Find a consumer problem.
The hardest part of this is trying to come up with a concept. Like a blank piece of paper, putting that first line is always the hardest. I remember I was having a debate with a friend about which burger was better, In-N-Out or Shake Shack. On one hand, In-N-Out has amazingly fresh ingredients, it didn’t feel too oily, classic. On the other hand, Shake Shack had a better patty and bun and some would say that’s pretty much the winner. But I felt wrong about declaring Shake Shack the winner, one because I have West Coast bias, and two, because it’s clearly not, it felt wrong to declare them the winner. The reason was because it wasn’t worth it. For the price of one Shake Shack burger, you can get an In-N-Out combo meal. So I thought to myself, wouldn't it be great if we could compare restaurants not by the quality of food, ambiance, service like how Yelp does it, but rate them by a new Worth It rating scale. How would that look like?
Worth it.
The concept was simple, you rate your dining experience on dollars spent per happiness. How happy are you with what you got? When you compare In-N-Out to Shake Shack — one on one, burger to burger, Shack Shack wins. But when you put cost into consideration, how much you spend every time you eat at Shake Shack or In-N-Out, In-N-Out is clearly the winner.
The Scope:
Create a rating system off of dollar spent vs. happiness return.
Find an engaging way for users to input cost information.
Utilize OCR to scan receipts to divide bills among friends.
Design a search interface that allows users to find nearby restaurants based on types and worth.
Come up with a financial business modal to sustain the application cost.
The exploration.
I tried to take this practice as serious as my own job. I put myself into an entrepreneur mindset and tried to think creatively to find solutions to the problems. I asked myself questions such as,
How do we onboard customers?
Start on a small scale within the local community and encourage restaurants to give free drinks if the customer signs up for Worth it app via QR code, Each code will be assigned to the specific restaurant and we can help pay for the cost of the free drink.
How do we make this engaging?
Besides photo upload and social media rating systems, we can build a way for users to make reservations, pay, and send private and direct feedback via app.
Why would people choose Worth it over Yelp?
The formula might make finding restaurant experience more accurate.
How do we make money off a free consumer product?
If the user can load money on the Worth it app to pay, we can utilize a percentage of unspent money to invest (Venmo model). Then when the user pays via Worth it, we won’t have to charge small business transaction fees.
The Lesson.
When delivering a product end to end, even in practice, you run into so many questions along the way. The hard skills of learning UX/UI software was the main goal, but in the process of designing this app conceptually strengthen many soft skills that wasn’t visible right away. I had to mentally train myself to look at this application in an objective and holistic point of view. I understand that this was a practice project in the perfect ideal world, but like a muscle, having these practice exercises will only help me get stronger.