locations. This screen allows users to easily identify their nearest locations at which they can make a reservation.
Highlights One Specific Location. This screen allows the user to see details on one location to decide if they would like to make a reservation.
Reserving a Table. This screen allows users to make a reservation for a specific date and time.
Managing Reservations. In addition to reserving a table at the restaurant, the user is able to invite friends to eat with them. Because of the chain locations, the user is to be able to eat with any of their contacts.
Ordering Food. Above you see I chose to include a pre-order option for time-constrained users that would like to speed up their visit. For both users that choose to order in the restaurant and those who order ahead, the following screens are designed to streamline the ordering process.
Control a Screen. The restaurant's booth seating is paired with large portal screens. These screens are managed in the app using a simple, digital remote.
The Solution
This app allows the user to complete the following tasks in order to ultimately reduce video-chat awkwardness while creating an enjoyable eating environment which simulates eating together in real life.
1. Make a reservation
2. Manage Plans
3. Invite Friends
4. Order food
5. Control the booth screen
2. Manage Plans
3. Invite Friends
4. Order food
5. Control the booth screen
These 5 tasks are integrated through a user-centered flow. The app's organization builds off of existing precedents to increase familiarity and reduce error. A think-aloud interview to test these objectives, helped to further refine the task paths.