“... if I have doubts [on whether I can eat something], there's usually a little button you can look and see.
But I'm screwed if it isn't there when I want to try something new."
- Participant E

Ordering snacks ahead of time can help movie-goers mitigate extra steps and stress while visiting the cinemas. Oftentimes, placing a mobile concession snack order occurs within a movie company’s own app which includes several other main user flows (e.g., purchasing movie tickets and seat selection). This may imply that users must download multiple cinema apps if they visit different theatres. 

The goal was to find a way to streamline ordering movie snacks from various movie theatre companies and to accommodate users with different dietary requirements.

Final
Concept

Users can filter concession snacks by common dietary needs

Users can view all snacks relevant to their dietary need(s) after filtering

Users can learn more about a snack to make it easy to determine whether it fits their dietary need(s)

Meeting the Target Users

Personas & Journey Maps

 I practiced empathizing with users by creating personas and journey maps to gain a sense of the potential user backgrounds and problems. So, I created two personas with different needs and goals including having dietary requirements, mindfulness of budgeting, better effective communication, and limited waiting time. These users may not be able to change their needs and environment, so understanding challenges various users face was imperative.By creating journey maps for the 2 personas, I was able to piece out the steps users would take in using the concessions ordering product and could think of how the steps would slightly differ according to the user’s goals, needs, emotions, life scenarios, etc. I considered other improvement opportunities to further help users. For example, the persona Eduardo had mild hearing loss, so the app could send notifications to users’ mobile devices when the order is ready for pick up. 

Storyboards

I quickly sketched storyboards to correspond with one persona to better imagine a specific situation and how the persona with specific needs and desires would interact with the app. I solidified the order in which one user could use the app. In particular, I considered how a user’s emotions could be affected by interactions within the broader context of their day or with other people. The app could help ease anxiety with talking to movie theater employees by emphasizing a clear ordering process within the app minimizing confusion. The app could also minimize idle waiting time for the user’s friends while the user is choosing a snack that meets their dietary needs.

Competitive Audit

Next, I performed a competitive audit to learn what features products on the market have. Since other cinema apps were made for different cinema companies, these apps had multiple purposes other than concession ordering. For this reason, findings suggest that the ordering process was not detailed enough to accommodate users with dietary needs. 

To find allergen related information, users would have to read ingredient lists themselves which is time consuming and is not enjoyable. In worse cases, food items only had their name and a photo listed; no descriptions or ingredient lists were available. 

For certain apps, there were some difficulties with affordances which affected the user flow and navigation. For example, some icons were unclear and the option to pick a cinema location was difficult to locate on the apps. 

Some movie theatre apps did an excellent job at providing a “Quick Access” feature that allows users to access their pre-paid tickets, member QR codes, etc. Light and dark options were available to accommodate dark movie theatre environments and a deliver to seat option was present to accommodate all users especially those with disabilities. I wanted to implement these features on the final hi-fi prototype, but I prioritized other features related to the app’s main goal over these additions that would broaden the scope of the app’s target audience. 

Lo-Fi Prototyping

Our Product

GOAL
The SnagSnax app will let users place movie concession orders ahead of time which will affect users with or without dietary needs by enabling them to filter common dietary needs and check ingredients for a more worry-free and time-efficient movie theatre experience.

WHY
Target users need a more concise and detailed way to order concession snacks ahead of time which will allow users to save time finding a snack that meets their dietary needs.

Achieve through:

• Easy-to-identify dietary needs tags
  
• Deliver to seat option for accessibility purposes & time constraints
• Cinema location selector (bc my app would span across different cinema companies)
• Food product pictures, names, descriptions, ingredient lists, and dietary need tags
• Space to type order notes for cinema employees

Sketching

Several sketches were created and feature layouts were evaluated with the target users' needs and desires at the forefront of decisions (e.g., snacks displayed with a large photo and snack name for ease of recognition).

Next, I created a sketch that combined the feature layouts together to serve as a foundation for the lo-fi prototypes.

