[R U X] Corner
................................................................................ We are graduate and undergraduate students in the Research in User eXperience (RUX) Lab in the Department of Human Factors and Behavioral Neurobiology. RUX investigates the usability and user experience of technology in our everyday world. This is a regular column that explores different technologies typically used by Embry-Riddle students. ................................................................................
Will You be Over the Moon with
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Jessyca Derby, Ali Gombas, Jade Lovell, Olivia Roa | Graduate Researchers Jorja Gwaltney | Undergraduate Researcher Are you ever in the student village craving a Pink Drink but you don’t want to walk to the Student Union in the rain? Now there’s a solution with Starship! The Starship app allows you to order food on campus to be delivered right outside your building, courtesy of fun robots. They even take meal plans and dining dollars! The RUX Lab was curious as to how this new system worked so we decided to test it out. We observed two different students download the app, place an order, and receive their food while expressing their thoughts out loud. We did this for two different locations on campus that required the delivery robot to cross the street to determine how it would affect delivery. The comments from the students were then compiled into journey maps, a visual way of seeing how a user feels throughout a process. Journey maps are often used in the design process to identify where a product or process could be improved. Now, let’s go on this Starship journey together!
The First Order At first, the students didn’t know where to start making an order and couldn’t remember what the app was called. One student (S1) searched their app store for “Starship,” and the second (S2) didn’t know what to even start searching for. After seeing a banner for the delivery service in the Student Union, S2 found the app and made an account. The students either chose to send their robot to Flight Operations or the Student Village. We chose these two locations to test the robot’s behavior when approaching crosswalks on either quiet or busy streets, such as Aerospace Boulevard or Richard Petty Boulevard. The ordering process for both participants went relatively smoothly. Both thought the detailed menu customization exceeded their expectations and thought the ordering was intuitive. The process was very similar to other delivery apps such as DoorDash or UberEats. Getting The Food
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Photo Courtesy / Jessyca Derby
When it came to waiting for the order, the students had very different experiences. For S1’s delivery at the Flight Operations building, the wait wasn’t long. The biggest complaint was receiving four error notifications that just said, “Oops! Something went wrong. Try restarting your app.” This confused them because they were not told what was going wrong. For S2’s order to the Student Village, the robot assigned to our order got stuck at the Richard Petty/Aerospace traffic light! S2 was never told that the robot was even stuck. It stopped before turning a sharp corner to face the crosswalk, waited, spun 360 degrees, and then refused to move until we called customer support, who also did not tell us what went wrong. We just had to wait with our robot as we watched other robots zoom across the crosswalk to deliver their orders without issue. The customer service agent was able to find our robot and help it get moving again.
