Critical Analysis on Design Project

It’s been just over a month that the project has finished and the feeling I have with the project remains the same. I feel very proud of what Asli and me achieved in the end.
In the first stage there was a big mapping session, in class, with everyone that chose the supermarket brief. In the group of five people a lot of ideas were being discussed and I was instantly drowned into the idea of doing something that would relate to cuisines and nationalities that are strongly represented in some London neighbourhoods, eg. The Portuguese community that lives in Vauxhall.
My first action was to interview people to know what was the missing link, what were supermarkets not offering that customers were wanting. After speaking with many friends and family, I went into the supermarkets to have a chat with some customers and find out from them, what were their shopping habits. I found that a service that is more personal and faster is what people really want. I also visited the supermarkets at different times to know when is the most pleasant time to shop and when is mayhem.
The other group of people who I thought it was very important to interview were the local shops, so I went to the Portuguese shops close to where I live in Vauxhall, trying to get a point of view from them on supermarkets, the answer I got was quite hostile from one of the guys, after persisting a little bit more I then spoke to a Brazilian guy who told me they were happy the way things were going for them. I then concluded that it would be a waste to create a service to audience who is reluctant and is happy the way things are functioning for them, especially when on the other hand there are the supermarkets customers who obviously don’t enjoy their weekly experience.
It occurred to me that what makes me and my partner hate our shopping experience is that we always end up buying the same food, when we want to change we don’t have any ideas, and when we do we don’t know what are the necessary ingredients or how to cook it. I then started asking people if they shared the same frustration with me, if what makes supermarkets boring is the routine. And yes it seems a lot of people have this same feeling from young people that live by themselves to mothers who have to shop for the whole family.
I had in the back of my mind that I wanted to create a service that is interactive, modern and self-sufficient. A service that is not co-dependent on any supermarket brand, therefore it would have to be a brand of it’s own. One of the names for the brand was “Mood Food”, a name that led the main idea, where the user chooses what kind of mood they are in, the service will then give options of recipes that are collected in a database. It was while looking at what my colleagues were doing that I saw Asli’s research on, interactive screens, new technologies, so I approached her and asked her if she would like to have a talk and see if we were heading in the same direction.
We then combined our researches, she had done a survey that asked personal opinions on shopping and everything was pointing into the direction of a service to make people shop faster, have a more personal feel on their shopping. It was in one of our first meetings that I introduced the concept of Mood Food and we both agreed that it was a strong idea, we decided that it would be a screen that could be located on the supermarkets, iPhone app and on the web, that way no one is really alienated, except for the older generation who is not used to new forms of technology.
From then onwards, we did a brief on what the service would be, who was our target audience and what the service really was, including all it’s categories and functionality. At this stage we were also going to do a service called “move food” a spin off for the elderly, later we decided that it would be a lot to focus on, but ‘move food’ is still a good idea so that became the delivery service.
From then on we would make daily goals that we had to achieve by the end of it, things like deciding on logo, colour schemes, took a lot of time, but looking back now it was probably good because it was a very well thought decision that certainly paid back when we had to design all the interfaces. Designing the interfaces was my favourite part, as I think I learned a lot from Asli and Peter in terms of making things simple and more legible. In the end I think both Asli and me achieved what we both had in minds but it takes a lot of time and effort to make that idea into something real.
Looking back at my stages, the part I feel I need to improve, as a designer is the research, I need to start feeling more confident to talk to people and perhaps a better approach, maybe the Portuguese would’ve been more helpful if I changed my approach. Testing was also a bit difficult as I spent majority of the time after we finished back in Brazil, and even though I showed it to my family and friends and had a really good feedback, they are not my target audience.