Oota aayeta?
We have all noticed the raucous in the canteen during peak hours. This impacts the quality and service of the food. Amongst other inconveniences, orders get exchanged, the food is not warm, its time consuming and it is really hard for Anna to manage which results in a ‘fish market’ situation.
Our group plans on solving this problem of service and food quality by using a conversational bot.
Observing interactions in the canteen helped us to isolate problem areas and hence define our problem. Initially, we grouped all these interactions into broader categories being- food specific problems, counter and canteen space interactions and the lack of synchronizing technologies. To define the problem at hand better we decided to do a stakeholder map. Identifying the stakeholders gave us an insight into where the main problem lies. This problem basically lies in the interactions between Anna and the students, merely because of the ratio of conversing agents. Hence there is a huge possibility of a communication error or delay in conversing. This delay causes a dis-pleasant feeling leading to a bad experience or even termination of goal (buying and consuming food).
We then mapped down the process of ordering food which starts from the information about all the food choices to payment and delivery of food. We isolated each process to understand how we could make every micro interaction more efficient. For example, we realized when one asks for a dish which isn’t available it leaves an unsatisfied impact on the student’s mind. Hence, to solve this we propose that we should show only the available items by means of a live menu of some sorts. This will result in the elimination of any unsatisfied effect on the student’s perception. Our concern was also that while designing this intervention we did not want to cut on Anna’s interactions with the students as that holds an importance to the overall experience as well. Transaction through money has its limitations in two aspects at the canteen front. One being that lack of cash at a particular time can lead students to remain hungry. Second, giving and taking of change can be challenging for both students and Anna hence slowing down the process and increasing confusion. To increase time efficiency and decrease rush at peak hours we can access this service from anywhere in the geo space, hence allowing you to order without one physically being present at the counter. It also spaces orders out for the cooks and makes the system more efficient. The service also notifies you once your food is ready so you don’t end up going earlier and taking someone else’s food or go later and get stale food. For this, we plan to use indicators and consequently smoothen the method.
All these interventions are for a better interaction and a wholesome experience. We will be using various tools such as indicators, signifiers, mimicking natural circumstances and of course a conversational agent.
Here is a small demo of our application called ‘Oota’:
