FIELD

EVALUATION
PROJECT

2016-01-06

MAX Ordering System

The topic of this field evaluation project is non-use. The goal is to look
at a situation where people do not engage and interact with
technology - either by choice or not. Obviously, the main problem will
be to identify non-users as they dont have direct contact with the
technology. First, a technology and a frame need to be defined for
the project. Next, non-users need to be identified and existing reasons
need to be explored.

Field evaluation Project

MAX ORDERING SYSTEM
Juulia Enqvist, Xiwen Li, Moa Svenryd & Laura Wiegand

Field evaluation Project

Objectives
The topic non-use could be approached from several
interesting angles. In our group we decided to focus
on IT related objects, which are based in the physical
world. These days technology increasingly shapes
the service design and the customer experience. Due
to the rising interest in self-service cashiers and
ordering machines in supermarkets, restaurants and
other stores, the chosen focus of this project are the
express/self-ordering machines, which can be found
inside MAX burger restaurants. The ordering systems
are placed at the entry of each restaurant, for
ordering and paying the selected food. Next to
MAX burgers, also IKEA and ICA tend to have selfservice payment systems for customers more and
more often. As the use of these technologies seems
to be the focus of companies when creating a user
experience for customers, it is important to find out
if the users actually want and like to use this
technology. Studies in the US have shown that the
majority of people would be willing to use selfservice systems. Especially in casual and fast casual
restaurants, self-paying and self-ordering are
preferred by 40-50% of all survey respondents. The
question is, if these results are also true for
international people or only for US citizens.
Therefore the goal of this field evaluation project is
to find out how many people that do not use the
machines provided by MAX burgers and what the
reasons for this non-use are.

MAX is a fast food restaurant chain with

restaurants in Sweden, Norway, Denmark
and the United Arab Emirates. According
to MAXs online page, the goal is to
provide an eating experience that is so
much more than eating. As seen in the
picture provided on the page, the
Express ordering machines are a central
part of this experience.

With this project we want to evaluate the influence

of the self-ordering and paying machines on the
customer experience and evaluate the customers
motivation for not using them. It will be questioned if
technology helps to improve the service design of
MAX and what customers think about this technology.
Finally, it will be evaluated how the non-users can
be used to identify weak points and how to improve
the system, in order to create a better user
experience.
For identifying and understanding the non-users, it
was important to have an overview about all
existing ordering and payment methods. We
decided to visit the MAX burgers restaurant in
Uppsala for our field evaluation project. The
customer can either use the express ordering
machine which is placed at the entrance, the cashier
or the mobile application. We wanted to identify
who does not use the express service, what
alternative they chose and why.

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Field evaluation Project

Method
To investigate the non-use at MAX, we decided to observe and do a semi-structured survey about the
usage of the express ordering machine. We counted the number of users and non-user in a certain time
period to get quantitative data. Also we approached the possible non-users, when they were waiting for
their food to be prepared with the electronic survey. The reasons why we choose survey instead of
interview is because the MAX restaurant in the center of Uppsala has a relatively limited area to
approach people, the people have a limited time to reply to the survey and some questions can relate
to private topic for someone. Since the environment at MAX is hectic and chaotic, our interaction with the
customers needed to be simple and fast. Therefore we chose to use a survey, but we were still talkative
and open if the customer had any other reasons or could not find a right alternative, we would ask them
to talk to us.

Preparation
To get a deeper understanding about the situation at MAX, our group went to MAX in the center Uppsala
to investigate the environment and decided what questions we would ask as well as which time period
we would go to MAX with our survey. We saw that the express ordering machines were located directly
in the front entrance and customers then received their food near the cashier. The cashier is in the middle
of the restaurant and the menu is on the top, but not all food is displayed on the display menu. Also the
express has both a Swedish and an English menu, but the cashier display only has one in Swedish. We
tried to order food by both express and cashier to get an understanding of both experiences.
To find out the reasons for non-use, we first categorized who are the users and non-users. The different
type of users are; the people who have never used the express, have used it before but did not use it
this time and the users who used the express. The non-users for the project are the people who have never
used the express ordering machine. Therefore we determined to form the survey questions according to
different users and the set of questions is organized as a tree so we could separate the answers of the
non-users and users. We decided to use online Google survey tool displayed by iPad instead of paper
because it is easier to show and control and also it is more convenient for calculating the results. Since
Uppsala has a lot of foreigners and also because some people can only speak Swedish, we decided to
do the survey in both English and Swedish, so that the people could choose which language they
preferred.
Before conducting the final surveys, we made a pilot test in order to examine the viability and feasibility
of the survey. We recruited three classmates and tested both language versions of the survey. They
mentioned some unclear descriptions and therefore we revised and altered the survey according to their
comments.

