RESERVE SEATS
School Project for Starbucks
This system is called Reserve Your Seat System (RYSS), which is designed for people who have access to a mobile device and the internet with a plan to spend their day in Coffee shops like Starbucks, Bluebottle, Compass, etc. And here I used Starbucks as an design example. The RYSS is a transformation system from ordering movie tickets. This service includes access to view the business capacity (whether the store is busy or not), a plane view of the seating arrangement of the store, and reserve seats 30 mins before the user arrives. RYS would be able to solve the problem that people are clueless about if the coffee shop they are heading to has ideal seats available for them to spend a few hours. The RYSS would be an additional system to existing Coffee shop applications or websites to offer customers an easy way to use it along with other functions like ordering a drink. By using this system, it would reduce the time customer needs to find a seat and increase the chance that they can sit with their friends for a pleasant coffee time together.
USER RESEARCH
Observation & Interview
I followed the “Understand needs lifecycle activity” to prepare for my interview and observation. The first step is understanding the customer's needs, which I did in the concept statement. The needs include reducing the time to find a coffee shop, being able to spend time with a group of people in a coffee shop seated, having comfortable and suitable seats for working/studying, and walking-in customers can access seats. Understanding users’ needs help me to address my interview questions. The methods I choose to use in my usage research are interviewing and observation. I prepared interview questions for two groups of users: the general public and coffee shop workers. And to balance out the user needs of different coffee shops, I decided to interview and observe users in Blue Bottle Coffee and Capital One Cafe. Those two coffee shops have very different vibes. One is more casual, and the other is more business; therefore, their customers might have different needs. And I brought my iPad with me when I was interviewing to take notes.
DESIGN PROCESS
Mental model: When the user opens the Starbucks app, they can go to the “order” icon at the bottom bar on the home page. Then the app will direct the user to choose a store, as shown above in the current page screenshots. And the user can click on the “reserve seats” button to see the seating plan for the selected store. After choosing the seats on the floor plan, the user can select their arrival time. However, the available reserve time will only be in 30 minutes; other timelines will be in the grey background and shown as upcoming times. Then, a window will pop up to let the user confirm the reservation. Users can click “My reservation” to view and edit their reservation if needed. Below is the conceptual design and guide for navigating the application as the mental model described.
Storyboard
The storyboard starts with two people chatting with each other and wanting to hang out today. They decided to meet in a coffee shop nearby, so one person opened the app and wanted to reserve two seats before they arrived. After selecting the store, she found the “reserve seats” system and sent the seating plan to her friend to discuss where they wanted to sit. Finally, they reserved two seats around the bottom right table. They needed to arrive at the store before 1:30 p.m. and found each other at 1:00 p.m. After a brief conversation, they went to their seats to continue.
FINAL DESIGN
The first photo below is the complete wireframe of the “reserve your seat” system, which shows how the user interacts with the current application and designed system with an example of a seating map and timetable. The second picture shows three using scenarios for users who complete their reservation. The first indicates people who want to edit their reservation with actions like changing the time, changing the store, or canceling. The second wireframe, “arrived at the store,” corresponds with the storyboard scenario. The user will need to confirm their arrival within 30 mins when they arrive at the store, so others who are currently using the system will know those seats are not available. And after their confirmation, they can continue using the app to order their drink or food. When they are ready to leave the coffee shop, they will need to click on “complete my stay” to free those seats to others. The third one is to cancel the reservation, which is also included in the editing feature. Adding this to the main page of “My reservation” gives the user a shortcut. And with an additional window for confirming the cancellation avoids people mistaking doing the action.
