• • Independent Project

    Reimagining the customer and associate experience at a bakery.

  • Skills

    UX Design
    Product Design
    Systems Thinking
    UI Design

  • Duration

    Two weeks
    Winter 2022

  • Tools

    Figma
    Figjam

  • Tous les Jours is an international bakery and cafe chain based in South Korea. They are a cornerstone in many communities.

  • • Context

    An antequated system can't serve a modernizing store.

  • Tous les Jours Dublin's reliance on a paper-based ordering system caused chaos with lost orders, customer confusion, and pandemonium during peak times. This exacerbated the growing gap in customer expectations for modern, mobile-based ordering, and also hindered security and verification for order pickups and tracking.

  • Customers excited to celebrate special occasions in their lives were paying the price of a disorganized system where they fell through the cracks. Others had resulted to rolling the dice of fate, because of poor documentation for how to actually place an order.

  • • Problem

    An app isn't going to fix an entire bad system

  • The core issue that TLJ was facing wasn't necessarily that there wasn't a customer-facing order platform, but that their order tracking and fulfillment system was unable to keep up with volumne and could not respond to human error.

  • This was a self-initiated project, so there were no hard-set rules or deadlines I had to keep in mind. These are considerations I set for myself to limit the project scope.

    A week deadline because I could work on this for months.

    Nothing revolutionary because the goal is to replace a broken system, not to launch a new product that changes the industry landscape of cake ordering.

    Not just an app because a bandaid solution doesn't address an infection, and systematic change is required to aleviate the burden on customers and employees.

  • • Research

    Understanding multiple user groups and how their different needs intersect.

  • Through a series of online research and informal interviews with customers, front-of-the-house employees, and back-of-the-house employees, I identified a series of converging needs that would determine the form of the final deliverables.

  • Using the findings from the user interviews, I created these personas to further flesh out each user group's desires. At this point, I also narrowed my scope to customers and associates and not include managers and bakers, as the former two groups have more pressing needs.

  • The Working Family-person

    A busy professional responsible for keeping everyone in the family happy while balancing a full-time job.

    Jobs-To-Be-Done

    Place an order for a cake remotely and pick it up as fast as possible.

  • The Bumbling Teen

    A proxy picking up a cake that they did not take part in ordering. Very confused and hopes they don't look awkward.

    Jobs-To-Be-Done

    Pick up a cake without making a fool of themself. Why can't Mom pick up Grandpa's cake herself if it's so important?

  • The Earnest Associate

    A part-time bakery worker responsible for maintaining the store, ringing up customers, and fulfilling orders.

    Jobs-To-Be-Done

    Fulfill customer cake orders, take new cake orders, and convey cake information like allergens and prices to customers.

  • • Contextualizing

    Fleshing out existing user group interactions, and identifying where pain points are congregating.

  • Given the findings from the research and personas, I created concept maps that would provide further understanding of how different user groups work together and where their needs intersect.

  • The concept map allowed me to identify three specific areas where pain points congregated:

    In-person ordering is inconvenient for customers with busy lives.

    Online and phone ordering isn't a wholistic solution because there are no transcripts or physical confirmations from the bakery's end.

    Cake pickup is confusing for customers without order slips, and hard to manage for associates at scale.

  • • Concepting

    A pair of sister apps: one for customers, and one for employees

  • Taking inspiration from existing food-ordering services like Grubhub and Doordash, I split my solution into two applications, one geared towards customers and one geared towards employees.

  • Customer Mobile App

    Mobile ordering, order tracking and sharing, secure payments, and customizability for return customers. Modeled after common food and cafe apps like Chipotle or Doordash.

  • Associate Tablet App

    Overview of all orders, in-store ordering support, order pick-up confirmation, menu information. A more practical tool for tracking and organizing without the fluff of a consumer-facing app.

  • To begin, I created a site inventory to give a better idea of what screens I would prioritize when drafting. The low-fidelity sketches allowed for exploration in how to differentiate between the two similar but different apps. I chose a few key screens.

  • After the initial sketching, I refined and developed the wireframes to medium fidelity to flesh out some of the semantics of each screen.

  • • Visual Guide

    Establishing a style and component library.

  • A small challenge with the visual style of this project was how to combine the existing Tous Les Jours branding with the modernity that the app offers. I created a consistent style sheet and assets to add character to the app.

  • • Demo

    Key features addressing user needs.

  • A small challenge with the visual style of this project was how to combine the existing Tous Les Jours branding with the modernity that the app offers. I created a consistent style sheet and assets to add character to the app.

  • Mobile Menu

    Comprehensive and up-to-date mobile menu that reflects store-specific cake styles, prices, and flavors.

    Online Ordering and Tracking

    Secure online ordering without compromising on specificity. Order confirmation and tracking through pickup.

    Associate View

    Centralized spreadsheet-style database supporting in-store pickups and orders.

  • • Response

    "When can you make it?"

  • Since this project was self-initiated, there aren't any quanitfiable metrics that I could report about the conclusion of this project. What I can report, though, is that I showed this platform to the stakeholders I'd initially interviewed and they all immediately asked when they could have it. So, a win in my book.