Scoop Street
Creating a website and mobile app for a local ice cream shop to increase brand awareness.
Background
Scoop Street is a beloved and highly rated ice cream shop located in West Covina, California. While many of their customers have left raving reviews and positive feedback for their flavors of ice cream, they lack a website presence and rely primarily on their social media platforms (Instagram, etc.) to announce new updates, such as new flavors, menu items, etc.
This project focuses on creating an accessible online website and mobile app to provide a centralized online presence for customers to navigate to and check their menu, as well as increase their brand awareness.
Additionally, this project was taken on as a responsive design challenge, so the website and app would be scalable and mirror each other accordingly.
Role
UX Designer
UI Designer
Project TypeResponsive Web Design
Website & Mobile App
Tools
Figma
FigJam
Whimsical
1 / Research
Scoop Street, a local but popular ice cream shop, receives a lot of foot traffic and attention thanks to their delicious ice cream flavors, spread by word of mouth.
Although they see a higher number of customers on the weekends and during hotter summer months, there isn't a centralized online presence for customers to navigate to and check their menu, or their newest flavors.
Additionally, one of the main complaints customers have had was that after driving to their location, specific beloved menu items were out of stock.
How can Scoop Street increase its brand awareness and visibility?
I set out to create a website and mobile app to address the concerns above, to provide Scoop Street's customers with the information they needed.
What is the problem?
- Scoop Street doesn't have a website or app to relay updates, new flavors, etc. to their customers.
- Loyal customers have expressed frustration in not being able to see the menu, view the newest flavors or see what's in stock for Scoop Street.
User Goals
- Accessibility to info about the shop.
- Enhanced online interaction.
- Able to access a centralized platform.
Business Goals
- Increase reach and brand visibility.
- New established website.
What is our research goal?
- To ensure that customers can access a centralized platform for Scoop Street to check on menu flavors and other updates.
User Interviews
I conducted interviews with 5 people, and focused on their experiences with:
- visiting an ice cream store, or any type of dessert shop
- using an app to check in-store flavors
Affinity Mapping
Hearing what participants had to say on their experiences with going into ice cream shops, as well as ordering ice cream was very interesting! I gathered key quotes from the interview results and focused on common themes.
Key Insights
- Participants noted they would always check the menu online before deciding to head to a dessert / ice cream shop.
- Participants expressed heavy interest in receiving notifications if their favorite flavors came back in-stock.
- Participants also noted that they would like the spontaneity of walking into a dessert / ice cream shop to see if they were any new flavors.
Competitive Analysis
To help Scoop Street gain traction and be marketable to a wider audience, I took a look at some of the biggest names in the ice cream shop industry, and noted what features they offered on their websites, and if they had mobile apps.
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Key Insights
- All shops offered online ordering.
- All shops had a menu available online to view.
- Only 2 ice cream chains, Cold Stone and Baskin Robbins, had mobile apps available.
- None of these shops displayed flavors in-stock.
2 / Define
User Personas
When designing the user personas, they were created from a combination of data from user interviews, reading hundreds of ice cream shop reviews from real users, and identifying the most common pain points of those users.
Meet Emily and Alex! Both of these users embody the ideal people that we would see at Scoop Street, and who we're trying to solve the problem for.
Feature Prioritization
Based on competitive research and data from user interviews, the below features would provide users with the most productive experience when visiting Scoop Street's website.
The must-have features:
- Online menu
- Featured Flavors
- In-stock flavors
- Online ordering
- Store hours and location
User Flows
Since the first and most important feature would be for users to check the menu, I created a user flow to envision how users would proceed through this process, as well as be able to check if a current flavor was in-stock.
Checking a flavor on Scoop Street’s menu
Sitemap
The primary links would point to the menu, store info and online ordering as those were Scoop Street's main selling points. It would also be the most visible options for users when first visiting the website.
3 / Design
Low-Fidelity Wireframes
Since Scoop Street only had a social media platform, it was quite difficult initially to create the "feel" of their website / app.
To get a better idea of how to portray their brand, I visited their shop in-person and also reviewed their social media pages to understand their business persona.
With the above in mind, and incorporating the must-have features, I created some initial sketches below for a feel of the Scoop Street website and app.
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes
The initial low-fidelity sketches were then translated into mid-fi wireframes, including the Homepage, Menu screen and Store Hours. The official logo for Scoop Street was also added.
Mobile
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Desktop
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High-Fidelity Wireframes
Mobile
Desktop
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4 / Testing
Usability Tests & Results
Task
To check a specific flavor on Scoop Street's website.
Success metrics
- There was a 95% or higher completion rate of the tasks.
- Less than 5% of errors encountered (this included navigating to a different page, mis-clicking, unable to complete the task, etc.)
Testing method
Participants were provided detailed instructions on the user flow, and were instructed to run through a final prototype via unmoderated testing. A post-survey was included at the end of the flow to gather users' final thoughts and feedback.
Results
All users completed their given tasks with no issues or errors! Overall, all participants noted that they found the Scoop Street website very easy to navigate through.
Iterations
A couple of participants noted that the background images made it hard to read the text.
Final Product
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5 / Conclusion
Challenges
- This was a very interesting project to take on, simply because this business (Scoop Street) did not have a website or app to begin with. I had to understand their brand, values and reception from the community to determine the best way to create an online platform for them.
- Many of the participants involved in this project were not avid ice cream lovers themselves, but they provided valuable experience and feedback on ordering desserts or going into an ice cream shop to assist with the research.
Final thoughts & Next steps
- If I am not able to find participants that meet the exact criteria for user research, I've found that asking them about similar experiences will still align with and contribute data for research results.
- Referencing existing competitors products' and websites provided a great foundation to focus on the essential features.
- It would be great to observe how users would utilize Scoop Street's new platform and iterate further based on the most commonly used features.
