Final presentation

FourHeads Final Presentation

After shedding blood, sweat, and tears, we are proud to present our final presentation and video sketch. This has been a wonderful and intense semester, and we have had a blast. Thank you for joining us and for reading!

Supporting Data

After developing, monitoring, and compiling data and findings from our own “Families and Food” survey, we wanted to see if others had done similar research. Although our sample size was statistically relevant, we wanted to be sure our results matched more comprehensive data sets and so we scoured the Internet looking for similar studies. Some of the questions we were looking to answer were:

Why do women use the Internet, and, more specifically, why do moms use the Internet?
What types of information are they seeking?
Why and what types of social networks do moms join online? What are they hoping to accomplish?
How do women interact with online retailers and advertisers?

This search proved incredibly fruitful and was overwhelmingly supportive of our concept. Some key findings were:

• “Women also turn to the web as an important source of information when shopping or researching products. Some 76% use it to get shopping ideas…”
• “The community elements online are also important for women, as 72% use the web to keep in touch with friends and family and 53% use websites to be part of a community.”

http://www.nma.co.uk/news/women-turn-to-web-ahead-of-other-media-to-find-advice-and-support/3008973.article

• “According to Greystripe, 96% of mothers with iPhones are involved in their family’s purchasing decisions and 40% are the sole decision makers.”
• “With regards to shopping, 79% of all iPhone moms use their phones for ‘shopping related activities.’ The majority of these activities consist of locating stores (60%). Thirty-nine percent also use the phone to compare prices. Nineteen percent of iPhone moms download coupons, 23% look for items on sale and 37% use their phones to learn about products.”
• “When it comes to using the phone in stores, 42% of the mothers who responded to the Greystripe survey said that they regularly use their phones at the grocery store.”
• “As Greystripe’s founder and CEO Michael Chang told us last week, this data shows how the iPhone has become a tool for everyday life for this demographic. This group tends to have a large influence over everyday purchase decisions in their families and these iPhone moms often use their phones to make a good number of these decisions, which make them an attractive target for marketers.
• This study also shows that there is a large market for apps that are specifically geared towards this demographic, including mobile price comparison apps or apps that can deliver mobile coupons – and a lot of iPhone dads will probably be interested in these apps as well”

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/iphone_moms_shopping_entertaining_kids.php

These statistics, among other previous articles and studies we came across, show that the market is waiting for a concept like Fleat. Mothers would be receptive and would welcome an opportunity to save time, money, and interact with other like-minded women while being given a means to easily monitor their nutrition and adjust their purchasing habits accordingly.

First photo shoot

For our video sketch we have decided to use a series of still images and narration to visually articulate our scenarios. This representation of situational usage will give our audience a clear idea of how Fleat addresses a specific, yet universal pain. We anticipate that the imagery and accompanying narration will help convey the emotional pressures of being a busy mom, as well as how Fleat provides a simple, streamlined tool for these women.

This weekend we were able to work with a wonderful woman (we’ll call her “Jane”) and her young son (“Charlie”) at a local market to depict the contextual use of Fleat. We took over 200 images of the two of them in this setting; these images will provide the content for the first half of our short video. Here are some highlights:

Evaluative research

After making some headway on this mobile application metaphor, we wanted to put the idea in front of other people. The feedback we got was very positive and informative, so we have decided to move forward with the new concept.

The new interface seemed more natural to people and some said it looked new and fresh rather than like an old menu-based application. Having everything at a glance was preferable to having to navigate from a menu. Furthermore, one evaluator said that, if only presented with a menu, she would most likely not use the “Analyze” function. She said she would not necessarily want to push a button to see what she is doing “wrong” and therefore would probably never use it. However, since the nutritional analysis is intrinsic to the value of our concept, we need to be certain it is something that all users will see. Therefore, in the new interface the main screen gives a snapshot of the nutritional analysis without being overwhelming or seeming judgmental.

The main screen will now primarily function as a shopping list, with the Weekly Find appearing at the top, followed by the items you purchase most often. The list will be organized by the frequency of purchase, so items such as dairy and produce will be toward the top. Next to each item will be an icon that indicates an ability to connect to your Flock by chatting about particular items on your list. And, if others in your Flock are already discussing the item, the icon will change size and color to indicate this fact and will allow you to join in.

The Metaphor

Although we feel that our overall concept is sound at this point, we have been challenged to rethink the design of the mobile application. It was originally laid out as a very basic, logical, menu-driven application, with a basic four-option landing screen. While simple to use, and fairly intuitive, we have perhaps overlooked an opportunity in the design. ChrisK has been pushing us to think of the application in terms of a metaphor – what kind of layout and operation would be most natural for a mom at a grocery store? How could we integrate all functions of the application around one simple idea?

This sketch represents our first pass at using the shopping list as a starting point/landing site. We found ways to link all functions to this main screen, and perhaps have created something more intuitive than our original idea. Our plan now is to evaluate this concept in comparison to our original idea to see which is more user-friendly.

Detailed Concept presentation

To see the PDF file, click HERE!

Survey

Although we chose a target group and made some initial assumptions about what sort of features and incentives would be meaningful to these women, we thought it would be important to get feedback from a larger pool of actual mothers. To do so, we decided to cast a wide net and create an online survey using Survey Monkey. Since none of us knows many local mothers, an online survey seemed the best tool to reach a large number of women in a short amount of time.

We had two main objectives for this survey: to understand where mothers struggle in terms of planning, shopping, purchasing and preparing food and also to test out some initial concept ideas.

Some of the questions we asked:
On a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 = low priority and 5 = high priority, how would you rate the following when choosing food to purchase?

On a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 = not a concern and 5 = big concern, how would you rate the following?

When preparing meals for your family, what is your biggest struggle?

110 individuals took the survey (100 mothers, 10 fathers), which gave us a statistically significant sample size. While we were not exactly surprised by any of the results, we did learn quite a bit from the responses we received. The open-ended responses provided us with the richest information, and many of the “choose a response” questions helped to confirm our assumptions about what is important and what mothers would be interested in knowing/doing.

The open-ended responses led us to conclude that the number one struggle for mothers is never having enough time. Aside from our given survey response option of “Planning ahead”, mothers also listed “time and energy,” “Time availability for cooking due to work schedule,” and “Determining what I want to make!” We began to realize that this data fully supports what we learned from our generative research. People know that nutrition is important, and they know how they ought to be eating, but in their busy lives, they often have to make exceptions because they do not have time to efficiently plan, shop, and cook. Obviously our system must address this pressing need.