AnyTable
Project Context
Based in Los Angeles, AnyTable allows you to locate pop up kitchens and fine dining events near you. Anytable also allows chefs to create and sell tickets to their own pop-up events.
The Problem
In LA, foodies ages 21 to 45 struggle to find weekly pop-up kitchens and fine dining events around the city. Foodies need a service that gives them access to this information without having to ask around.
Company Goals
To kick off our project we met with Anytable founders to learn about company goals. They told us:
- Anytable as a brand wants to have a "Warm and Cultural" feel.
- Anytable wants a design that's more user friendly than its competition, Feastly.
- Our focus will be to create an intuitive event finding and booking experience for the Anytable target user.
- Both founders expressed their need for simplicity and speed.
They requested the UI be similar to Airbnb with the minimal stickiness of the app Postmates
The founders wanted to know more about our process so we talked about the empathize, define, ideate, and prototype model we would follow to tackle this project. We circled back to talk about the design, look, and feel. My team explained that the iterative process would produce a user-friendly UI and that we would keep their desired styles in mind.
Resaerch + Feature Analysis
Jumping right into research we noticed many food sharing apps had run into issues with the Food Safety and Inspection Service. While my teammate made sure the founders were up to date on rules on regulations, which they were, I started to download apps with similar business models. Once we were back together, we continued to download more food sharing apps until we had a list of competition and were ready to create a feature analysis.
We found:
- Companies with similar concepts make money by taking a percentage of event ticket sales.
- EatWith is a strong competitor, but since it operates in international markets and not in the US, they are not our main competition.
- Various social dining companies focus in on different segments of the open-kitchen marketplace.
Companies like EatWith and VoulezVouzDiner focus on travelers, FEASTLY signs up Chefs as hosts, and Bon Appetour offers food experiences like market tours, along with meals. Since FEASTLY signs up chefs and host pop-up events similar to Anytable, FEASTLY is our direct competition, and we'll be looking at ways to differentiate ourselves.
Quantitative Data
To gain some real-time insights we created a survey with a few qualifying questions to narrow our focus group and asked general questions about peoples knowledge of pop-up kitchens.
People in their 30's and 40's were the dominating demographic. This was good to know since the founders had been focusing on a younger target market. The data showed that a vast majority of 30+ year-olds had been to multiple events. Critical factors for reoccurring patronage included a good atmosphere and quality of food. When asked to describe what make a good pop-up experience users responded:
“Usually a combination of really good food, the atmosphere, and people I'm with.”
“Loved the experience because we got to try a new restaurant before it opened.”
“I’m always interested in trying new and unique dishes."
Defining Our Users
We continued to learn about our user base by conducting five in-person interviews. We were able to record and review each interview and make an affinity diagram with the data we collected. One foodie told us that news of events travels by word of mouth and that being "deep in the cooking scene" was the best way to stay in the know.
While the team pulled out feature ideas from trending feedback I began to digitize our synthesized data. I started with the empathy map since I wanted to have an organized version of the data in order to quickly design a informed persona.
Our persona, Van Ryan, is a product manager who values sociual experiences. He would like an app that helps him find unique dining experiences he can enjoy with his friends. To add more context to Van Ryan, we created a user journey map that focues on Van’s struggle to find a last minute event to attend with friends.
Van’s journey focuses on our target user not knowing where to look for events. Asking friends usually prompts the same advice, "Don’t ask last minute because news travels slowly via word of mouth." Also, "You can't rely on social media sites like Instagram to have all the answers for pop-up events." In the end, Van goes to a restaurant. Restaurants are common alternatives for foodies who can't find pop-up events in LA. This was a little surprising since our research had shown FEASTLY dominated this space, yet only 3 of 17 foodies we surveyed had ever heard of FEASTLY.
Design Ideation
Satisfied with the amount of data we had collected, we began to sketch. We used the 6-8-5 rapid sketching exercise to produce designs for the login, home page, and checkout flows. Once we had a good base of sketches we moved to Balsamiq.
While I built the low fidelity prototype, my team drafted a test script and scheduled user tests with people in our target market. We found 5 foodies to navigate the log in, find event, and book tickets flows. From these tests we were able to quickly weed out some sticky points in each flow.
- The new user log in at the bottom confused users.
- Labels were not always consistent.
- Some people said search distracted them since there was already filters for location, food type, and date. "I don't know what I would search for."
Despite minor issues, each user told us that the design was easy to navigate through and the purpose of the app was clear. When users asked about more features, we informed them we would be testing the full feature set with our middle fidelity design. To review data my team listened to each user test recording and jotted down any input we missed. Once our notes were updated, we began to talk about the middle fidelity design.
Feature Prioritization
We white boarded possible features that had been suggested from interviews, surveys, and from the founders at the kick-off meeting. We randomized the order and voted to use these features for the next prototype iteration.
- Menu
- Map
- Reviews
- Ratings
- Social Shares
- Easy Payments
We debated the login flow at length and eventually scheduled a meeting with the founders. They told, “we’d like to cut out all stickiness at login and come up with another way to keep in touch with users.” When our meeting finished our new feature set met both the user and business needs. Features for test version two would include:
Menu - Location - Filter - Map - Search - Events Calendar - Event Descriptions - Payment - Push Notifications/Contact Prompt
Middle Fidelity Design
As a team we talked over a “Skip it” button which would allow users to skip giving any information at login. User tests revealed that this was a positiive change to the log in flow. We also added a modal that requested what type of information the user might want to have pushed to them from the app. This proved to be a hit as well since users felt like they were now in the dirvers seat of push notifications. On the home page, we removed the search bar and added search to the bottom navigation.
Here are a few questions and comments that came out of this round of testing.
- “If we logged in with facebook would they be able to see friends going to the same events?”
- “No place shows that you have successfully purchased a ticked..”
- “I like the “Skip it button, but maybe calling it guest log in..”
Other comments revolved around the “Tip Chef” screen. This screen was included at the end of the user test. This screen would apear after an event had come to an end. Similar to how Uber’s tip driver screen comes after a ride. We found it hard to test this idea since users would forget we told them to expect the screen at the end of the flow and that it resembled a follow up to thier experience. We decided to remove it for future testing since most users told us they liked the idea but while going for the flow had forgot it was going to apear at the end.
Brand Color, Font, and Style
My teammate Sylvia got to work on updating the middle fidelity wireframes, while my other teammate and I worked on branding, fonts, and style, of the application. We didn’t need to focus on color since we were given a pallet by Anytable to work from. For the font I choose a fun sans-serif called Poppins. I also created a mood board and mockup influenced by our middle and upper-class him demographic.
High Fidelity Designs
The improvements had been made to the middle fidelity prototype and were handed off to my teammate who converted them into high fidelity designs. A few days later the designs were shown to the team.
I was able to see some edits that we could make right away, but we were closing in our deadline and needed to get the design in front of users. Our test group of foodies told us:.
- The colors were confusing in the section where you were able to select a city.
- "Which button is profile bottom right or top right?" (We fixed this right away as you can see in the two screens on the right.)
- The calendar was good but didn't have enough information about when events were happening.
- People liked that the share button had been added.
- The colors changed too much, and there was a need for more consistency.
With only a few days left my team and I worked on the final version of the app, and the client presentation. On the day before our presentation I fell very sick, and a few days later I was on a plane to the east coast to recover. Once I was back in California, I saw the final design my teammates had made and created a version 2 in my free time.
Prototype / Demo Video
The improvements had been made to the middle fidelity prototype and were handed off to my teammate who converted them into high fidelity designs. A few days later the designs were shown to the team.