Brainstorming process
Having performed user studies and developed personas, our team began developing ideas for a solution which would help our users pay bills more effectively.
As a team, we developed approximately 30 ideas, which have been digitized below.
Using affinity mapping, we were able to identify common trends and some fundamental approaches (identified above as outlined white cards). Ultimately, we chose to focus on the interaction of splitting the bill due to the complexity of the issue.
We then began to look at the tasks associated with eating at a restaurant and splitting bills.
For an entire meal, we divided the experience into 5 major areas including “Decisions,” “Communication,” “Enjoyment,” “Billing,” and “Payment.” Within each area, several activities were identified. As we chose to focus our design on the payment system, we developed a more detailed task list of the payment process.
Here, the horizontal axis represents time throughout the meal, increasing from left to write (without a scale). The vertical access represents the difficulty of the task, increasing from bottom to top. Additionally, cards which are outlined in black are tasks which only happen when a bill is being split, while cards which are not outlined are nonspecific. Finally, the colors of the cards help to identify the phase of the payment process.
From this representation, we can quickly see that there is a peak of difficulty near the center of the payment process(such as calculating tip or claiming items when splitting a bill), while activities at either end of the payment process (things such as receiving the bill and signing a receipt) are relatively easy. This suggests that the most value can be added by a device which assists users during the center portion of the meal.