Project - Food Delivery - Clarify

We covered the Clarify phase of Design Thinking in the following articles:

• Observations
• Insights & Framing
• Creative Environment

Now we will choose a fictional innovation / design problem to apply the tools that we learned in those articles - Better Food Delivery in Colombia!

The following list outlines all the activities we need to complete:

1. Make initial Look, Ask, Try observations.
2. Categorize our observations in the AEIOU framework.
3. Identify explicit pain points and latent needs.
4. Create a journey map for a user we identified. Explain our main takeaways from creating it.
5. Identify the insights we reached as a result of our research.
6. Provide two possible problem framings.
7. Reflect on the process as a whole: What was most valuable to us about it, and what would we want to do next?

Look, Ask, Try

Look, Ask, Try provides the “How” of the What, Structure, How framework. It encourages you to move beyond assumptions by observing, conducting interviews, and trying to do something yourself.

This is the field-work component of the clarify stage. Reaching out to interview real people is highly encouraged, as well as attempting the tasks related to the problem.

If you cannot interview anyone or participate in activities related to your innovation problem, consider researching others’ observations (e.g. by reading reviews online).

Let's write our initial Look, Ask, Try observations:

• Look: Food delivery services are terrible in Colombia. The dominating player is Rappi and by close looking - delivery is extremely slow, UX is completely unfriendly and buggy, food is cold, frequently missing things, users are frustrated, workers are underpaid and frustrated. DiDI alternative is a little bit better, but with much fewer options due to Rappi monopoly, which allows them to treat everyone in the deal terribly.
• Ask:
  • Users: They complain about many things, but 3 most important: slow delivery, cold food, spending too much time bothering with the app.
  • Workers: Underpaid + no tips is their problem, resulting in bad service.
  • Restaurants: Getting bad reviews because of poor delivery.
• Try: I was using both Rappi and Didi for one year, 3 times per day, so I have first-hand experience.

AEIOU

The AEIOU framework helps you categorize observations and find pain points and opportunities by creating a more structured view of the context. AEIOU provides the “What” of the What, Structure, How framework.

The following is a brief review of each element of AEIOU:

• Activities: What happens? What are the primary and secondary activities related to the problem?
• Environments: Where do things happen? Are there multiple environments within one place?
• Interactions: When and how do people interact with other people, things, or the environments? Are these interactions planned or natural?
• Objects: What objects are present in the activities and environments? Are any objects particularly surprising or interesting?
• Users: Who are the people in each activity, environment, and interaction? What are their characteristics?

Let's return to our Look, Ask, Try observations and try categorizing them in the AEIOU framework:

• Activities: Searching for food, choosing food, ordering food, delivering food
• Environments: Restaurants, streets, homes
• Interactions: Worker-Restaurant, Worker-User, Apps, Doorman
• Objects: Package
• Users: Users, Workers (delivery man), Restaurants

Explicit Pain Points & Latent Needs

Recall that pain points are moments of frustration, difficulty, or uncertainty when using a product or interacting within a service or business model.

Explicit pain points are those that users can express, whereas latent needs are those that users have difficulty expressing and may not even be aware they are experiencing. Latent needs are abstract and emotional, and innovations that solve them are more likely to have strong appeal.

Let's reflect on what we have observed so far. What are some explicit pain points and latent needs for each user or stakeholder?

• Users:
  • Explicit: slow delivery, cold food, buggy app
  • Latent: they don’t want to move outside their home and struggle ordering food, they want it easy and fast, with a few clicks, not to spend time on it.
• Workers (delivery men):
  • Explicit: low pay
  • Latent: they want to be respected by clients

Journey Map

Journey maps describe a user’s path through an experience, structuring observations about users by organizing events chronologically. They provide the “Structure” of the What, Structure, How framework.

A journey map may consist of a simple horizontal timeline, using dots for each event in the customer journey, or it may be a more complex visualization.

Focusing on one specific activity, let's create a journey map for a user we identified in our AEIOU observations. Start with one specific process - such as reviewing hotel listings on a website - and think about ways we might push even further back or forward in time.

We can create a visual journey map or simply describe the phases and events using text. When we are finished, we can briefly describe our journey map and explain our main takeaways from creating it. What surprised us about this journey map, and what opportunities did we identify?

User Is Hungry → Opening The App → Searching / Browsing Food → Ordering / Paying → Waiting...→ Notification About Delivery Man Coming → Messaging Him To Deliver To Apartment And Not Reception → Waiting... → More Notifications → Receiving Cold Food → Frustration

Too much waiting for food, too many unnecessary notifications, too much time spending on the unfriendly app and steps, receiving cold food.

Patterns & Insights

An insight is the revelation of a novel perspective - an experience closely connected to creativity and problem-solving.

Let's identify several possible insights we reached as a result of our research: What patterns do we notice? Did anything surprise us? What do we think is the critical piece of the puzzle?

• Drone Food Delivery - cutting of one player from the deal - delivery man, incredible fast delivery. Potential issues with feasibility and law.
• Extremely clean, efficient and user-friendly app.

Problem Framings

Innovative problem framings help you find pain points and insights because the new perspective has one or more of the following characteristics:

• Deep rather than shallow (deep examination inward) - Gets at the finer details of the problem
• Emotional rather than only functional - Has a personal component based on user research or observations
• Broad rather than narrow (wide examination outward) - Shifts the focus to a larger context or scope
• Dynamic rather than static - Builds from unusual or interesting observations, or encourages wild solutions

Let's provide at least two possible problem framings and explain how they fit one or more of the preceding characteristics. We may want to begin our framings with the phrase, “How might we…”

• How might we deliver food faster? Deep - well, change delivery method completely.
• Emotional - make users happy and their process as easy as possible, respect users.

Final Thoughts

Finally, let's reflect on this process as a whole. What was most valuable to us about it, and what would we want to do next?

It is simple. We, as users, want to be able to order food efficiently and get it delivered ASAP without a hassle. The most valuable part is FAST delivery. The next step would be to research the feasibility of drone delivery, as we see this as the most critical part at this point.