HUNGRYR
A grocery delivery platform for long haul truck drivers.
RSA International Design Awards winner, 2018.
✓ Researcher
✓ Service Designer
✓ Business Case Writer
PROJECT OVERVIEW
The Royal Society of Arts challenged teams around the world to improve the wellbeing of employees in a workplace of choice. Alongside a team of four others*, I designed HUNGRYR: a grocery delivery platform created for North American long haul truck drivers who need to maintain a healthy balanced diet on the road.
We challenged ourselves to explore an audience that we knew nothing about–truck drivers.
RESEARCH
We suspected a need for designers within the trucking industry, but first we needed to understand the daily experiences of a truck driver. So, we dove deep into truck driver data for the first month of this project.
I sent out surveys, helped facilitate online focus groups with thousands of truck drivers on Facebook, organized truck stop visits, and interviewed truck drivers as well as industry experts.
We compiled all of our findings and created user personas to reflect patterns we discovered. I was especially surprised to find out that many truck drivers cook meals in their rigs using slow cookers, microwaves and grills (though a large portion of truckers appear to cook meals which lack nutritional value).
Although there seemed to be a growing interest among drivers to eat healthier meals, most were unsatisfied with current options available on the road.
THE PROBLEM
After over three weeks of research, we held brainstorming sessions and narrowed our focus to a specific problem statement.
We wanted to get truck drivers healthy food options during their long journeys.
With this streamlined direction, we jumped back into research. I sent out new surveys asking about eating habits, cooking appliances, and options available on the road. We asked more questions in our focus groups and even interviewed a nutritionist to get a perspective on the type of food one should consume while leading a sedentary lifestyle.
IDEATION
Our team brainstormed tons of potential solutions. Our main strategy was brain walking. We began with whiteboards full of “how might we” questions and timed ourselves rotating around the room while filling in and building off of ideas.
We talked through the most popular results and narrowed ideas down to solutions that seemed exciting and challenging but also feasible.
We had exhausted a couple solutions and there were only two weeks remaining before our team had to present the final proposal.
We looked into Uber’s business model, the potential of grocery stores pre-packaging ingredients and meal prep companies who facilitate the purchase of groceries through pre-planned nutritious recipes. We took inspiration from each of these areas and from that, our solution—HUNGRYR was born.
HUNGRYR connects truckers with personal supermarket shoppers and rideshare drivers to deliver the fresh ingredients necessary for healthy living.
THE IDEA
On the HUNGRYR mobile application, truck drivers can browse a plethora of nutritionist-approved recipes and select the meals they would like to prepare in the upcoming days. A corresponding list of recipe ingredients is then automatically populated into a customizable grocery list.
Upon checkout, a local supermarket personal shopper collects the groceries and a rideshare driver is notified that the order is ready for pickup. The order is then delivered to the truck drivers at the designated truck stop, or stopping location.
STAKEHOLDER RESEARCH
The evolution of our idea meant more stakeholders being added into the mix. We needed to understand not only the truck drivers, but also the grocery stores, our potential rideshare drivers and consider nutritionists’ advice.
We interviewed rideshare companies, a nutritionist and business experts to develop a strategy that would benefit all parties and make sense from a business standpoint. In addition, we reviewed online research regarding American trucking routes and cross-referenced them with noted truck stops and grocery stores to ensure that there would be enough traffic to sustain the business.
We researched competitors to ensure HUNGRYR would be competitive amongst alternatives to our solution.
Many competitors offered similar grocery or meal delivery services; however, not one of these competitors had the right combination of offerings to cater to truck driver needs. There was always at least one crucial component missing from their value proposition.
PROTOTYPING
Before we broke out into wireframing the grocery delivery application, I created a service blueprint to illustrate the idea’s main details and logistics so the team could better visualize the totality of our solution.
We sketched out wireframes for the application, created mockups and mapped out a user flow.
We threw our mockup screens into inVision and created a mid fidelity prototype of the HUNGRYR application that truck drivers can use to order and purchase groceries.
TESTING AND ITERATION
We didn’t have enough time to organize a user-testing session with our target audience, so we tested the application with students on campus.
We prompted users to tell us what they thought the application was for. We also asked them to speak out loud while going through practice scenarios in order to understand what was frustrating, misleading, or working well.
Overall we got some useful feedback about the application flow, which helped us iterate the design accordingly.
With a tight deadline, we took a step back to focus on the viability of our solution rather than perfecting the application.
BUSINESS CASE
We interviewed business experts in order to gain more knowledge about constructing a viable business plan. We took this advice and fleshed out a business model for HUNGRYR.
I created three financial forecasts for HUNGRYR—a worst-case, a likely-case, and a best-case scenario based on the success or failure of potential roadblocks to rolling out the service. We iterated and improved our business plan until we reached the point where we would break even in all three cases.
COMMUNICATING THE IDEA
Our team was nearing the deadline of this project but had yet to decide on the best way of communicating our complicated solution in a pitch presentation. I storyboarded and animated a video overview of our solution so it could be easily communicated despite its detailed nature.
FEEDBACK
Our pitch and submission to the Royal Society of Arts was a success!
We were shortlisted, interviewed, and ultimately won the Royal Society of Arts Student Design Awards for our solution. This was an extremely rewarding experience as I had the opportunity to fly to England and accept the award alongside my teammates.
The best part was speaking to so many inspiring designers about their submissions and perspectives on design.
WHAT'S NEXT?
HUNGRYR was created during our team’s final year of university. With all team members in different stages of life, it wasn’t feasible to continue the project ourselves. We sent our research findings and ideas to multiple trucking researchers in hopes that our work can be used to inform people and improve the lives of truckers even though we are not continuing to develop our project.
*TEAM MEMBERS:
Casey Hargreaves, Liz Breckenridge, Katrina Schouten, Stef Donovan
