Redesign DigiPen Cafeteria

About the project

This project is the part of GAT399-Advance UX design assignment. Where I research and identify the user experience problem within DigiPen. DigiPen Cafeteria is my main focus topic for this project.

In this project, I also create the solution proposal and pitch to Stakeholder to actually make an improvement to DigiPen cafeteria experience.

User Interview

For the better understanding of the issue in DigiPen cafeteria food I conduct a survey on all people who have experience DigiPen food. By separate the topic of interested into

1. What is the user opinion on the quality and quantity of DigiPen Food compare to the price?

2. What is the popular product from the DigiPen cafeteria? And why?

3. What is the user opinion on DigiPen international food?

The survey was post publicly on the DigiPen Student Facebook group, researcher personal game team slack and Asian community group chat. The survey got the total of 100 respond before the closing date.

Full data & analysis document here: drive.google.com

User-Centered problem statements & Solution

1.) Unbalance Food price and quantity

From the User interview, I found that even though the food quality is fine, and the quantity is excellent the price is not very comfortable for the consumer one of the costs for this unprecedented user experience may have to do with the unbalancing price and portion. As most of the people think they got the excellent amount of portion not all of them are able to finish all the food 4 out of 5 people I ask in person said they feel great that they got a big portion but they never be able to finish all of them.

What creates an unpleasant experience?

According to the "Zeigarnik Effect," humans have a tendency to remember interrupted or incomplete tasks or events more easily than tasks that have been completed. This might be the reason DigiPen food consumer start to have an unpleasant experience because “Outbrain like to finish the task” - [Professor Vanessa Hemovich, Spring 2018 in PSY201 class] even the consumer receive a big amount of portion size, not able to finish the dish still mean that they didn’t finish the task and have more tendency to think back and regret the buying experience.

This event can also reduce the Economic value the consumer has for the DigiPen food making the consumer feel like the food is more expensive than they would want to buy.

Solution

1.) Half Portion Half Prize

Instead of forcing everyone to buy the food at the same price and portion give consumer more choice of portion size and price to create an illusion of control to the consumer making them feel like they have a cheaper choice while DigiPen still receives the same amount of profit, and also make the consumer feel great to be able to finish their task.

2.) Reduce Portion size

This is a simpler way to fix the issue that will not increase the cost of production, but it will take time for the cafeteria to adjust the portion size to fit everyone's needs.

2.) Unpredictable food and ingredient

From the User interview, I found that many consumers don’t trust in DigiPen food because a lot of time the food was inconsistent and the ingredient is lack information. Some people have got a food poisoning or even food allergy that almost kills them. This is a big main concern that decreases the user experience from DigiPen food and might also be the reason people stop eating DigiPen food.

What creates an unpleasant experience?

DigiPen food quality is inconsistent because most of the menu isn’t planned ahead of time. Sometimes, the ingredient isn’t the same even if it was the same menu. Sometimes, they replace the ingredient that runs out with other things without changing the sign. This makes a consumer feel like they can’t trust what DigiPen write and scare of eating DigiPen food.

Solution

1.) DigiPen Food Calendar

Planed out the ALL food ahead of time (not just the entree) for at least 2 weeks and put up the calendar in front of DigiPen cafeteria so consumers can see the menu and make a decision ahead of time if they will be eating DigiPen food or not.

2.) Ingredient UI warring

This is a straightforward way to help people with food allergies decide on their food by attaching the UI icon to warn the consumer about what the dish contains, so they don’t have to go through asking the café staff about all the ingredients.

3.) Increase food consistency

Trust is something that needs to be earning. If DigiPen wants the consumer to trust them enough to rely on them for the food, they have to be more consistent with the food making it trustable. For example, Pizza should cook to be the same every time, not a luck base sometimes overcook or undercook.

Proposal

Target User

The primary target user is DigiPen student since the goal of having a cafeteria is for the sake of DigiPen student.

Half Portion - Half price

This half portion half price is mainly focus on Rice bowl, Entrée, Pasta bar since all of them only offer with one size of portion. Instead of forcing everyone to buy the food at the same price and portion, give consumer more choice of a portion size and price to create an illusion of control to the consumer making them feel like they have more cheaper choice while DigiPen still receive the same amount of profit, and also make consumer feel great to be able to finish their task.

Explanation:

Taking the reference from Panda express and poke bowl to help coming up the price range start from turning the regular 8$ price to the Large portion without changing the size and price, giving 2 more choice to the user so they will feel like they are the one who making decision when really we are recommending the consumer to take a smaller size because we are calling it a default. The default size has roughly half the portion of the Large but only 2 dollars cheaper this should prevent DigiPen from losing profits and reduce waste from the food that consumer going to throw away. Which if later on we found that DigiPen student didn’t require a lot of food we will be able to reduce the amount of food DigiPen produce and in long term this should reduce the cost from DigiPen cafeteria. I also decide to add a small portion into the choice for the consumer this idea came from the Kids menu in the restaurant that offer a smaller size for the people who don’t eat much or for the kids, how are they still exist if the size is so small and the cost is almost the regular size? The answer is that sometime people just want to try and taste food in a very small portion but they will feel bad to buy a regular portion if they know some of them will go to waste this is where kids menu method come in handy judging by the size DigiPen should have gain more profit from selling a lot of small size food, and people who buy them will also feel satisfy that all their money wouldn’t go to waste.

