RESEARCH
Process: To get an accurate picture for the best way to foster frequent postings from trucks and frequent searching from users, I interviewed both sides of the market in-person with research questions that were meant to open a dialogue for potential features without specifically leading the user down any one path with my own bias. Consideration for the questions was done with a partner, Ian Kuliasha, who helped me structure my validation research with his own experience as a startup attorney.
Results: My interviews with the owners of food trucks yielded some results that busted a few of my assumptions, and confirmed others. It quickly became clear that a huge draw for owners would be to allow them to do a mass social media push, and then glean their location by providing that utility and serve it to patrons. Thus, integrated tightly into the location publishing feature is a screen that allows users to push a single post to Twitter, Facebook, and Insta that is geotagged with their coordinates and a deep link to their profile in the app.
ADDING VALUE FOR TRUCK OWNERS
To determine what sorts of features a food truck owner would find useful, I spent many afternoons and cold evenings going out to food truck parks and interviewing the owners as they were closing their trucks up for the evening. From a few early sessions I decided that it was easier for them to take some time to participate at the close of the shift, when they no longer had to worry about customers at their window or managing food. I recorded their responses and emails in a Google form that I could fill out from my phone as I discussed with them. I considered recording them with the voice memos app on my phone, but decided it would be too invasive to bring up with a brand new acquaintance. My questions were formulated to get honest answers without immediately letting the interviewee know that I was looking to solve a problem. This was so that my interview responses would be diverse and unsullied by my own bias.
THE ONE-TAP WONDER: Mass social posting was shown in my research to be a great introductory distinguishing feature to draw in owners, but to keep them consistently publishing a location for every serving session, I had to make that publishing function very simple, a one-tap-wonder. Unlike other food truck apps, TruckStop will log each serving location you publish, and start to learn the ones your truck most frequently serves at. If the app recognizes that you're super close to a location you've frequently served at before (i.e. within 50 feet of a logged location) it can prompt you with a reminder notification that asks if you're serving and would like to publish. This keeps the process to publish your location down to a single tap, with the option to take further publishing action (social media postings) after a session has been opened.