Usability Testing

My aim was to get a grasp for the overall functionality and navigation of the dietary needs and allergies filter, a main feature of the first iteration of the lo-fi prototype. I chose to conduct moderated user sessions to practice moderating.

First, I created a study plan, script, and prepared other materials which included a system usability scale. used as a behavioral key performance indicator (KPI) to evaluate the data. Since this study took place during the early stages of the app’s development, I also chose user error rates and conversion rates as additional  behavioral KPI's to quantify and evaluate the data.

Next, I recruited five friends with at least one dietary need for virtual moderated usability testing and with their consent, I recorded audio and visual input.

Finally, the participants completed the system usability scale. They scored the following ten statements by selecting one of five responses that range from “Strongly Disagree = 1” to “Strongly Agree = 5” and included questions such as “I imagine that most people would learn to use this app quickly” and “There is inconsistency within the app”.

Interpreting the Results

I took observation notes from the recordings in a spreadsheet and created an affinity diagram. I identified 3 main themes that could use improvement:

1.) Difficulty locating menu categories

• 2 out of 5 participants felt it was challenging to identify where the menu categories were
• Not all participants shared the same amount of confusion or frustration.

“Is this the menu? No, it’s the location. Is the menu this area here? Oh this way! I see. Wait, am I missing something?”(Participant C)

→ Users need menu category labels to be more visually obvious

2.) Horizontal scrolling wasn't intuitive

• 3 out of 5 participants did not know they could horizontally scroll along the menu categories
• 2 out of 5 participants suggested arrows as a cue for scrolling
• 2 out of 5 participants offered it would be more intuitive if they were viewing the app on their phone 

“I didn’t realize that was a scroll thing since I only saw 4 items.” (Participant B)

‍“See, I think this would be a lot easier using your fingers... I think there needs to be arrows showing you can swipe either direction horizontally.” (Participant C)

→ Users need cues indicating horizontal scrolling

Alterations to the Design

1.) Locating the menu categories with better cues

• Added the label "menu"
• Added background to group menu categories together (using the Gestalt common region principle)

2.) Scrolling horizontally is more intuitive

• Added arrows to indicate horizontal scrolling

The final step was delivering the research insights to friends by presenting a UX research slide deck before applying the participants' suggestions to the final lo-fi prototype.

Sharing My Learnings

Project Constraints

• Limited access to variety of stakeholders & collaborators
• Limited user testing sessions due to time constraints and other personal responsibilities

In Hindsight...

To further support the competitive audit conducted towards the beginning of the process, I wished I could've included a thematic analysis of app store reviews of similar apps. This would have better supported feature development for my product by expanding the sampling pool of target users and gaining a deeper understanding of challenges target users have with current movie theatre apps' concession purchasing.

Learnings for Next Time

Provide clearer instructions for what's expected of participants.

Participants were confused about which navigation flow was the "right one" to follow. By clarifying in the instructions that participants can choose whatever steps seem intuitive and that there is no "right" or "wrong" action, these concerns can be minimized for participants.

For the script, break down task instructions in smaller chunks.

Participants asked for me to talk slower  while I was reading filter options. I could give instructions to participants at a slower rate and I could design the script to be more manageable to users so they don't have to rely on their memory to complete a task.

Perform future usability testing sessions on a mobile device.

Several participants commented they would find the product more intuitive if the testing for the usability sessions were conducted on the mobile version of Figma. Although this could indicate there could be more improvements done to the actual design, a mobile version might better support the holistic user experience.

Parting Thoughts

Like in many instances where accessibility and users who go against the grain are considered, creating an app that caters toward users with special dietary needs not only supports those with strict restrictions but those who are curious and have more flexible needs and desires.

Due to the time restriction and other personal responsibilities, I was unable to continue this project and develop it into a hi-fi prototype supported by multiple rounds of testing. Theoretically going forward, I would recruit more target users to test and use the dat implications to refine this product and make it easy and enjoyable to use.