We received valuable feedback and advice from second year MS-HCI students about our problem area, research planning and recruiting, and competitive analysis. Since our pickup experience at the Home Depot was in store and not curbside, one of the panelists raised the questions of whether we’re focusing on curbside pickup or pick up in general. Clarifying our problem area helped us see that we should focus on curbside experiences specifically, and we plan to do more store curbside pickups to have a more representative set of experiences. Another second year student mentioned he worked on a project that improved blind shoppers’ experience at Publix. He suggested using benchmark tests to compare curbside pickup experience across different stores using the rule of three, essentially the same three items at three separate stores, to keep the variables consistent. Since home improvement stores who offer curbside pickup are the direct competitors, we plan to carry out a similar research activity at Lowe’s and another store.
Another set of questions addressed the scope of curbside pickup, and if it’s still a beneficial service after lockdown is over when customers can physically go into stores. To answer this, we provided background information gathered from our personal observations, data from research, and information from the Home Depot Associates App Team. Many stores are still thriving with curbside pickup, with customers expressing positive attitudes towards them, such as Target. Designing a more streamlined system can lead to more customer engagement and revenue. Moreover, a panelist pointed out that we should keep in mind what the final deliverable will be and how we’d like to present it to the Home Depot team. This will also help guide our design and narrow down the area we’d like to focus on.
As for participant recruitment and research design, one student suggested sending out surveys that ask people about their curbside pickup experience in general on public forums to obtain a larger sample. Some of the forums that were suggested from the panel include the Slack #help-me-out channel, Facebook, Reddit, LinkedIn, and our personal networks in general. Another student mentioned printing out surveys and handing them out to our target demographic, and having a question at the end that asks for their contact information if they’d like to be involved in the study. Since one of the stakeholders in our project is contractors, one panelist suggested going to construction sites and asking workers if they'd be okay with us going to a Home Depot store with them and potentially conducting contextual inquiry. Given the time constraint and financial limitations for this project, sampling participants online and utilizing our personal connections will be the most viable option to carry out the next stage of our design process. The Home Depot representative will also help us schedule store visits that will allow us to conduct contextual inquiry and interviews with customers, store managers, and potentially associates.
During the D2 panel with the second year students, we provided an overview of our project status, focusing on research and design activities we conducted since the last panel. We went over the different research methodologies we chose and the rationale, including surveys, interviews, and contextual inquiry. In addition, we discussed the difficulty we have been having with obtaining demographic information from the team at THD, thus leading to our own research and exploration. During the panel, Watson gave us encouragement to keep our energy up, boosting our morale. Yaya talked about her experience working with an industry partner and carving their own path due to the limited information they had access to. Overall it was quite reassuring for us to hear other students’ experiences with their projects, especially similar struggles they have encountered.
Watson recommended that each of the team members order a curbside pickup and find out about the process. Logistically, only one team member owns a car, therefore it’s difficult to order curbside pickup by ourselves. However, one team member has placed an additional curbside pickup since D1, while others ordered curbside pickup at other stores for competitive analysis, such as Target. In addition, we gathered more first hand experiences through a few more interviews with the Home Depot Curbside customers, and analyzing curbside customers’ posts on the Internet. In terms of design ideation strategies, Jake provided strategies such as The Worst Possible Idea. These resources helped us to stay open minded during the ideation process, and have fun coming up with wild designs.