Who knew eating pizza in New York City could be this fascinating?
December 13, 2019 — Only a few more days left before the holidays. The city is adorned with holiday vibes — with decorations and giant Christmas trees (not to mention the partygoers for the annual SantaCon that day). Although the day may have started gloomy because of the rain, nothing is stopping 35 hungry service designers, design researchers, and design enthusiasts from going on a service safari involving one of New Yorkers’ favorite comfort food: pizza!
For anyone who might be wondering what a service safari is: a service safari is an exercise to understand how a service works and begin to diagnose how it might be improved. Participants immerse themselves within the service, making observations, drawing rough conclusions, and beginning to consider opportunities as they go.
We gathered and met at Washington Square Park — an ideal central point for any pizza lover. All around the area are pizza joints serving slices that are perfect for either a recovery meal, a late-night grub, or a quick bite on a busy day. After being divided into 6 teams, with each team composing of 5 individuals and 2 group leaders, off we went on a safari!
What we’re looking for
Using kits prepared by the NYC Service Design Collective, a chapter of the Service Design Network, we went ahead to observe and understand the pizza dining experience. Our goal was to take note of anything that we see, hear, smell, or taste. We also were to observe artifacts and interactions inside the pizza place and document them regardless of whether they are good, bad, or missing.
Teams can also look into some of the more specific aspects of the pizza dining experience:
- Wayfinding — How did people go about in finding the pizza place? How was the physical and digital experience of finding it?
- Store Ambience — What is the overall vibe and feel of the store? Does the store seem inviting?
- Store Layout, Flow, and Traffic — How are store furniture organized and arranged? How do people flow and move around the store?
- Signage, Labels, and Menu — Does the shop have signage outside? Does the store have a b menu signage? Is it clear how much each type of pizza costs?
- Guests and Visitors — Are there are a lot of people in the store? What psychographic groups is the store catering to?
- Cost and Promos — How much is the cost of one slice of pizza? Does the store offer any special promotions?
- Payment Options — How do people pay? Does the place accept both cash and card options?
- Quality of Food — How is the quality of the pizza? Does the store offer different flavors to choose from?
After almost 3 hours of walking around, interviewing diners, and munching on pizza ourselves, we gathered all our observations and started synthesizing our findings!
With curious minds and bellies full, we started ideating on solutions on how they might design a pizza place that is clean, friendly and easy to navigate so that customers are excited to come back.
Learnings from the experience
1) Have a fresh set of eyes
Like the New Yorkers that we are, eating pizza is like second nature to us. We grab a slice when we need a quick bite or a late-night munch. Grabbing pizza is so focused on just choosing the flavor and paying that we often really don’t notice the different aspects of the pizza dining experience.
The Pizza Safari was a great opportunity for us to slow down, look closer, and identify the things that we usually take for granted when grabbing and eating pizza. As we stayed and looked around the shop, we started seeing aspects of the experience that we thought were common but were not, as well as aspects that we think need a little bit more enhancement.
2) There is no better way to learn than to experience everything first-hand.
If we only did general interviews and asked New Yorkers about their pizza dining experience in the city, we probably wouldn’t have had as many learnings as compared to those we had when we went to experience it ourselves. Experiencing things first-hand teaches us so much more because we’re responding and interpreting signals on our own and sharing our thoughts with the individuals we are with, thereby forming a collective understanding of the experience.
3) Things will not go according to plan.
Our team had 3 pizza places to visit. Yet, along the way, we did not get to visit those places as intended. When we arrived at our second pizza place, another team was still inside. The store was quite small and our team wouldn’t fit so we went to our third pizza store and just came back. Also, because of almost similar names, we came to a different pizza place than what was originally intended.
In research, not everything is set in stone. Things could change depending on your participants and the environment that you are in. What matters is that you have your research plan that serves as your guide, but you remain open to where your research takes you.
4) Document, document, document!
Whether this meant writing notes, taking photos, or recording our thoughts, documenting our experience was useful especially during synthesis. These artifacts served as our reference when we needed to remember certain aspects of our experience which, sometimes, becomes a challenge in research when there is a lot of information coming in and we need to move fast.
5) Lastly, don’t forget to have fun!
Quite honestly, the Pizza Safari was that much of a treat due to the simple fact that it’s a rare opportunity to go around different pizza places in the city while learning about service design at the same time. We might as well enjoy it since where else could we get that experience, right? (At some point, in one of the pizza places we visited, we bumped into a pizza tour group who thought we were another pizza tour group!)
In Conclusion
So, if you got inspired by the NYC Service Design Collective Pizza Safari and want to learn more about service design, join our upcoming meetups. Even better, go out into your city, set out on your own safari, and share with us what you learned!
