Baked Potato is an HCI design for an application that attempts to solve a social justice issue around food, by proving people relevant information in order for shoppers to make informed decisions about the food they buy. The goal of the project was to conduct UX research and use collected data to model behavior that would inform our eventual design. Although several applications currently exist that provide similar functionality for users to request additional information at the point of sale, Bake Potato connects preference patterns with reward mechanisms to create useful incentives for people to act on food recommendations.

Highlights:

• Field observation and interview data collection
• Data Analysis and modeling of user behavior patterns
• Paper and computer-generated Prototyping
• Functional specification writing using a “Behavior Driven Development” approach

Before making any assumptions about how the application would look or function, our design team conducted a series of observations using a contextual inquiry approach to locate a particular opportunity for an HCI intervention of people’s relationship to the food system. Collected data from observations included time-coded field notes of several shopping trips with supporting photography. Using the data collected we were able to create a conceptual map of the structure of a shopping activity. In addition, we discovered opportunities for innovations from “breakdowns” in the decision making process. Using the field notes, we created a user preference scale in which to model user behavior. We did another round of grocery shopping observations mapping preference patterns. At this point we began thinking about the lifecycle of the user and exploring potential hurdles our users would need to overcome to become passionate users of our application. Next, we used our preference patterns to develop prototypes (first using paper, then later computer-generated using Axure RP). These prototypes were used to test our assumptions with actual users before committing to any design or functionality. Finally, we created a functional specification using a “Behavior Driven Development” approach to build consensus, not only with developers, but all stakeholders on what will be built according to the experience of the user. The advantage of BDD approach was that it focuses on stories that describe a desired software behavior from the perspective of the user as opposed to a focus on the technical details of the code.

Learn more by visiting the Baked Potato project website.

View artifacts from this project on my flickr page.