Husky Chow

Problem Statement • Description • Process • Iterations • Prototyping & Testing • Feedback • Results

PROBLEM STATEMENT: 

A lot of students just arriving at Northeastern are learning to live on their own for the first time. From personal experiences, we know this can be overwhelming and students aren't always capable of taking care of themselves. It’s often a tough choice for students to choose between studying, relaxing, or prioritizing food. However, believe it or not, focusing on eating has been shown to actually improve a student's ability to learn. So, two classmates and I decided to create an app to help ensure that every student (husky) gets the most out of our meal plan.

Northeastern Dining Services provides both meal swipes and husky dollars to students who purchase a meal plan. These services allow students to spend meal swipes at dining halls for unlimited food or use husky dollars at nearby restaurants to buy individual menu items. 

The problem, however, is that it is not always obvious where students can actually use their meal swipes or spend their husky dollars.

​​​​​​​"It's hard to find the website with all of the places."​​​​​​​

"As a freshman, I lived in White Hall and I spent all of my Husky Dollars on QDOBA. I could've gone to better places."

White Hall and QDOBA are the Same Building

APP DESCRIPTION:

PROCESS:

The first step we took was to create a few personas and scenarios. Some of those are included below.

Task Analysis for someone using husky dollars to buy food.

Persona: Mike is a 1st year communications major at Northeastern University. 

He is from a small town in upstate New York. Although he has tons of school spirit, Mike has only actually lived on campus for a week or two. At home, Mike is used to having a lot of things done for him. Back in high school, his parents handled his laundry, his appointments, and all of his meals. So, Mike's transition to college has been largely about learning to care for himself. Thankfully, Mike's parents purchased his a Northeastern Meal plan. He has 15 meal swipes a week coupled with 150 husky dollars he can spend throughout the semester. On the weekends and late at night Mike spends a lot of money on food delivery apps with his roommate. Mike wishes there was a better resource to explain every way his  meal swipes and husky dollars could be spent to help maximize his meal plan’s value.

Scenario: Mike goes to Amelias with his roommates.

For the last time this semester, Mike and his roommates head to Sprout on Huntington Ave. Since Mike and his friends had all forgotten about their leftover Husky Dollars, they are all eager to order food without having to spend any of their hard earned cash. Thankfully, the group of friends already did their research on where they could spend their Husky dollars and they all decided they wanted to eat at Sprout. After walking in the front door, the boys sat at a table and discussed the menu. When it came time to order, they each revisited the menu and made a selection only after mentally deciding what they could afford with their remaining husky dollars. As they waited for their food, the boys took time to discuss the days events. After their meal, the boys handed over the husky card as a worker swiped the card into their computer system. Finally, after the card was returned, the boys left the restaurant. 

Interviews:

Prior to sketching out the screens, we each interviewed a couple students around campus. 

I interviewed two students in our Curry Student Center. One of these students was a second-year, chemical engineering major. He’d intended to grab food from Dunkin that evening, but unfortunately the one in Hayden was closed by the time he got there. Usually he ate at Kigo’s but because it was closed, he settled for Popeye’s. Based on how he described his visit to Curry, he followed on of the student pattern I'd identified during my ethnographic research: the Curry Student Center loner. He was on his phone in line, wanted to be in and out and explained that he did not like the crowded atmosphere of Curry. He was a little annoyed with the fifteen-minute wait time. 

EARLY ITERATIONS:

Our next step was to sketch out a few iterations of the UI.

PAPER PROTOTYPING & USER TESTING:

FEEDBACK FROM INTERVIEWS:

After conducting user testing, we made several changes to our design:

Initially, our design did not include the top red bar. The search bar and filter buttons were placed directly onto the map. Because of this we were told that it was hard to differentiate between the filter buttons up top and the location flags on the map because they used the same icons. So, to mitigate this issue, we added in the top bar background as we were testing the design.

Another issue we encountered was regarding the use of the filter buttons. Once users realized they could use them to change the map, we ran into the issue of what they even mean. Originally, pushing the Husky ID icon removed places that accepted meal swipes as currency. Consistently users expected the exact opposite behavior so we just changed the meaning of the buttons to fit their mental model.

Lastly, we ended up redoing our icons based on some misunderstandings. 

When we had our transfer student test the app, he thought that the card signified locations that accepted credit cards and thus the dollar sign meant places that accepted cash. When we started coding the app up, I redesigned the card icon to look like the front of our IDs to clarify this ambiguity.

One design choice we decided upon that saved us development time regarded the navigate button. When a user selects a location on the map, a small summary panel pops up from the bottom of the screen. While interviewing users we asked if they'd prefer to have Husky Chow open up the maps app on their phone or directly show them directions within the app. Most interviewees thought it was fine enough to just open Google Maps.

RESULTS & TAKEAWAYS:

In the end we didn't ship the project, however it accomplishes all of the must-haves we wanted to see in it. If we were to go back, our remaining tasks would be to supply the app with more information about the different locations like having images so students know if they'd arrived at the right place, showing menus or displaying if locations are closed or not.

"If I'm ever going to go eat out, I'd use this. I don't know all of the places that take Husky Dollars."