TEAM: LOS ANGELES
Contextual Inquiry
Participant Infomation
Participants were students at the Rochester Institute of Technology from diverse backgrounds. Participants comprised two Chinese, an Indian, a Burmese, and a Kyrgyz. Ranging from the mid-20s to late-20s. People were recruited based on familiarity with the ordering process and those who were not familiar with the process. Three participants were familiar with the process of ordering homecooked meals, while two participants were not familiar with the process. All the participants live off campus, but they all reported purchasing food from RIT dining locations while on campus.
Observations were conducted at the home of some participants, while others were conducted on campus, each lasting about 10-15 minutes per session. Participants familiar with buying homecooked meals demonstrated how they used the apps on their phones to order homemade food since they already knew some sellers in the area. Participants unfamiliar with ordering homecooked food used their phones to search for information about potential sellers.
Contextual Inquiry Guide
Introduction/Purpose:
Example script: Home-cooked food market
Thank you for being willing to lend your time for this observation session. Let me start by telling you a bit about this project and what we are trying to do. Our team wants to learn how we can support students who want to buy homemade food, as a cheaper alternative food option from on-campus food offerings. We want to understand your day-to-day life so that we can better understand your needs. We also are interested in how you communicate with other businesses and how you use technology to find information about them.
The materials we collect will be used for academic purposes. Your information will be anonymous. We will not disclose the contents of this interview to people other than the instructor and students in our course.
Questions:
Research questions for the participants (any student at RIT):
1. Why would participants consider buying homemade food?
2. What are some concerns that participants might have about homemade food and why?
3. Do the participants know any homemade meal sellers?
For question #3, If the answer is no:
a. Are they able to find one?
b. What will they do in order to find one?
c. How is their overall experience?
For question #3, If the answer is yes:
a. How do they contact the seller?
b. How is their overall experience?
What we will observe:
1. What technology is used?
2. What apps or services are they using?
3. What doesn’t work well for each group of participants during the corresponding obtaining process?
Summary
From the interviews, we have learned that when searching for a homemade food seller, participants prefer using Google and some food delivery apps such as Doordash/Grubhub. For participants who already knew one, they would contact the seller using chat apps like WeChat or through phone calls. Overall, both groups needed help finding essential info during the process. Generally speaking, participants all felt optimistic about buying homemade food though they showed some concerns regarding the safety, cost, ordering/delivery process, and food selection aspects. Besides, previous experience ordering food on primary delivery apps such as Doordash/Grubhub, participants prefer to have one place where they can find all the information needed to make a decision when ordering homemade food.