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UX UI design project
UX UI design project
My role:
My role: UX/UI Designer | Visual Designer| UX Writer
Background
No one denies that the travel and food & beverage (F&B) industry suffers severely under the pandemic. The arrival rate of international tourists in Hong Kong dropped to 99% compared to 2019 (1), the F&B industry depends solely on local customers now.
The unemployment rate in F&B sector soars to 15.9%, the highest in 16 years. (2)
Discovering the problem
What is the biggest challenge faced by F&B businesses at the moment? Unsurprisingly, more than 90% of respondents pointed to the lack of customers and demand with reference to the survey conducted by “A Foodie World” in March 2020. (3)
Social distancing terms was rough last year and loosened up in Feb 2021. As long as with a mask on, people are free to dine out, exercise, go to staycation and work, under social distancing measures. However, it is without doubt that people are more cautious and prefer delivery and takeaway to dine out.
I see plenty of fancy deals promoted by the F&B businesses to attract more customers, e.g. picnic basket set, all you can eat dim sum, $0 hotel room deal. While lots of businesses are struggling, on the other hand, cafes in weekday working hours are unusually packed, even with a long queue. The remote work policy has allowed employees to choose wherever they want to work at, not necessarily to be at home, plenty of people are working in cafes, beachside restaurants or even bars with their laptops.
Work from home can be challenging in Hong Kong. The city is overpopulated with over 800m citizens squeezing into a small island while the rent ranks top in the world. Most of the working class are still living with their family, forcing them to seek personal space outside of home. Several young workers even made the headline news in Hong Kong when they had to rent a tiny room to work free from distractions at home.
So a question came to my mind - a simple demand and supply question, demand being the workers' need of space, supply being the actual space of F&B venues.
Can they cater and fit?
Research
I divided my research into two parts to better understand the situation: I) Hong Kong people work from home experience
II) Hong Kong F&B challenges
Part I) The impact of remote working in Hong Kong
To deeply understand the wfh experience of HongKongers, I needed to understand what challenges and needs they have. I set out to conduct my primary research by interviewing 8 office employees aged 23 to 36 from around the city.
4 out of 10 have been working remotely full time for more than a year, while 6 are on a hybrid work schedule of some days from home and others at the office. My questions covered their opinions of working from home, out of home and at the office. I posed questions that can help uncover practical insights focused on understanding employee needs, working habits, and motivations.
a) Interview
“I enjoy the flexibility of my work schedule when at home.”
Joe, Marketing Manager, 33
“No longer needing to wake up at 5 to go to work is refreshing.”
Marcus, High School Teacher, 26
“I visited a newly cafe hoping to work there just to find out they have no wifi.”
Jason, BD Director, 36
“I choose to work outside 1 day/week, but too many places allow walk in only, it’s troublesome to call and check availability one by one.”
Alice, Event Manager, 31
“I like co-working spaces more to home since it’s spacious, with sufficient sunlight and free coffee.”
Grace, Translator, 25
b) Secondary research
I’ve also looked at work from home data from global research. Taken from the Randstad Workmonitor 2021 first edition report, looking globally into 34 markets, work from home created major concern on lack of interaction with colleague (52%) and feeling lonely or isolated (27%). Lack of a separate room to work in also scored 23 %. Data showed that among all remote workers, more than one-third of those 18 to 24 years old felt lonely — the highest percentage among all age groups. (4)
Part II) Challenges businesses are facing under Covid-19
Hong Kong’s restaurant earnings logged a record decline in 2020, dropping 29.4 % from 2019 as the pandemic and strict social-distancing regulations swept the city’s catering sector. (5)
First I’d like to know how people are dealing with the decline in business. With Hong Kong residents being encouraged to go out less often in order to reduce the community spread of COVID-19, many F&B businesses have reportedly turned to food delivery to help to tide them over during these tricky times. However from the same survey conducted by “A Foodie World” in 2020, on how delivery impacted the business, respondents were fairly split on this front, with many noting little or no impact from food delivery. (graph 1) (3)
When asked about what measures they have taken to reassure their employees and customers. Additional sanitation practices (88.5%) have overwhelmingly been put into place by the majority of the respondents as well. (3)
a) Secondary research
On top of the secondary research, I talked to 3 staff in the F&B business, a bartender, a hotel staff and a restaurant owner to understand their situation dealing with changes.
Bartender David works at a fine cocktail bar in Hong Kong which is closed for more than 6 months already under social distancing measures, he is now doing pop up with different restaurants serving special cocktails.
b) Interviews
“Our bar is all about cocktails, we do not want to sell food just to get more customers. The best we can do right now is the restaurant partnerships.”
David, Bartender, 32
“Lots of people are willing to support local business like us.”
Christine, Restaurant owner, 37
Hotel staff Michael mentioned the hotel has been losing money the whole year despite the deals put out for local customers, they are rushing to renovate its restaurant for a new theme.
Talking about hotels, it is also interesting to see that a 4-star hotel, Hyatt Centric has adopted a new business model. It renovated its guest room to be a co-working space. Customers can pay for an hour pass or day pass, with tea and coffee served unlimitedly in the room.
Restaurant owner Christine however is planning to expand her business. The sushi rice shop was facing difficulties last year, it twisted when someone put their story online and received lots of support from the public.
Insights
1) Work outside of home
is normal
The young generation is more often to work outside of the office and home. Employees would like to gain autonomy on their work schedule and be given the choice to choose a place to work.
They also like to feel connected with the world and are willing to pay for a nice experience or to support local business.
