Taste Safe
Personal Solo Project
The Challenge
Diners need a way to review establishments' COVID-19 protocols before going out to eat. As one of the more than 900 members of a Grand Rapids Facebook group dedicated to sharing which establishments are enforcing the Michigan mask mandate, I felt like many people would use a site like this.
Constraints
I wanted to create a mobile-friendly review site to solve this problem, but I had to work around primary constraints.
No funding
Tight timeline
No development team
My Solution
I know HTML and CSS but am nowhere close to being a developer. With no time to get funding and the hope that this site would only be useful for a short time, I decided to use Wix to create it and focus on the Grand Rapids area.
White boarding
After some time reading articles on Covid-19 and the restaurant industry, I plotted some ideas on a digital whiteboard. I started with "can we" and "how might we" questions and then a basic customer map. As a previous restaurant manager, I am empathetic to the extreme hurtles restaurants are being confronted with. While white boarding, I realized it was important that this site be positive for local restaurants concerned with public health.
Flow map
I created a flow map and then sketched out some ideas based on current review sites like Yelp. As a short term site with a tight timeline, it made sense to go with a standard mobile review format and not recreate the wheel.
Make it stand out.
I created a prototype in Figma. The first iteration users could navigate easily, but the feedback was clear. My branding was off-putting. The original concept was called Enter Risk since the site helps diners evaluate a restaurant's protocols against their risk level. I had overlooked the fact the word "Risk" implies a negative and makes people feel unsafe. I also needed to add more information on what the site is and the rating scale.
I changed the name to Taste Safe and softened the original mask’s shape to reflect the name change.
1st Iteration
I didn't do a traditional user test on this first iteration since I was following what I thought was a basic review site format with minor tweaks to account for some of the Wix platform's constraints. I did however get my project out to some users for feedback.
I did not anticipate confusion with how the rating system worked. My Wix workarounds conflicted with existing mental models of review sites affected users' perceptions.
Starting the 2nd Iteration
I asked my Facebook group for reviews. Michigan had recently gone outside dining only, so my goal was to collect and verify as many reviews as possible. After getting close to 30-40 reviews, I would spend some personal funds to ensure all the terms and conditions were legally correct.
With over 900 people in the group and the administrator saying it sounded like a great idea, I only received two reviews. The group members did not see enough value in a site like this, stating that you could go on the MI restaurant promise. I stopped at this point to reassess if this was a project I should continue.
Only 1 out of 4 valued the reviews being verified
Learned
Hearing people say "sounds like a great idea" is not the same as data showing they would use the product. The need for a project needs to be assessed thoroughly.
Don’t underestimate mental models. They are incredible strong and a reason for conflicting with one must be better than a lack of funding.
I need to note the words I use in branding to make sure they evoke the wanted emotions..