Scenario and Designs

Scenario

Jess is a graduate student in the Media Lab. She often gets food from the food trucks because they are located near by. There is often a long line when she goes but that does not bother her - she spends the time organizing her thoughts and planning out the rest of her day.

She learns about GroupOrder from one of the members of her lab. GroupOrder makes it easy for people to order food. People in the same location (floor, lab, office building) place orders and one person is elected as the “runner” to pick up the food. The runner is responsible for collecting money from people, heading down to the food trucks, and bring back the food. To incentivize the runner, everyone automatically pays a little bit more for their meal as a “delivery charge”. These delivery charges are pooled together so that the runner gets their meal for free.

Jess is intrigued. She does not mind waiting in line and she would love to help out the other members of her lab. Also, while she certainly does not mind paying for her food, getting a free meal is always nice.

During lunch time, Jess opens GroupOrder on her iPhone. She notices that there are already some orders that have been placed. She add her order to the list. GroupOrder asks Jess if she is willing to be the runner. Jess says “Yes” and her name now appears on the order.

Once the timeslot closes Jess gets a notification from the application that she should collect money from her lab mates and then head down to pick up the orders. Jess walks over to the offices of the other people on the order and picks up their money. As she collects money, she marks the dish as “Paid” so she remember who has paid already.

Jess then walks down to the trucks and waits in line and places the orders. She launches GroupOrder to make sure she is ordering the right meals. After meals are ready Jess heads back up to the 5th floor lounge.

She takes out her iPhone and presses, “Food is here.” She then types “5th floor” as the location and hits send. The other people will now get a notification that their food is ready and that they should pick it up.

Designs

Alternate Scenarios

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