What is the future of mobile food and drink quick service?
Bean Buddy, in collaboration with a coffee vending bicycle, reimagines the future of interaction and experience with mobile coffee service.
This project was created in collaboration with Clarissa Kim, Joycelin Lau, MacKenzie York, and Samin Prisila in the Georgia Tech Junior Interactive Product Studio, instructed by Noah Posner.
Bean Buddy in 1 Minute:
Background Research:
We conducted background research to understand the state of current campus coffeeshops and the how students, faculty, and visitors interact with them.
User Surveys and Interviews:
We then interviewed people at coffeeshops and the Grant Park Farmers Market to understand customer preferences and mindsets when purchasing coffee or food from mobile vendors. We gathered our results and interview quotes into affinity maps and spreadsheets to come up with personas and a user journey.
User Personas and Journey Map:
Insights:
Design Statements:
Concepts:
Testing:
After deciding on and revising our concept, we moved onto concept testing. We simulated the main functions of our cup sleeve and gathered feedback to better understand how we can design the sleeve and its interface. We tested four main stages: navigation, charging and payment, barista interaction, and icon perception.
During the user testing, we conducted a walkthrough and post-interview gaining further insights about improving our design moving forward. We created new design statements to use as guidelines while redesigning and improving our concept.
Final Design:
Bean Buddy is the coffee companion designed to elevate your daily brew experience. Inspired by the charm of early 2000s games, our innovative cup sleeve brings nostalgia and functionality together. Designed in collaboration with a coffee bike, its ability to navigate to wherever the coffee bike is located and interact with neighboring cup sleeves, Bean Buddy ensures every sip is a delightful journey.
Bean Buddy is comprised of a silicone cup sleeve with an embedded touch screen e-ink display, an NFC radio to connect to your phones GPS, and a battery that utilizes magnetic wireless charging. We anticipate that this technology will be available in the next 3 years.
The silicone is heat resistant, water resistant, and durable. The silicone we chose is also very stretchy and has a high friction coefficient allowing it to fit various cup sizes. The water resistance allows the cup sleeve to be easily wiped off in cases of condensation and spillage.
The touch screen e-ink display is used to display and customize your bean buddy as well as facilitate all the functions of the bean buddy and the magnetic wireless charging.
This bar is placed on the front of the counter. When a user places their sleeve onto the bar, the Bean Buddy display charges while they wait for their drink.
Payment is also conducted through the Bean Buddy and coffee bar. The Bean Buddy screen is at an angle and slightly elevated to make glancing down during payment a seamless process.
The bar moves your sleeve down the counter to give you and those in line a sense of how close you are to getting your drink, and, when you get to the far right of the cart, you’ve already created space for the next person in line.
Bean has a whole array of accessories that can be collected at each bike stop! The accessories will be kept in the Bean Buddy Wardrobe, and are able to be worn as a way to customize your bean buddy avatar.
Bean Buddy comes down to community, and where Bean Buddy bikes, community follows! The bike, paired with the Bean Buddies, is a mobile vessel for community and connection.
