MSU Sparty Stores: Persona

by Meneka Jayawardene
For academic purposes only.

User: Suzy Smith

Background Information: Suzy is a junior at MSU, and has a very busy class schedule. She relies a lot on coffee to get her through the day. She likes to go to Sparty’s, because there are so many locations on campus. Her classes on Monday are at different locations, and she only has a short time in between them to get coffee. She strives to be punctual and prefers to get to class early to have a few minutes to prepare. The time she really needs coffee is before her 3:00 calculus class in Anthony Hall. Before that, she has a writing class in Wells Hall, which ends at 2:40. Suzy always has her laptop with her, so she goes online to the Sparty’s website.

On the homepage, she is shown a map with all the store locations, and a small icon indicates her location on the map. Two stores are highlighted, engineering and the international center, which are the closest stores to her. The international center is glowing red, meaning there are a lot of people currently waiting in line. The engineering building is glowing green, which means there are only a few people. She hovers over the engineering building, and a small dotted line forms showing her the quickest route to get there. When she clicks on it, she is brought to a page that is displaying all of the store’s information. There is a bird’s eye view diagram of the store, with dots showing the employees and customers. On the side, it shows a small clock that is displaying the estimated time of wait to order, which says 3 minutes. There is also an option that links to a live video of the store. Suzy clicks on that, and is able to move the camera to see different parts of the store. She looks at how many people are in line, and then zooms in to the display case to see what food is left. She goes back to the page and clicks on the step by step directions to the store. The directions were very easy to follow, so she was able to get to the store quickly. She was able to order her coffee in two minutes, and made it to her class five minutes early.

The next Monday, Suzy decides to use the website again, but knows that today her writing class might run late. She goes online during class, and this time she uses the online ordering option. She has used this service before, frequently ordering coffee. The site remembers her past order, and she has the option of ordering it again, so she was able to do that very quickly. She decides to pick it up at the engineering building, and pays with her credit card online so she does not have to pay at the counter. She was able to save even more time because when she ordered online, she could go pick it up quickly without having to wait in line.

Problems:
-Long lines
-Long waiting time to order
-Short time to get to class
-Having to go to location to location

Goals:
-Get coffee quickly
-Going to the best location first
-Finding closet location to class

Solutions:
-Live video of people waiting in line
-Estimated time of wait
-Online ordering service
-Delivery options
-Suggestions of best location based on the customer’s needs
-Directions on quickest routes to stores, and from store to class