Improving the Starbucks Experience

The Best Coffee in Town

Yesterday, I left Little Springs Design to finish my work at a nearby coffee shop. Prior to leaving, a discussion emerged among the team about the best coffee shop in town. We seemed to bounce back and forth in both agreement and disagreement about the qualities that make for an engaging user experience. In addition, we all seemed to disagree on the coffee shop itself.

Not wanting to further partake in the ongoing discussion any longer because of the design work I needed to have done, I grabbed my computer with another designer and left for Starbucks.

But Starbucks?

Why Starbucks? Some might argue that by living in a diverse college town with numerous unique cafes with un-commericalized charm and service, I am doing a disservice to the town itself by not financially supporting the local community. I disagree. Each coffee shop in town caters differently to various individuals with various user needs and expectancies. On that particular day, I had particular needs. Those needs, I expected from my prior experiences, would be met at the Starbucks. I knew to not expect an unwavering experience with excitement, mystery, and compelling thrill. Like the coffee's name and logo, the whole Starbuck's experience is also branded.

But can Starbucks be redesigned to provide a wavering, thrilling and compelling user experience? I believe so.

The Experience Journey

As a designer, I see the world with critical eyes that look to improve the user's experience as they interact with the environment. So I decided to analyze my complete user experience for Starbucks on this particular day. My intention was to discover touchpoint areas that could be improved to benefit the user experience.

The moment I walked out the door to go to Starbucks, I mentally prepared myself for this experience journey. The method of analysis I felt most appropriate to use would be a qualitative study called an Experience Map. The Experience Map identifies touchpoints through the entire experience – in this case, the experience of coffee drinking. Each touchpoint has measurable qualities: emotional states, physical tasks, sensations and perceptions, social interactions, etc. By analyzing all of these qualities over the entire journeyed experience, the user/designer can form a comprehensive mental model of that particular experience, decide whether or not it met the user needs, identify areas of improvements, and establish design objectives. This activity of analysis can be done in a day or over weeks with one or with many users to study. The more comprehensive the study, the more recurring patterns will become evident and validated.

Creating an Experience Map

I have broken down my process in the following steps:

1. Latent opportunities are ubiquitous: Pick an environment
2. Who or what to study
3. Establish a goal
4. Establishing modes and identifying touchpoints
5. Observe, interact, record
6. Representing the information with an experience map

1. Latent Opportunities are Ubiquitous: Pick An Environment

Put a blindfold on, do a twist, and point. Now you're pointing within or at some environment where interactions occur. And chances are these interactions can be improved. Consider pointing at a post office? Is this a positive, exciting experience to wait in line for postage or package delivery? How could it be improved? Now point to the local grocery store. Is it satisfying pushing clunky shopping carts down narrow isles while trying to identify where an item on a shelf is located? Now point to a street sign. Can you read it clearly from your distance or are you frustrated that the letters are too small to read and distinguish apart? We go about our lives interacting with a world full of poached experiences which we've grown to expect as the norm. It's time to pay close attention to our interactions with a critical eye and discover the areas in which we can improve.

2. Who or What to Study

In my starbucks experience analysis, I am the primary subject and am analyzing the interactions that occur with customers, objects, environments, and employees.

3. Establish a Goal

Establish a goal, or purpose, of your study. Goals focus and narrow the scope of your research. Goals answer the question "what?" What are you going to study? What are you planning on accomplishing with this study? In the case for the Starbucks experience study, my goal is to identify user experience problems in Starbuck's front stage service.

4. Establishing Modes and Identifying Touchpoints

Now that goals have been set, you need to define your approach of analysis. In order to create a synthesis of ideas and improvements, you need to establish a framework of analysis. The framework that I use identifies high level activity modes that occur temporally. The five modes I use a framework are: Anticipation, Enter, Engagement, Exit, and Reflection. Each of these modes vary in time and may have independent interactions. Later, we will collect all of these interactions that occur through this framework and develop a comprehensive understanding of the entire experience over time.

