Overview

This project involved identifying and examining a user experience problem with an existing product. For this assignment, I focused on the Insomnia coffee app, a popular coffee chain in Dublin and around the republic of Ireland.

Background

• From a single shop in a bookstore to 150 stores, Insomnia has risen to be one of Ireland's largest coffee chains.

• Today, for Irish people, coffee is not just a commodity, it has become a way of life.

• There are 181 coffee shops per 100,000 people in Dublin, serving coffee with an average rating of 3.91 out of 5.

• Research conducted on behalf of the Retail Intelligence by Empathy Research based on an Irish national representative sample of 1000 adults found out that 56% of Irish adults now consume coffee at least once a day- an escalation of 4% in two years, with over one third (34%) consuming several cups every day.

Methodology

The design methodology utilized throughout this project was the double diamond design model. The official Double Diamond design model has four stages: Discovery, Definition, Development and Delivery. This model features two divergent phases where exploration identifies problems and generates solutions and two convergent phases where the focus is to narrow down on a single solution and deliverable.

Stage 1: Discover

Defining the problem

This phase involved uncovering and understanding the user problem, rather than just assuming what the problem is. It mainly involved analysing user data relating to Insomnia and engaging time with the people who are affected by the issues. The objective of this stage was to identify and contextualise the actual problem or opportunity.

From research conducted, it can be seen that the app is lacking in features that could improve the experience of the user. Talking to users and taking note of reviews from app stores shows that the insomnia app is mostly used to store users’ credit, gift points and punch card numbers. It does offer services such as pr-order/pick up. 

Google play store reviews of the app were examined. While customers seem satisfied, It was noted there was frustration when a user would sign up for an account.

When a user wants to order/view a menu they are taken to a separate site. For the redesign, the user would be able to order directly from the app and view the menu.

Observations of Insomnia app summarised:

1. Design inconsistencies where the logo and loading screen is a stretched jpg

2. The flow of the app feels outdated and lacks smooth transitions from one screen to another

3. Stretched images

4. Lack of interactive menu for food and beverages (JPEGs and paragraph text)

5. Clicking on buttons does nothing

The Insomnia app is a condensed version of the official Insomnia website. This does not meet cross-platform standards. There is an opportunity to expand the app and provide a service that improves current users' and new users' experiences. This would include designing a new menu layout for food and drinks, changes to the way the user navigates the app, and how a user orders from the app.

Preliminary Survey - Consumers Like Convenience 

Preliminary surveys were conducted to assess how consumers interacted with not just insomnia but coffee chains in general.  We looked at how many users visited insomnia, how many users knew that insomnia even had an app and finally how many users actually used an app to purchase drinks/coffee. Many users purchased locally and only 9 out of the 37 users used an app when it came to purchasing coffee.

• The survey illustrated that most users purchased drinks locally.

• When asked if users used an app in relation to cafes/coffee shops, only 9 said yes.

• Examples included Starbucks, Insomnia, Cafe Nero, etc

• 92% of users had visited an Insomnia cafe

• From that percentage, only 68.4% of users were aware Insomnia had an app.

• 92.3% of users said they did not use the app.

To understand the user group, a total of 4 individual interviews were conducted. The interview was divided into two sections. The first section was about the user completing tasks within the Insomnia app. The second section was questions related to the app and their experiences with coffee shops.

Key findings from the interviews were:

1. App is oudated.

Based on interviews it was noted by several users that the app felt outdated when compared to competitors like Starbucks and Cafe Nero.

2. App is difficult to navigate.

During the interviews, users were asked to navigate through the app and complete tasks. These tasks included navigating the menu and ordering an item. 2 out of the 4 participants were able to navigate from the home screen to the menu. The remaining 2 users became frustrated and gave up on completing the task. When asked what aspect of navigating the app caused them to give up on the task? users said that they assumed the menu would be where they expected it to be i.e sidebar or navbar. Users found they had to search for the menu. This caused one user to become anxious the longer it took them to find the menu. 

Each user took longer than expected to complete each task. The users who could navigate to the menu took around 2 - 3 minutes. This was due to navigating through different screens and the location of the menu causing confusion. The 2 users who gave up during the task took about 3 - 5 minutes. 

3. App is generic/basic to look at for users.

Users noted throughout testing that the app lacked character. One user noted that the app used a generic template. When asked "what would you like to see instead?" 

4. Pictures within the app are not sized well.

Users noticed that images used in the app were of poor quality and not sized in the correct format. Further investigation from the researcher confirmed that jpg was used instead of png images which would explain the issue users pointed out.

5. Users did not like being brought to an external site when ordering from App.

Users were dissatisfied when they were brought to an external site when ordering from the app. One user disclosed that they disliked when apps brought users to an external site when checking out.

6. Font type and size are difficult to read.

3 out of the 4 users said they found it difficult to read the font used in the app. Some examples included colour used for font, sizing of font, and large paragraphs of text used in the menu that made it difficult to read. One user did disclose that they have sight issues and another user mentioned that they have dyslexia.

Based on the user research personas were created to understand user frustrations,background and motivations.

The Empathy Map was created to have a better understanding of the product from the perspective of users. We want to get rid of the frustrations a user might feel while using the app.

To have a clear understanding of the Insomnia apps navigation complexity for users, a user journey map was created. The figure below displays the app's current flow. Based on users' feedback the flow charts were created to understand the users' issues with the app and where improvements could be made. For example, the flow for users navigating to the menu could be simplified so users are less likely to become frustrated. 

When the first iteration of the prototype was developed, user testing was completed using Maze. The original 4 users who completed the first usability testing of the insomnia app were brought back to test the new prototype. The tasks for testing the new prototype were the same as the previous:

1. Navigate to the menu

2. Order an item from the menu and checkout

• After a user completed a task, they were asked to rate the difficulty.

• 1 if the task was easy to complete and 10 if the task was difficult to complete.

• All 4 users said they found it easier to navigate the new layout for the Insomnia app.

• Slight cosmetic changes were made to the final look of the prototype based on user suggestions. e.g background colour.

Based on user feedback little cosmetic changes were made to the design such as changing background colour to white and adding text under navbar icons. Final designs were created using Figma. We have the location selection, home menu, menu and item details.