Project: UX Design
Role: Research/Design
Year: 2018
The goal of the project was to take an existing food/restaurant experience and improve upon it. The focus was on creativity and thinking outside of the box. Practicality was not a major concern.
Juice Press is a food and wellness brand based out of New York City. They produce premium health food products such as smoothies, juices, granola, and many other organic health food items.
They aim to stand apart from other juice bars. Their stores are full of entertaining content that educates the consumer on health in a provocative and fun manner.
Age: 25-50
According to a Mintel research report, 39 percent of consumers use nutritional drinks as a replacement for breakfast.
Age: 14-30
Juice Press has 102k followers on Instagram. They update it almost every day.
The loudness is caused by the blenders. This makes communicating with the cashier difficult. It also makes it difficult to converse with friends while in the building.
Raw unprocessed drinks go bad in about three days. This requires Juice Press to make the drinks upon order. Each drink is prepared separately. This causes massive wait times when busy.
Even though Juice Press portrays themselves as an all-natural company, they still use conventional plastic disposable cups for serving their smoothies.
There is no differentiating feature in the process of getting a smoothie. All juice bars use the same equipment and the same process.
Develop a robotic system that will not only serve customers more quickly but also be a source of entertainment for the customers.
Create a reusable cup system to cut down on waste. The user will be rewarded for using the cup.
Position the robotic system outside for a fast on the go experience. It will help cut down on noise inside of the store by redirecting smoothie customer traffic.
Develop a touch screen interface that can process payments and place orders. It will also provide entertainment for the customer.
Each ingredient is separated in its own tube. The tubes contain blenders that blend the chosen ingredients. The cups move along a conveyor belt.
This process enables multiple orders to be made at once.
The production window makes the experience entertaining. It grabs people’s attention off the street. It plays a major role in the entice stage of the experience.
The window also gives customers a level of transparency that is important to health-conscious individuals.
The production window makes the experience entertaining. It grabs people’s attention off the street. It plays a major role in the entice stage of the experience.
The window also gives the customer a level of transparency that is important to health-conscious individuals.
Juice Press will offer “smart” bottles; reusable smoothie containers that can be recognized by the smoothie machine. The bottle holds the user's identity and the smoothie maker can recognize the user by scanning the QR code on the back of the bottle.
This system makes it much easier to gain useful analytical information about the user, such as their favorite drink and how often they get juice.
The smoothie maker dispenses the ingredients in layers. Once the user gets the drink he/she has to shake the bottle to mix the ingredients.
This creates a beautiful display of colors. It also creates a fun interaction between the user and the bottle.
The QR code is scanned when placed inside the machine. It greets the owner of the bottle and presents them with what it thinks is their favorite drink options based on their past purchases.
The container is custom printed with a profile picture and name on the bottom of the bottle. This makes the product feel less disposable and more personal.
The user can navigate the interface using the display. It shows rewards, specials, and the menu.
All communication with the smoothie machine is done through this device. It processes payments and interacts with the user.
The display doubles as an advertisement when it is not in use. It entices people through animated ads.
The user can navigate the interface using the display. It shows rewards, specials, and the menu.
All communication with the smoothie machine is done through this device. It processes payments and interacts with the user.
The display doubles as an advertisement when it is not in use. It entices people through animated ads.
I started my process with a blue sky exercise to determine all the potential features and elements that might be needed in the interface.
Unorganized
Organized
The Blue Sky Exercise revealed many potential features, but before I began creating sitemaps I thought I might be able to learn from other self-serve kiosks. These are the ones I studied:
Michigan Lottery
F'real Blending Bar
Mcdonalds Self Serve
Little Caesars Pizza Portal
By studying best practices I realized that the interface needed to be streamline since there may be other people in line. I ended up cutting out a lot of the features I initially came up with during the Blue Sky Exercise. I realized that there is really only one major user path for the interface and that is to browse the drink selection and make a purchase.
Before mocking up screens on the computer I did some quick sketches to quickly visualize my ideas and make sure they were feasible within the given screen real estate.
I took those initial sketches and created basic wireframes using Sketch. I avoided all styling and just focused on the content and elements for each page. I also added functionality using the prototype tool.
I developed a specific style for the interface by studying Juicepress' existing website.
I then brought the screens into Figma simply because I like the prototyping tools more. I did some user testing but it was all at a smaller scale since I don't have access to a large touch screen monitor.
The Juice Press app plays a major role in the overall smoothie experience, it has been designed to be fun and interactive for the user. The app has a similar feel to the touch screen kiosk. It takes advantage of the collected smart bottle data to create a personal experience.
What sets the app apart is its engaging reward system that utilizes the smart bottle’s collected data. The user can level up and gain credits for future purchases.
The app is designed to be a fun experience. The user can complete challenges to gain rewards. These challenges often require using the mobile app and the smart bottle.
