UX field sprint: how do we sell ice cream to 21st century customers?

1. Context: the 21st century ice creamery

The ritual of making an outing of leaving the house to buy food still holds an important role in leisure, socialising and indulging. In this 4-day UX sprint I was tasked with designing a competitive ice creamery called“Big Bang” in Mexico. Sure, we have a variety of food delivery apps to choose from and we are becoming more aware of the nutrient content of the food we eat. However, people globally overwhelmingly look for a physical place to sit down, see crowds and enjoy a treat.

I began the project with qualitative research on the global dairy industry, ice cream marketing and the the market in Mexico. 2020 ice cream trends point to alternative ingredients and quick delivery.

A competitive analysis of iconic ice cream stores in Mexico showing that most maintain a retro, traditional family-style feel in store.

I gathered information on what competitors use in their strategy and found that a targeted strategy to one demographic probably won’t work.

2. User research: what are customers talking about

“A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.”

— Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Healthy but tasty options! Popular storefronts! Not too many people but enough crowds that you know it’s good!

An excerpt of the survey I conducted asking users about their habits around buying ice cream but also other desserts in general.

I conducted fieldwork observations outside 3 popular ice cream stores at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. I asked users to conduct a quick survey about their habits and conducted longer interviews to gauge their attitudes around buying ice cream. I was surprised to see that most people say they still limit ice cream to something they eat about once a week, not more.

I then condensed my survey statistical findings, user commentaries as well as wider online research and social media reviews from gourmet ice cream stores into digestible information.

It’s a pleasant process which has several pains as well as gains!

A summary of my main user research findings showed that there is a clear social link in buying ice cream.

Following the user research, I designed two user personas based on real people I had actually observed and spoken to at storefronts.

Meet Susana the Instagram foodie!

Gabriel has been put in charge of entertaining his kids for the weekend…

All of which led me to narrow down the project’s brief into problem and hypothesis statements.

We have observed that users don’t have access to product information which they are interested in and which can influence their buying decisions.

We believe that providing users with more information about Big Bang gourmet ice creams will make them feel more secure in their purchase thus spreading the word about the business and encouraging more sales.

3. User journeys: strengthening user experience

Susana (user persona no 1) represents a large portion of the customer market and so in order for Big Bang ice creams to successfully launch a 2020 UX strategy, they need to design a great user experience for people like her. It was a bit challenging for me to remind myself that I am not the user as I believe I fit into a similar category, but working on jobs-to-be-done put tangible goals into the design project.

When Susana buys an ice cream, she wants to be able to read about its ingredients so that she can adhere to her dietary restrictions.

When Susana goes out for a snack on the weekends, she wants to be able to choose from a variety of flavours so that she feels freedom to choose an ice cream which reflects her personality that day.

When Susana buys an ice cream, she wants to it to look attractive so that when she posts a photo of it on her Instagram she impresses her friends.

I then started mapping out a customer journey map and happy path.

Pain points for Susana include waiting in line and not knowing product ingredients.

A happy path includes more information for the user and a personalised profile.

With the user journey in mind, I put together a mood board and style tile which is playful, modern and unashamedly colourful to reflect the brand!

Orange naturally lends itself to food design an appetising colour and has been popular among millenials.

4. Futures: incorporating technology for an even better experience

I believe a key part of UX design is designing futures and plotting the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in order to pitch to investors. How could we use AR gamification, wearables, predictive technology and voice interface in future releases of the UX strategy? Given more time (working past a 4-day sprint) I would love to look at product design or service design to keep Susana and Gabriel happy and keep growing the business!

Any ideas you’d like to add? Find me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/antigonea/.