User research
Round 1
To complete the interface design of GoCoffee, the team needed to understand what kind of person would want to user the service and their coffee needs. The team conducted design research methods to find out this information.
To develop a persona for the GoCoffee user, the team first had to conduct research in the field at random coffee shops. In the initial round, 17 coffee-drinkers were interviewed about their coffee shop preferences and drinking routines based on a group of questions that the team developed. The questions asked and the research found is illustrated as follows:
- Why are you at the particular coffee shop (we want to get motivation)?
- What do you like about coffee shops?
- What don't like about coffee shops?
- How did they find the coffee shop?
- When was the last time you wanted to find a coffee shop, but didn't know where one was?
- Do you own a mobile phone?
- What would you think if your mobile phone could tell you where the nearest coffee shops were?
- What information would you want it to tell you?
Results
- 17 people interviewed initially
- Mostly college students
- No need to travel very much
- Typically had only one specific coffee shop
- Results too narrow
- Provided limited information as to what coffee drinkers wanted as a whole
- Could not define a single persona
Lessons
The problems found in the first round of user research were mainly that the team was mainly interviewing students/workers that did not have a specific need for finding a coffee shop. Most admitted that they had a specific shop that they would go to that fell in their daily paths between work and home or work and school. There was not a strong enough mobile need for a coffee finding device.