Curb Food is a dark kitchen, also known as a ghost kitchen with a deliver first approach that works with third party deliveries such as Foodora, Uber eats and Wolt. They are a foodtech start-up from Stockholm with the goal of digitalizing the entire process from food preparation in the back of house (BoH) to the pick-up in the front of house (FoH) and delivery to the end customer. This to be able to own all the steps and with the help of data collection to maximize usability and streamline and create an agile organization where they can adapt the concept based on the customers changing behaviors in food.
Curb wanted to create useful digital solutions for a range of different users, all with different needs and technical knowledge and ambitions. This puts high demands on usability as well as the whole service to make the experiences as good as possible. Their goal is to develop products for the kitchen crew in the BoH and for delivery and customers in the FoH in order to ensure a better experience and gather data.
MY ROLES
Service Designer
UX Designer
UI Designer
Prestudy and Research
Outcome
- Definition of user, problem areas and needs
- Mission and vision of the product
- Way of working in the development team
- Prioritization list of improvements
I joined as a product designer due to my experience in doing efficient user research and establishment of understanding the users, problems, needs and pain points and to help them understand where to put effort and create most value. During my time I established a way of working and implemented a design thinking methodology in the development team as well as establishing an understanding of working with design on a company level. I worked closely with the project manager to formulate a mission and vision of the project and created a framework for close collaboration with engineers and coached and supported them when implementing new features. Simultaneously I lead a user research together with the PM and frontend developer to gain as much insights on a short amount of time. I summarized the findings and synthesized them into problem areas and a definition of the users. I also held multiple workshops internally in the development teams as well as with stakeholders to broaden their understanding of users as well as the major problem areas.
Deliveries
With the prestudy as a base I redesign the information architecture to meet new user and business needs and map out a service blueprint to identify crucial features as well as user pains and gains when working with orders in the kitchens. This facilitated alignment between stakeholders and team members with different backgrounds. I rapidly introduced solutions that would fit the company’s strategy and time frames, all while being understandable and functional to the users, i.e the kitchen crew in BoH and delivery and end customers in FoH . I achieved this through continuous qualitative research methods such as observations and interviews with users and other key stakeholders.
As the only designer overlooking two big projects, prioritization was key. I mentored and coached developers to have a design thinking methodology when implementing new features. I also established a design vision of the GUI and initiated a design system in order to ensure consistency, accessibility and usability throughout the different touch points.
Project result
The project resulted in a redesign of the entire information architecture. This to simplify usability and remove arbitrary and unnecessary features. With continuous usability tests with the users I created user flows that was now intuitive and followed the users natural rhythm. I minimized confusion and navigational excises which lead to a reduction of errors being made. The concept that I created for the FoH and boH as well as the design system now constitutes as the vision and basis for the products' future directions.
Updating old interface in the Front of house that only showed ready orders to new interface showing upcoming and ready aswell as putting emphasis on deliver company.