Ssong’s hotdog is a Korean corndog chain across United States, Japan, China, and Vietnam. Since most of the branches are in the food courts of different malls in US, we followed Google’s Design Sprint framework to improve Ssong’s ordering experience. We ended up with a gamified browser based system that simplifies the ordering process and uses weekly games to build a community of customers.
Oct 22 – Apr 23
(7 months)
Tien Tran, Sheldon Akinrimisi, Yasvi Patel, Josh (Product Owner)
Interaction & Visual Design, Brand Identity, Design System, Game Design, User Testing
Improving the ordering experience for Ssong’s in-person customers and building a community of loyal consumers as they scale to a larger audience.
Since downloading an app is a time-consuming process, to reduce the ordering time we designed a browser based Scan to Order system using QR code.
To create a community of loyal customers, we created and tested:
84% of our testing participants said “they preferred our solution over the current way of placing order.”
Want to grab a quick snack while shopping in a mall, want to maximize my time to shop and avoid human interactions.
Who wants to stand in queue for cashier/tablets when you can order on your phone?
Wants to eat something at the food court but have trouble deciding the exact meal.
I really like lots of pictures, most menu's have pictures of only a few items
Based on research (heuristic evaluation, user interviews, etc.), we summarized the key pain points.
So how might we create an integrated community that can skip waiting lines, look at all product images, order food without interacting with the cashier, and play weekly challenges to earn rewards.
We used the mapping activity from the book to identify the goals of our sprints which were as follows:
Our aim was to make waiting enjoyable for customers ordering from Ssong’s. We introduced two solutions:
The idea of Community Game was well-received but the testing results prompted the design of 2 additional games:
With the games settled, our attention shifted to refining the ordering process. We adopted two key strategies:
Since Ssong’s Hotdog is usually located in mall food courts we listed down the following paint points for the customers and categorized them into TWO categories:
To cater to the needs for the Pre-Order Experience we proposed a Tablet/Kiosk style ordering system but after feedback from stakeholders & some brainstorming sessions we ended with a Scan to order system.
Enable users to scan a QR code and place an order through their own phones
To conduct the research:
We conducted 3 in-person User Testing sessions with a total of 19 participants spread across all sessions.
From our Heuristic Evaluation:
“Wordle” wasn’t a fan favorite in first round of user testing.
So we used A/B Testing to test our new games which resulted in 4 (out of 7) votes in favor of Red-Light/Green-Light over the other game
The patterns from affinity mapping were helpful in finding the goal for next sprint but also for identifying pain points in our design that we could fix in Sprint 4.
To simplify the ordering process we reduced the number of steps and popups from 5 to 1 .
I also updated the design language to the modern standards by keeping user needs in mind:
Highlighting the added customization was an important UX decision. While making sure the location and queue information says in the banner for a quick glance was also something that the testing users liked.
We came up with community challenges (weekly games) to solve two pain points:
The participants can win rewards by either winning the weekly challenge or by sharing the results on social media.
The game was one of three games that we prototyped.
This game was also chosen because people could relate it with Korean culture and it had grown in popularity after the famous “Squid Games” Netflix series.
We received constructive feedback from all our stake holders (customers, cashiers, and our client).
We also used internal critique sessions to come up with problems in our own designs.
We created multiple variations of different design components that we voted on to finalize the designs. This enabled us to iterate at a quick pace and come up with unique solutions.
First create something new, then make it work, then make it better
Made changes to:
Made changes to:
Made changes to:
Our design system focused mainly on strengthening and improving communication for all team members to build consistency in the product’s visuals.
But, we also focused on creating a design system for the purpose of helping the developers to bring this product to life.
We believe that with better communication the project workflow will be much more efficient for the developer to execute the product design to its fullest.
Although I didn’t work on creating assets or the gameplay for this game. I contributed in the annotations so that the developers can have an easy time to translate the designs into actionable games.
Since I worked on this game, I wrote down all the edge cases and created error states that a developer would need
Since we conducted research multiple times throughout the project, we collected all the resources and provided a guide for the client an how they can use this information in future.
This project was my first-ever UX project where I led & focused on continuous testing, gathering user feedback, & implementing insights into the designs. Some of my learnings were:
Lead Design: Acting as a senior designer, I advocated for design, brought industry knowledge, and guided team members. Providing an environment for independent design conclusions and supporting their growth was challenging yet rewarding.
Learn to Pivot: Constant change pushed growth during uncertainty. Limited client communication in Sprint 3 required adaptability and modified the design framework. Flexibility and responsiveness were crucial for success.
Small details matter: Paying attention to details was crucial. A brief recap in client meetings and mini tutorials during user testing improved clarity and alignment. Noticing small design details delighted users.
I would like to iterate the designs even further to have much more creative and complete project.
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