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Field evaluation Project

Execution
In total we arranged three different days at MAX
for the execution of the questionnaire in order to
get a fair amount of answers. Also we wanted to
try different time slots, to see if this affected the
amount of customers and non-use. The first day, the
questionnaires were done during the evening after
five oclock, where there were plenty of people in
the restaurant. The second day we went around
midday at lunch time and noticed that the amount
of customers was significantly less, also people just
quickly got their lunch as take away or they ate
fast because they were in a hurry. For this reason
for the third day we decided to go during dinner
time again, in order to reach more customers. Also
each time before starting to conduct the surveys we
asked permission from the head staff of MAX.
Two of us were handling the surveys close to the
cashier and the other two were counting the amount
of people entering and using the express ordering
machines. We
constantly
examined the
environment, so that if there were no people at the
cashier we would sit down in order to not seem like
we were waiting for someone and not to create
any intimidation. This gave us some time between
the surveys. When we then clearly saw people
waiting for their order we discretely approached
them with the survey. We always explained what
we were doing, why, how long it would take and
also that we were students, in order to make clear
that we were not doing it on behalf of MAX. Also
if anyone looked busy, was on the phone or
declined to participate we respected their choice.
Especially during the evenings when there were a
lot of people we tried to get a good mixture of
people, from example different age groups, but
we tried also to focus on the customers which we
clearly saw that were non users of the express
ordering machines.

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Field evaluation Project

Results

MAX Visitors

In total 40 participants answered the survey. The distribution of

gender, age and which way they ordered are represented in the
graphs to the right.
The total amount of visitors to MAX during the execution of the test
were 324, whereas 211 of these went to the cashier to order. The
distribution of way to order of all the visitors can be seen in the
graph to the right. This indicates that the amount of non-users of the
express ordering machine is high, however the survey showed that
out of the 36 participants that ordered through cashier 18 had
ordered with express before. Therefore only 18 out of 40
participants were defined as non-users.
Reasons for non-use
The majority of the non-users chose the cashier because they
wanted more personal help with their order (5 of 18). Other
reasons were that they liked the experience of the cashier better
(3/18), they didnt know what the express was (2/18) and that
they thought the express was too complicated (1/18). Some
participants expressed other reasons not present as options in
the survey such as that there were no queue, that the participant
did not like machines or that the participant had allergies.
The other 18 participants that used the cashier but had used the
express before mainly used the cashier because they wanted to
pay with cash, mobile or use discount (5/18). The other major
reasons for using cashier was because it was faster (4/18),
because it was easier (4/18) and because they wanted more
personal help (3/18). That the experience with the cashier is
preferred was also a reason (1/18) and other reasons the
participants mentioned were that they were too lazy to learn the
express, that there were no queue and because it was close to
the toilets.
Reasons for use
The users of the express ordering machine explained that they used
it because it was faster (2/4), because it was easier (1/4) and
because you could see all the menu options (1/4).
Summary
Personal help seems to be one of the main reasons for non-use and
it is related to the social aspect of the service. That the
experience of the cashier is preferred is also related to this and
the aspect explains that however fast and effective a machine
can be, it cannot replace a human to human interaction. Other
reasons such as the difficulty of the express or that you cannot
use discounts are all technical shortages that can be improved.
To further the research in the area it would be interesting to see
if it even is possible to completely take away the human factor
of the service and what that would mean for the interaction in
this kind of service; do we really want machines to take over?
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Express
35%

Cashier
65%

Gender

Not
specified
3%

Male
40%

Female
57%

Age
55+
15%

36-55
20%

18-25
50%

26-35
15%

How they ordered

Express
10%

Cashier
90%

Field evaluation Project

Discussion
What we learned about the non-users and the way we tested it.
The field evaluation project helped us to understand the importance of looking at non -users. Exploring
and analyzing non-users helps to identify weak points in the user experience of systems, as well as
peoples motives for non-use. This is why inclusive design is very important, since today the physical and
digital worlds are constantly merging more and more together. When designing systems all different
types of users and their experiences should be taken into account. For this reason, it is also important to
include non-users immediately into the development process. Meaning that it should be understood why
some people might not use the system and possibly build solutions to include them, or how can they benefit
from another solution even if they are not using the specific technology. Therefore taking into consideration
non-users is a way of looking at a system from a different perspective, which can then improve the user
experience.
Field evaluation is a good and maybe the only possible way to explore non -users because you can
directly identify the non-users. It also gives a good picture of how users use systems in the natural and
intended context. Additionally field evaluation of non-users can be easily applied in many different
contexts and areas.

Challenges we faced in the field evaluation and about the non-users.

In addition, we faced a few challenges with the field evaluation project. When conducting a field
evaluation, it would be beneficial to execute the project in co-operation with the company. This would
help to receive better background information, for example statistical numbers of the use and non -use as
well as alternative ways, and also permission to conduct the research.
Also it was difficult in the beginning to clearly define who are the non-users in the project. We realized
that there are several different types and that we have to decide which of them to focus on. Moreover,
our method was to use a survey to find out the motivation of non-users, it was tough to state the reasons
for choosing this method over others because a survey is not the best way to get an understanding of
peoples motivation and opinions. In our case we thought that the survey still might be the best option,
because of the time limitations. Also because of the time, it was tricky to decide on what were the most
important questions that needed to be asked as well as to receive enough feedback in an extremely
short amount of time. Through all of this we realized it was not the easiest to approach the customers at
MAX because some were in a hurry or looked busy and seemed that they are not willing to talk to
strangers.

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