Project Overview

In this project, I was given a persona that our professor in the school randomly chose. Through the persona I was given, I would need to create a project revolving around emerging technology that could further benefit my target users.

Concept

The persona I was given was “Gig-Economy Workers” and the emerging technology concept that I thought of was, how can the future of drone technology be beneficial to gig-workers? Specifically utilizing drones as a way to provide delivery service.

PERSONA & EMPATHY MAP

Gig-Economy Worker is essentially an independent contractor or a freelancer who works to provide a type of service demanded from clients. These “employees” often utilized an online platform to connect with customers based on their needs.

To be more specific for this project, I would like to focus on the food delivery courier side of the gig economy.

  • Food delivery has become widely popular over the past few years in North America. Many companies such as DoorDash, Skip the Dishes, or UberEats had a huge growth due to the demand it has, especially during the pandemic. The convenience of food being delivered to your doorstep definitely attracts many customers. During days when one’s feeling a bit tired and did not want to cook, these delivery services will come in handy in that scenarios. However, many people would like to enjoy their food as fresh as they possibly can, and food delivery has a problem with timing. For example, delivering food during rush hour has a huge possibility of food being delayed and will cause the food to lose its flavour and hotness as well. The delivery courier will lose much of their time being stuck in traffic causing them to miss out on orders and money/tips.

    To design a solution that could help couriers to be more efficient in delivery and delivering more orders, I have envisioned the concept of using drones.

    • To design a method that makes couriers more efficient on delivery while incorporating emerging technologies, I have decided to utilize DRONES equipped with autopilot and GPS for the service.

    • Courier will communicate with drones through smartphone regarding drone’s locations, and restaurants or interact with customers.

    • Courier is able to operate one or multiple drones for pick-up and deliver food to customers without the need to leave home.

    • Making multiple deliveries at the same time will increase courier income/tips.

    • Drones allow contactless delivery.

DESIGN PRECEDENTS

Through the research on the needs of delivery couriers and existing examples, many articles have suggested safety and benefits are currently lacking from companies. During the time of the pandemic, it is extremely important for a delivery courier to stay healthy and avoid as many in-person interactions as possible. While benefits are not the greatest, gig-worker has to work extra hours to earn more income for their needs. In order to earn extra income, they would need to utilize every second of their time to complete as many orders as possible.

One biggest design precedent I have found is that DoorDash has already begun to use food delivery robots to complete orders. They travel on the street at the maximum speed of 4km/hour with a safely locked compartment to prevent people from stealing.

Synchronous Drone
Synchronous drones had been used on several occasions to perform digital light shows. Being able to fly together with other drones and in sync

Drone
Drone has becoming more popular in the past decade. Drone companies such as DJI has created drones that utilize tracking features, obstacle sensing GPS, camera and much more.

Locked Compartment
Using locked compartment will further secure from anyone stealing content.

The Rook Drone
Eighty Nine Robotics created “The Rook Drone” that is able to control it from anywhere in the world

Phone Application
Phone application to receive and complete food delivery orders

In this project, I would like to create screen prototypes of users communicating with delivery drones, restaurants, and customers through a mobile app. I would like to explore the ways that could display all necessary information on an app that allows users to work more efficiently by doing multiple deliveries at once in hope of making more income for users.

To test each prototype, I will conduct user-testing on an app to increase efficiency in completing the whole process from receiving order to delivery from a drone. Recruiting participants that already are working as food delivery couriers by posting recruitment for user-testing on social media.

PROTOTYPE ONE

In the first prototype for this project, I decided to create several initial wireframe for the application. These screen contains only the important information requires for users to understand the purpose and use of it. The goal for this prototype is to set out initial concept for the overall layout of the application and conduct usertesting in hopes to gather additional information that would make further better the interaction.

USERTESTING

PROTOTYPE TWO

REFLECTION

Through this project, I have understood that creating an application from scratch requires a lot more work than I expected. Having to go through numerous research on current design trends, information architecture, interfaces, and much more. This project allowed me to gain a better insight into all the processes that I have to go through to create a decent application. Given a persona that I am not very familiar with was a challenge as well, however, by conducting research and interviewing a few people in the gig economy, I was able to find a way to better their lives. This app was not perfect but I am hoping to continue developing this in the future.

FOR FUTURE

If I were to continue to develop this application, I think I would like to continue to work on the colour scheme of the application. I believe that there is a better combination of colours that could attract users even more. In addition, I also would like to work on areas such as information architecture and the overall layout of the application as well.

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