Research
scoping the field
The first half of our project timeline was spent doing user research and identifying pain points of our user group. We conducted interviews with customers, vendors, and the Seattle Farmers Market Association. From the interviews, we created personas and a user journey map. We also went to the farmers market again to do fly-on-the-wall observations and a walk-a-mile observation to gain more insights about customer pain points. The information we gleaned from our user research allowed us to define a clear problem statement and design question.
Interviews
We conducted semi-structured interviews with both vendors and customers because we were still undecided as to which user group to focus on. This research helped us decide on customers as the user group for this project because we found that they had more pain points. The user research also helped us understand the goals and needs of the customers. We gained three key major insights about customer pain points:
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There is unclear product information, including information about availability
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There is unclear vendor information, including information about availability
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There is no ability to compare information between multiple markets
Personas
We created personas by analyzing our user research interviews and pulling out the pain points. We made a persona for a frequent farmers market shopper and a traveler who visited the farmers market. The personas helped us gain a better understanding of our users through the creation of the user scenario. After hearing feedback about both personas, we decided to use the frequent farmers market shopper persona to guide our user story for the user journey map. We also used the information from our personas to make sure that we were focusing on the user in subsequent steps of the project.
Additional User Research (Extra Credit)
Our team went back to the Ballard Farmers Market after our initial user research interviews to conduct more user research. We first did walk-a-mile research by going around the farmers market and stopping at vendors that interested us. We had fun talking to the vendors and buying things from the market for ourselves and friends! We then did a fly-on-the-wall observation where we observed two customers from when they came to the market to when they left. We noted their interactions without interacting with the users or impacting their interactions. Both forms of observations were helpful because it gave us more insight into the pain points and general customer behaviors during the farmers market shopping experience.
User Journey Map
After creating our Farmers Market Frequenter Persona, we explored what a typical Farmers Market experience would look like for her through our User Journey Map. We aimed to draw the content of our map largely from user research. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, some of the thoughts and emotions on our map came from the walk-a-mile observation we conducted at the market. Our journey map gave us a visual representation of our research insights, allowing us to identify which aspects of the farmers market experience could be enhanced through taking advantage of design opportunities.
Competitive Analysis
With our personas in mind, we focused on evaluating existing products that sought to meet many of the same user needs we were exploring. Each team member reviewed one product or service, and put together we gathered insights from two farmers market apps (Lexi and Srinithi), the Seattle Farmers Market Website (Amy), and a Boston-based company that partners with the farmers market to encourage sustainable fish catching and purchasing (Kari).
Storyboards
Next, each member of our team created a hand-sketched storyboard and a photo storyboard. These storyboards helped illustrate potential design solutions to the pain points our users expressed during our user research. This helped us envision key path scenarios in how our user would navigate through our solutions in a realistic setting.
