Texicana

Maximising time with friends and family.

Texicana is a visual menu and ordering app for people visiting the food truck that automates the ordering process and reduces the need to queue allowing people to feel safe and spend more time together.

View prototype

My role
I was responsible for the entire design process:
Research, Wireframes, Protoypes, Visual Design, Testing

Timeline
6 weeks - April | May 2021

Project type
Concept

$texicana mockups$

The challenge

The pandemic has drastically changed consumer behavior. We are all much more likely to shop online and order takeaways from our phones. Some people are still hesitant to be in busy public places and no one wants to queue. How do we encourage people to get out and enjoy themselves again?

The goal

Create an app that allows people to feel safe and maximises social time by automating the ordering process.

My process

I began by conducting interviews to confirm assumptions about consumer behavior changes. I used this information to create a persona which helped to keep the user front and center during the entire design process. I researched competitors who use ordering apps to find ideas and pain points before creating a storyboard, user journey and user flow. Then I created paper and digital wireframes. After round 1 testing with the low fidelity prototype, I created mockups and a high fidelity prototype for a second round of testing.

$texicana process graphic$

Interviews

I conducted 5 interviews with individuals ranging in age from 20-65 who eat at a food truck or food market at least once a month. The interviews did confirm my hypothesis that the pandemic has changed customer attitudes to queues but it also revealed that the reason for this was less to do with social distancing and more to do with not wanting to miss out on precious time with friends and family. Participants also expressed the desire for a visual menu.

"I was at Peddler Market once and had to queue for 40 min. It was a nightmare. That would really annoy me now when all you want to do is spend time with the people you are out with."

"I wish I could see everything on the menu. I see what other people have sometimes and I'm like "I should have got that!"

Persona

I created the persona of Georgina to help me better understand the user for this project. She became my companion for the duration of the design process, helping me to see the project from her point of view.

Meet georgina...

19 years old
Art student at University of Sheffield
Lives in student accommodation with 3 friends
Georgina and her friends love to try out new restaurants and street food vendors.
She hates queues and has difficulty seeing the menu when she is waiting

"After being apart for so long, time with my friends and family is so important."

Competitor analysis

In order to gain insights from current products, I looked at apps from Cutlery Works and Kommune, two food halls in Sheffield, to generate ideas for user flows and find pain points that I could address in my design.

Cutlery Works

✅ Web app so it doesn't require downloading and can be used on any device.
✅ Saves previous orders for future use.
👎 Not as convenient as a mobile app.
👎 Popup for app on website is difficult to navigate around if you need other information from the website.
👎 Confusing because this app also shows other food vendors not located in Cutlery Works.

Kommune

✅ Good photos of most items.
✅ Once you get into the menu section the app is very user friendly.
✅ The app has a loyalty program where you get points each time you use the app which can be used to pay for future orders.
👎 The initial flow to get to the menu section is confusing.

Storyboard

I created a storyboard so that I could explore a real situation in which the app would be used. Having a storyline to refer to helps me to ideate possible user flows and interactions within the app.

$texicana storyboard$

User journey & User flow

I created a user journey to look into the storyboard scenario in more detail. The user journey helped me to map out possible user flows and generate ideas for improvement opportunities.

$texicana user journey$

$texicana user flow$

Wireframes

I ideated several versions of each wireframe before slotting them into the user flow.

$texicana paper wireframes$

Low fidelity prototype

I created digital wireframes in Figma and then built a low-fidelity prototype for testing.

view prototype in Figma

$texicana digital wireframes$

Round 1 testing

I conducted a moderated usability study with 5 participants (3 female, 2 male, ages 30-65) in order to find any pain points within the design.

view study plan

Key insights

Add a payment confirmation page before payment is taken
Make it easier to update payment information
Add an option to pay with cash

Mockups

$texicana mockups$

High fidelity prototype

I used the mockups to build a dynamic high-fidelity prototype. I tried to make the ordering process feel as real as possible.

view prototype in Figma

$texicana prototype interactions$

What I learned

Research, research, research.
Research is the foundation of design. I could have backed up the findings from my interviews with surveys. In the future I will always spend more time on this step.

Solve real problems.
This ties back in with research. If I had chosen a real food truck instead of creating a concept business I could have looked at customer reviews to find more insights.

Don't forget about the user.
In the first round of ideation I made a note of the need for cash payments in my user journey but I forgot to include it in the prototype. This was a pain point during the first round of testing.

Thank you

Thank you for taking the time to view this case study.
If you have any feedback or you would like to discuss further please get in touch!

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