Meal Planner

Probes

One of these activities involved parents taking turns "shopping" by putting grocery items - images backed by foamcore - into a shopping cart - some velcro adhered to a sheet of MDF. We observed how shoppers' priorities, habits, and decisions changed when presented with different scenarios, budgets, and choices. The activity gave us lots of valubale insight into the factors our users weigh when selecting items to purchase.

Shopping Experience

During our travels to and from the Family Support Center, our group identified an apparent lack of food markets in the surrounding areas. A bit of research and conversations with our users confirmed there were less than a handful of reasonable options in the area. In fact, parts of Duquesne could be categorized as food deserts.

Most of our users don't own a car, instead relying on public transit to make trips outside of the neighborhood. So while many would prefer to shop at a Giant Eagle or Walmart outside of Duquesne, the prohbititively long bus rides (and heavy bags to bring on them) make this very difficult.

In order to aquire the items they need, as well as get the best prices, many Duquesne residents make a seperate shopping list for each store they shop at. They generally buy basic necessities at their local stores on a weekly basis, and travel to their preferred stores for everything else - about once a month or for special occasions.

Empathy Map

We gathered together the various forms of data we'd collected, along with observations from our activites, conversations, and interviews, in order to paint a clearer picture of our user group. The goal of this exercise is to try and empathize with their motivations, goals, and desires. We could then use this information to guide our decision making through the rest of the design process.