In 2021, in my Sophomore year in college, UC San Diego opened the Design & Innovative Building which consists of the Makerspace. The Makerspace introduced me to a lot of technologies like laser cutters, 3D printers, spray painting, and so much more. Therefore, we wanted leverage the resources in Makerspace to prototype something tangible for the first time.
With the increased popularity of boba drinks among college students, it is interesting to see how the act of “getting boba” has induced its own hangout culture. As a group of student designers who adore the boba culture, we want to implement our skill sets and innovative ideas into prototyping our own boba-ordering experience.
To start off our research process, we conducted online research to get familiar with current boba trends in the contemporary market. We organized our data into positives and negatives influences boba kiosk brings to the market.
We went into a boba store to analyze the user demographics and observe customer's interaction with the kiosk machine. While we were at the site, we documented qualitative data to take note of customer behavior.
We utilized the data that we collected to pinpoint key aspects users value in a boba kiosk. Many users really value the decreased face to face interaction, increased efficiency and also order time approximation that the kiosk brings to users.
After our online preliminary research and field research, we analyzed our data and narrowed down our target audience to two main groups of users.
We then sketched out both a blueprint for our physical kiosk and also the layout of our order interface to help us better understand our general format.
Using the sketches we created for our Figma prototype, we were able to create several wireframes to gain a better idea of how our boba kiosk ordering pages look like. During our design evaluation phase, we were deciding on which layout suits our ordering page better. After considering our customer's user experience and our boba store's drink category amounts, we decided on the one with horizontal scrolling on top to allow users to browse through different drink categories when needed.
We wanted to create our own brand with a logo that sets ourselves apart from other boba brands. We started the brand building process by creating a moodboard that helps us decide on the general style we are going for. We wanted our boba store to be a comfortable, easy-going, and pretty. We then combined the boba drink with our team's unique characteristic mascot, the Goofy Goober, together as our logo.
In our high-fidelity prototype, we refined our frames according to the style guide which gave the whole prototype a more cohesive style. One of the key design is the help page which aims to assist users who are not that familiar with technology or the boba ordering process.
In the UCSD Makerspace, we spent approximately 60 hours to prototype the physical kiosk. We started off by creating wireframes on Inkscape and then moved on to picking out wood pieces to put into the laser cutter. After piecing together the wood blocks, we quickly started to work on the appearances.
*The second picture to the left: me using spray paint to put color onto our card reader.
*The third picture to the right: we waiting for our third try transferring our Inkscape design to the lasercutter.
After the long hours, our hard work paid off. We were able to highlight our boba kiosk with our brand signs, fun boba designs on the side and also put on a card reader in front to simulate the payment process.
We definitely did not expect this project to take up that much time when we first began. There were several times that I almost decided to give up and not put in any more effort. However, working with my teammates gave me immense amount of energy and rekindled my passion. We eventually created something that exceeded our expectations.
It was our first time experimenting with many tools including Miro, Dovetail, Inkscape and Laser Cutters. There was a learning curve for many techniques needed for building a kiosk. It was crucial for me to be open-minded when it comes to experimenting with different tools that I am unfailiar with. I am proud to say that now I have earned a couple of new skills.
The key reason to our success is due to our collaborative effort as a team. Our team was really good at sharing opinions and providing suggestions effectively and more importantly, respectfully. We were always covering for each other when needed. We built trust along the way which became a main contribution to our success.
