In Time
According to a Timex survey, 37 billion hours each year are spent waiting in line for something. That means an average of 6 months of our lives are spent waiting in line. However, our team at Designerrs thinks that trading six months of an average person's life is overkill, and that time can be better spent without sacrificing the very thing you're waiting for.
gather data
We started by interviewing 35 people who had to endure waiting in a queue. Our aim was to understand the reasons one would wait in a queue and the frustration if any, they faced. We asked about their experience the last time they waited in a queue to let them lead the interview and talk about their needs, pain points and feelings during the experience.
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We drew up personas based on what we heard. Even though it was a hassle, both personas exhibited different emotions while waiting in a queue. It was insightful to uncover that both personas' anxiety would be assuaged if they found out the time it needed to be serviced regardless of the service.
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brainstorm
This helped us uncover that it was not the time to wait but the uncertainty of when the service will be provided that turned out to be the core pain point. After reframing the problem and drawing out the personas, the team brainstormed solutions that would best address this need. Mobility - the primary need of personas - helped us hone into testing the idea of a mobile app with the people we interviewed. The information architecture was drawn for the mobile app and wireframes were created.
test
We also discovered that the users were much happy when probed with the idea of having the ability to do other stuff while waiting. This opened doors to the idea that creating a time management platform that measures real-time waiting time and recommends other tasks/chores to do while maintaining a virtual spot in the queue.
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We created prototypes to test the idea and presented it in front of the people we interviewed to hear what they thought of it.