2) Cafe is not "work- friendly"
Lack of work facilitates like wifi, limited dining time and long queues add frustrations to the remote workers. Popular restaurant booking app Openrice only offers limited booking services to certain cafes.
3) F&B business is willing to adopt new business models
Food delivery isn’t the major life saver to f&b business. The industry is already adapting to new business models for a new revenue stream.
Persona
I put the focus on the remote workers here. I created a primary user persona to represent the majority of target users. Martina is a consolidation of my research and interviewees. She will guide the design decisions for the development and creation of my solution.
Martina is a social media manager who lived with her parents in Tai Po. She works for a multinational insurance company for around 2 years. Despite the long commute hours (over 2 hours every day), moving out would cost her half the salary.
When Covid-19 hit Hong Kong, the company pushed work from home policy and she hasn't been back to the office for 8 months. She works at home or cafes nearby some other day with her laptop. It is important for her to manage her own schedule.
About
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Be able to work effectively and strike a work life balance
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Be able to find joys in little moments despite the depressing social climate
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Be connected with the society and stay relevant
Goals
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Random work schedule has made it difficult to make plans
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Not able to find a nice place to work at
Frustrations
Martina’s journey of working remotely
The user journey displays a typical trip that involves Martina’s decision and action of working from cafe.I created the map to empathise with her and to thoroughly showcase her emotions, thoughts and actions during the remote work experience. Ultimately, to extract key points and opportunities from Martina’s needs and pain points.
How might we easily facilitate remote workers to visit and support F&B businesses during difficult times?
Design question
Goal & Solution
A social good booking platform connecting Hong Kong employees with unusual places to work in.
Hong Kong is nothing if not resilient. To fit demand into F&B supply, everyone has to adapt for a win-win solution. Instead of attracting general customers (families, parents etc) who are already unwilling to dine out, why not target young office workers who are working remotely, more willing to look for connections and comfort with high spending power? If restaurants/cafe/bars or even beach clubs etc can slightly change its setting during an un-busy daytime, draw out a quiet zone just for work, provide basic work facilitates, specialty coffee and fine food, how attractive!
Reserve guaranteed seat to minimise distraction, reserve on the go from last minute booking to 2 months in advance
Highlight #1
Pay by hour, 3 hours or a day pass to beat the dining time limit
Highlight #2
Order food and drinks in advance with option to pay at store or online
Highlight #3
Show how many % full of the place in real time, facilitates or private room availability for user comfort
Highlight #4
User flow
Wireframes
Fonts & Colours
Primary colours
Secondary colours
Let's book it now! 😬
Main Page
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Taken from the remote workers perspective, let’s make work enjoyable is the main theme of the site
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Fun geometry shapes are added to embrace the tone and feel
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Several colourful CTA buttons are included to encourage search experience on the landing page
Search Page
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All filters and search requirements are laid out for easy navigation
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With primary search items on top and the secondary items on the bubble, users can quickly decide the requirements they prefer
Search Result Page
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Search result items are shown in a clean layout
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Only necessary details: name, location, rating and price/hr are included
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Filters are displayed on the right-hand side of the page for easy browsing
Venue Booking Page
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3 steps to reserve a seat, pick a date on calendar, select pass type and available timeslot
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Users can also order food in advance with designed menu
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Real time AI integrated with Google showing the capacity
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Order process is broken down into 2 pages on mobile version, users can select all details after browsing through the venue details
Order Page
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Final chance to add on menu order
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Provide users options to pay online or instore, QR code will be sent to user email after confirmation
Log in & Profile Page
Learning & Takeaways
My goal on this project is to provide a side solution for businesses. Mapping out the layout is fun while constructing a useful overview is challenging. I wanted to make it simple, efficient and fun to consume.
Limited research materials
There are complicated factors affecting the F&B businesses, Government policy, social atmosphere etc, while this platform aims to provide a new way out for them, I find it difficult to conduct a thorough research on F&B owners views through my existing connection. Thus I put solely the remote workers as the main user of the platform. It would have been better if a business version is created for the suppliers. The problem could be solved if I recruited interviewees and conducted surveys online, in a much larger scale or even work in a team.
Less is more
One challenge I faced was the unique positioning of the platform. There are already several popular restaurant booking and co-working space reservation websites in Hong Kong. How can it stand out from the rest? I thought of adding in more fancy features like 360 view of the venue, deal packages, heartfelt stories on the suppliers. But eventually I realise it drifts away from the core solution - matching supply and demand. Therefore I decided to keep it simple for only one single function with the right value positioning.
Thanks for reading!
Source:
(1) SCMP, Coronavirus: Hong Kong tourism all but collapses as arrivals drop 99 per cent, 2020 https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3080020/coronavirus-hong-kong-tourism-hits-record-low
(2) news.gov.hk, Unemployment hits near 16-year high, 2020, https://www.news.gov.hk/eng/2020/10/20201020/20201020_173536_369.html
(3) A Foodie World, COVID-19’s Impact on Hong Kong’s F&B Industry, 2020,
https://www.afoodieworld.com/foodie/covid-19-s-impact-on-hong-kong-s-f-amp-b-industry
(4) Randstad Workmonitor 2021 first edition, 2021, https://workforceinsights.randstad.com/hubfs/Workmonitor/Randstad-Workmonitor-2021-first-edition.pdf
(5) SCMP, Hong Kong restaurant earnings dive nearly 30 per cent in 2020 as pandemic batters business, 2021, https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3120524/hong-kong-restaurant-earnings-log-record-decline
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