#LUNCHGOALS

A case study on the Grub Club Mobile Application

INTRODUCTION

Everybody loves team lunches. They are always that welcome distraction to break away from the routine of work and provides an opportunity to step back and enjoy the company of co-workes and partake in meals of the team’s choosing. The thing is, as often as these events happen in our workplaces since maybe the creation of the workplace, we never seemed to have solved the problems and inefficiencies it causes our fellow team mates, most especially, the organizer. The process can be very time consuming, with everybody having a busy schedule, a hungry stomach and an indecisive brain. More often than not, 50% of these lunches end up being of lesser substance and quality as we expected as we come to subpar decisions and cluttered orders at the last minute.

THECHALLENGE

This universal yet unattended problem paved the way for us to design a smartphone app that would allow an entire team to select a restaurant, choose their meals, and place the whole order seamlessly.

Furthermore, it gave us an opportunity to investigate this process and provide not only solutions but also create a pleasant experience for all parties when going through this experience.

This project also gave us the chance to collaborate amongst our own cohort for the first time, to which I’ve been fortunate enough to have been grouped with such an amazing team.

RESEARCH

Coming into the project, we had a good incling that our research would be more qualitative than quantitative. We wanted to not only know the team lunch process inside out, but to also step into the mental models and shoes of our respondents. At the same time, we also assumed that this prevalent a task would’ve been “apped” by now. Our research methodologies were made up mostly of user interviews supported by online survey and a comparative competitive analysis to tie them all together. The results were both suprising and not so suprising as we laid everything out.

KEY FINDINGS

The stresses and frustrations of the meal ordering processes were almost the same across the board. So our goal was then to zero in on where it “hurt” the most, and at what point in the process they were.

PERSONAS

We split our persona into two; the organizer (primary) and the collegue (secondary). Each persona played a role in the process and it was important for us to address the pressure points of our primary persona without leaving behind the challenges and frustrations of our secondary user.

PLANNING & DESIGN

The meat of the work happened here. Mapping out the user flow and touching on the paint points of our users, we started big but we wanted to end up with something as simple and straight forward as possible. We intially had an expansive site map that touched on every challenge of the user, which only ended up causing more problems for them. An expansive app also translated to a complicated one, and we wanted to simplify as much as we can in order for the app to not only work, but for it to be something the user would even use. We went through rounds of sketching and reiterations, refining not only the flow but also the features we wanted to offer and managing the amount of tasks and steps the user needs to go through. It was an illusive sweet spot, and something we wouldn’t have achieved without the generosity of our respondents, instructors, testers and the countless supplies of papers and pens to continuously refine our app.

PROTOTYPES

Our research, testing and interviews lead us to realize that there is no working around the process of team lunches. It is very step by step driven, each being crucial and precedent to the other. The gem for us is not so much cross cutting the steps, but being able to only do some of it once and avoid the constant repition and nagging that drags on an already ardous ordeal. If we can do something once, such as take someone’s preferences and dietary considerations, we need no do it over every time we planned a lunch out. If people are indecisve about picking a place, why not allow the app to do the decising for them (basded on previously set preferences, of couse). This direction and focus lead to the transformation of our app from being just a digital version of the physical process, into something that aided the process and made it efficient and quick.

Playfulness was also a key driving factor for this app. From the colours, the language and typography, we wanted the experience to be light and pleasant for the user. Lunch is a fun experience and we want to communicate that throughout the app, even if it were in the form of a ticker or alert.

Here is a breakdown of some of the major features of the Mobile Application.

Account Set Up
A seemingly straightforward step in most mobile applications. But for us, it allowed a way of storing information about the user from his/her dietary restrictions to their meal preferences, point of contact and others. This alone allowed us to streamline the process and skip the constant back and forths in checking in with the team with regards to their specific needs.

Team Settings
Creating an avenue where all the personal preferences of each member is stored, pooled and accounted for allowed for an easier life for the moderator, and a faster way to communicate information when it comes to team lunches. From selecting restaurants, picking the time and setting the budget for each person, this hub section aided in quciker exchanges and faster ordering.

Voting
A comprehensive voting system that tied into the users profile and the team’s setting was our solution in aiding the challenge of getting everyone in picking a restaurant and choosing their order. The moderator preselects restaurant candidates based on the different users needs, the schedule they have agreed on and the budgets and other factors set in organizing the lunch. These filters and controls allowed for a more structured, balance and limited offering in order to better organize the restaurant picking process.

FUTURE ITERATIONS

We were able to cover a lot, but we are aware that much has yet to be resolved. Our research and interviews showed us that the environments, methods of communication and tools are big influencers in the process of meal taking. Allowing this app to be available in desktop versions and integrated with different social media and outlook softwares are also step we can take in the future in order for the app to creat a more “wholistic” experience that is embedded to a degree, in their work spaces.