Modes

Each of these Modes are describe in detail below.

• Anticipation
  Anticipation is the first mode. Anticipation requires you to reflect on your prior knowledge/experiences of the activity. These prior experiences will help you recall your interactions and create a baseline of expectations heading into the situation again, and will help you plan your journey.
• Enter
  Enter is the second mode. This is where you identify and step foot inside the environment of your study.
• Engagement
  Engagement is the third mode. This stage encompasses most of the interactions that will occur inside the environment during your experience journey. It will also have the most interactive touchpoints.
• Exit
  Exit is the fourth stage. In this stage you are exiting the environment.
• Reflection
  Reflection is the final stage. In this stage you are reflecting on your overall recent experience and comparing it your anticipation stage.

Touchpoints

The following touchpoints in my Starbucks journey are listed below. These are listed chronologically. In (parentheses), I've assigned the touchpoints to their appropriate Mode.

1. My car (Anticipation)
2. Entering the Starbucks cafe (Enter)
3. Waiting in line (Engage)
4. Ordering a coffee (Engage)
5. Waiting for my coffee (Engage)
6. Receiving my coffee (Engage)
7. Finding a seat (Engage)
8. Working (Engage)
9. Exiting the cafe (Exit)
10. Getting in my car tolLeave (Reflection)

5. Observe, Interact, Record

Now that frameworks have been established, it's time to put on your designer/ethnographer/consumer hats and conduct qualitative research in the field. I find it convenient to keep a small journal and pencil with you to record realtime observations. A digital audio recorder and digital camera may also be used. These tools provide ways to capture and retain details that you may have missed with your note taking. Be conscious of proper protocols for collecting images and interviews. You may need proper consent. During each touchpoint use all of your senses critically and record your observations. Don't filter at this point. Just collect and record. I try and capture my emotional states, social states: my interactions, others' interactions, processing states: sensations and perceptions, physical states: location, body movements, gestures, environmental states: noise, ambience, mood, fixtures, etc. As I record these, I keep in mind how these instances measure up to my anticipations and expectations. Are they better then expected? Are they worse? Are they about typical?

6. Representing the information with an Experience Map

Now that the qualitative data has been collected, it needs to represented and analyzed. The diagram above is one that I created for this particular experience. I've broken down my interactions over time and have measured them against a baseline. The nodes above and below the baseline indicate the level of user experience encountered within that particular touchpoint. Nodes occurring above the baseline reflect a positive user experience. Conversely, nodes below the baseline indicate a poor or poached user experience. The node's distance from the baseline indicates its value intensity.

Synthesize Design Requirements

Now what? Now that this data is represented, it is possible to identify areas that could be redesigned/improved to enrich the user experience. A quick glance at the map, illustrates that my experience on this particular day, was more negative than positive. Looking at the nodes below the baseline, I am able to generalize that my poor experience has less to do with the coffee itself, but more on the design of the store.

My next task is to concurrently create categorical relationships for each of these nodes while combining, filtering, and renaming the data- using a grounded theory approach. This will establish design objectives that can be ranked with measures of feasibility, priority, and other requirements. This next step of the design process will be discussed and represented in an additional and forthcoming post. Stay tuned.

Summary

In summary, an Experience Map is a tool designers can use to quickly identify and represent the quality of user experiences within a situational context. These experiences can be measured qualitatively and can be used to establish design objectives.

The process can be broken down into six steps:

1. Latent opportunities are ubiquitous: Pick an environment
2. Who or what to study
3. Establish a goal
4. Establishing modes and identifying touchpoints
5. Observe, interact, record
6. Representing the information with an experience map

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Very nice conceptual demonstration of experience surgery. However, to generalize the results some quantitative data is required such as distribution of customers over day hours and during the week, their demographic structure, activities done inside the shop and the like. Otherwise you end up with perfect service for a particular segment. Anyway very inspirtional!