Production Constraints

The implementation of the solution itself shouldn’t takes more than a week to change but would take more than 1 semester for this push to actually happen just because they cannot change the system right away and giving out other portion will require a calculation of the profits.

Benefits to school and the target user group

Benefits to DigiPen, if the portion size plate can also using the same plate as salad bar there will be non-necessary cost than the usual cost of the food, selling at difference price should theoretically give DigiPen more profit and in long term if the Large portion demand is reducing that should reduce the cost of production as well.

Benefits to Target user, from all the choice of the portion size this should give the sense of control to the consumer and make them feel like they weren’t forced to buy and produce extra waste, this should in long term increase user experience for DigiPen cafeteria.

School value and support

From the pitch I have with the stakeholder there is a very small chance they will be offering more size for the food, because they are concerning about the profits they will be making since DigiPen cafeteria didn’t make as much profits as the outsider restaurant. The better shot that they will consider doing is reducing the price and the standard size to match people needs.

Stakeholder Interview/Proposal Pitch

Alex Comair

Responsibility: Assoc. Director of External Affairs & General Administration

Background

I have recently taken on the responsibility to manage DigiPen’s Food Services. It has only been a week!

What is the biggest issue you see in DigiPen cafeteria food? (Before seeing the data & Pitch)

We need to focus on understanding what most students actually want, and how we can provide that every single day. The Café is a service, like many other services we provide, and this service must be finely tuned to provide the best for our students. I have been reading feedback about the café for years now, and I take feedback very seriously.

My plan, before seeing this data, includes providing healthier options, keeping low prices while offering better value, better portion sizes, and providing breakfast, lunch, and dinner items that people truly enjoy and can count on. You may have already seen some changes to our salad bar and our pizza. This is just the tip of the iceberg!

What is it that’s preventing you from fixing this issue?

Food Services is a new responsibility for me, and I need to first learn the daily operation before I can tackle all issues. The café is a running machine that serves about 1,000 meals per day. I cannot simply overhaul that machine without expecting problems. Instead, I will thoroughly understand its operation, and then apply continuous improvement every day. For example, I spent the better part of yesterday washing dishes!

What is the biggest issue you see in DigiPen cafeteria food? (After seeing the data & Pitch)

The data mostly has reinforced my understanding of customer satisfaction. I have already been exposed to a lot of data and comments about the cafe, and I agree with most of them, and I have already formed a plan to address most of them. This is one of the reasons why I have been given the responsibility of looking after this department. I see our issues, and I am putting us on a path of small incremental improvements day-after-day. As a customer, you may not notice the changes between yesterday and today, but my goal is that if you look back a year from now, you will see some amazing positive changes.

How did you feel/think about the solution I have presented you?

I appreciate your solutions, and they are both a mix of my existing plan and some fresh ideas. You told me that “your brain likes to finish tasks” when sharing your solution about portion sizes, and I think this is a very interesting way of thinking of why portion sizes are so important, not from just a health standpoint, but from a marketing standpoint.

Some of the solutions you presented will definitely happen over the next year, for example, healthy foods, better portioning, consistency, and displaying better food calendar. Some items that I still need to consider or might need more time to implement are using icons to describe foods and providing allergen warnings. As a person with multiple food allergies, I have learned the hard way that there is no such thing as an allergen-free kitchen. To post or not to post allergen is a dilemma that most food businesses face. This is one item, that requires more consideration.

Ricardo Tanaka Jr.

Responsibility: Kitchen Manager

What is the biggest issue you see in DigiPen cafeteria food? (Before seeing the data & Pitch)

I think we need a renovation of the menu and try new cuisine.

What is it that’s preventing you from fixing this issue?

I think it was the administration, I think it was up to them to decide the change that we have to do it, so on my position now as much as I can do is to keeping everything on the place, everything organize, flesh food all the time, but beside that this is how much I can do now I think is more up to the responsible of the kitchen and my supervisor.

What is the biggest issue you see in DigiPen cafeteria food? (After seeing the data & Pitch)

I think for the price because it wasn’t much place to get a food around here and we have a very big crew that’s why they said it will be higher on the price, but size and portion I think it’s depend on the cuisine like when we serve stakes that was a fair price but I think we can drop some of the product that might be a little over price. For the international food it’s almost half and half that people like it or dislike it. I think we should work on the authentic of the food but also, I think one of the reasons we do a difference season is because everything in Unite states is westernized to accommodate everyone. But I agreed some cuisine could be more authentic. I think our salad bar need to change fresh vegetable / steam vegetable add them in might be better so there’s more stuff to choose.

How did you feel/think about the solution I have presented you?

I think and I understand that it would be interesting and be nice to have portion so you can order a half portion the problem is normally when we calculate the portion per person and how we calculate the price and the profits that we going to make. But I think definitely going to be a good idea to do the half portion half price. That way it will be half of serving and this child will save a bit more and feel less waste. For the calendar we actually planned menu 1 moth ahead so I think we have some idea of want we going to do it was something we can start doing right now at lease for the 1 week. For the UI I think it was nice to know that you guys are thinking that way and I think it was easy to fixed.