User Research Study

Objective

To learn about the college student lifestyle and their experiences and associations with food ordering apps, relating to organization, feelings on the college experience, self-care management, values of relationships, and the role that food ordering apps play in their everyday life as a college student relating to positive and negative experiences. As well as to draw insights through discovery-based research to develop a feature on food apps that allows for food and drink exploration when the user is unsure of what they want to order or if the user knows exactly what they want to order.

Context

User research project for the course SI 422: Usability Needs and Evaluation at the University of Michigan

Timeline

Winter semester at the University of Michigan, February 2024 - April 2024 (9 weeks)

Feelings about food

  1. Healthy Eating

  2. Cooking and meals

Persona

Task Analysis

Role

Lead UX Researcher

Financial

  1. Conscious spending

  2. Conscious spending methods

Methods

User experience research, Interviews, User Collage Activity, Thematic Analysis & Coding, Affinity Diagramming, Persona, and Task Analysis

Research Processes

I started my research by outlining my inclusion and exclusion criteria to only include: College students ages 18-22 of different backgrounds who frequently utilize food and drink ordering apps. 

Potential participants were screened further to ensure their frequent usage of technology and familiarity with food-ordering apps.

I then facilitated five interviews and guided the participants through a series of questions relating to their general routines, time management organizational skills, and experiences related to food ordering apps. The participants also participated in a collage activity to further understand the experiences and emotions associated with being a college student. The assortment of images were chosen intentionally to be expanded upon, eliciting a natural flow of conversation prompted with questions.

Once I had completed all interviews I categorized common threads through codes which later guide thematic analysis. My codes included Positive relationships, Feelings about college, Time management, Exploration, Technology, Feelings about food ordering apps, Feelings about food, Financial, and Self-care. These codes were further broken down into sub-code categories. To visualize this information, I created an affinity diagram.

Positive Relationships

  1. Family

  2. Relationships with other experiences

  3. Friends

  4. Connecting with others

Feelings about food ordering apps

  1. Negative experiences/ associations

  2. Convenience

  3. Expectations

  4. Suggestions of improvement

  5. Positive feelings

Affinity Diagrams

Feelings about college

  1. Negative feelings

  2. Environment

  3. Living on campus feelings

  4. Positive feelings

Time management

  1. Organization + Scheduling

  2. Convenience

  3. Routine + Lifestyle

  4. Pain points

  5. Prioritization

Exploration

  1. Not prone to exploration

  2. Positive feelings

  3. People's opinions

  4. Methods of exploration

Self-care

  1. Methods

    A. Spending time with friends

    B. Spending time with self

  2. Struggles

Technology

  1. Negative experiences/ associations

  2. UI that is important to the user

  3. Mistrust

  4. Important factors for user

Insights

Aggregating my research into a persona and task analysis allowed me to see the full scope of my research. From these deliverables, I have gained insight into my main user group of college students.

The persona culminates the central themes between the five user interviews. This shows that the average college student is a multitasker who is heavily involved in student organizations, finds that food-ordering apps help them manage time, and is financially conscious.

The task analysis describes the steps of what a user would go through if they want to order something and know exactly what they are looking for, or vaguely know that they want a type of cuisine, temperature, breakfast, etc. The more specific the prompt the user types in, the fewer options they are presented with. The more open-ended the prompt, the more options the user is presented with, to help them narrow down their choices. This task analysis displays the actions of each step in this process, ranging from specific items to more vague inputs.

Reflection

A limitation of this research is the lack of consideration for participants' dietary restrictions. This oversight may have excluded valuable perspectives on how food-ordering apps address the needs of individuals with specific dietary requirements. Exploring the experiences of users with dietary restrictions could reveal unique frustrations and challenges, offering insights to better tailor my prompt-based feature to their needs. To address this, future research will include interviews with individuals who have diverse dietary restrictions.
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