#productdesignstudent

My Final Project description:

Currently, I am doing my final project. It's my last project on bachelor course in BHSAD and we are going to do it until the end of this year.

What is my project about?

In my project, I decided to focus on modern people problems. I didn't want to change someone's habits to help them to do things the “right” way and I didn't want to invent something new which will change all the world, my focus was specifically on my user and only on his one problem, so I wanted to create something that will help my user and make his life a little bit easier. I was observing people around me trying to find something that is not comfortable for them. I live in Moscow and I chose the city environment as a context place for my project

as far as I have a closer access to my audience. I have noticed that people are rushing all the time. They seemed like they are always late and they were trying to save time in all their actions. The way they walk fast, eat fast, speak fast, all of these things came out from their lack of time. And a lot of them are experiencing problems with health because they are saving time on their lunch. Thereby, I decided to take this problem to solve as a base of my final year project. Looking deeper into this theme I noticed that eating healthy in the city environment require a lot of effort, money and time to keep the diet.  So the topic was found, I will try to make the healthy food accessible for those city people who are experiencing problems with time.

What have I done to find the solution?

To explore the theme properly I had to research deeper into the problem, the context of this problem and my focus audience to understand which solution I can offer to my user.

Stages of Idea development:

General research ( This stage includes exploring all the basic information connected to your project. The historical habits of eating, modern eating culture, as well as the reasons of rushing and ways that people use to save time: all of these things have to be explored to have a deep knowledge base on which you will build your project concept.)

User research (The study of your user is one of the most important stages of my project. Choosing your target audience by doing surveys and interviews, speaking with potential users to understand their problem deeper, observing their life habits: these things will form your understanding of who are you doing it for. Communication with your target audience will help you with a lot of decisions during all the stages of the process because if you are doing the project for your user it has more chances to succeed.)

Competitors analysis ( Studying your competitors is extremely important to understand your place on the market. Direct competitors analysis help you to find advantages of your competitors and mistakes that they have made. Knowing the market helps you to find a free slot to place your project to create something new and improve existing opportunities. Indirect competitors analysis helps you to find new creative solutions and inspiration for your project.)

Idea development methods (Getting all these information a lot of fantastic ideas appear in your head, you have to structure them to move further. After analyzing all the information that you have got into previous stages you write down all the possible ideas that appear in your head and try to select those that you find the most potential to test it afterward.)

Rapid prototyping & testing (All your ideas that you have got in the previous stage have to test and approved with some statement. For example, you decided that the solution might be some object that will be used the “X” way, you have to make a rough prototype of this object and test if your idea will work. Your target audience focus group will help you to test your ideas.)

The idea I have got:

After exploring all the stages I described to you in the previous chapter and after making some decisions according to my testing results I have got an understanding of what I want to do for my project. I found 5 statements I am going to follow during my work to solve the problem.

Keep the Food healthy

Keep the texture of food “real home-made”

You should not spend time on cooking

You should not spend time on washing dishes

To be able to eat without a table (Not necessarily sitting and eating as you usually do).

How is it going to look like:

I decided that the best solution for this problem is going to be a food service which will allow people to receive healthy food which they can eat on the way saving time maximum as possible, to let them eat something healthy instead of chips, fruits and snacks when they don't have time to have lunch at all. The food service is going to consist of 4 parts:

Application in which each user will have his personal account and the application will create a daily menu specifically for you according to your age, weight, allergies and food preferences.

Vending machines which will be placed all around the city. By scanning your personal ID from your application you will receive your menu.

The container in which you will receive food should be designed for ‘on the way’ usage so you don't need to use a table to take the food and eat it.

The food designed in a special way that it keeps the natural home-made texture but it will be comfortable to eat from the container on the way.

Conclusion:

It was the first week of the last semester in my university when I decided that it's time to start my own blog. Not a blog in the old understanding of this word but a place where I will be able to express my thoughts and tell people about my life.