Automotive Advancements
Co-Designing the Future of the Gas Station Experience
How might we improve a customer's overall experience at a gas station? The impetus for the inquiry was exploring whether gas station setups and convenience stores are inconvenient for the customer. Our initial inquiry considered the following assumptions: poor overall layout, needing to checkout in the store, moving a car to a store parking space after finishing up at the pump, and long inefficient store lines.
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Observational and Stakeholder Research
For our primary research, we started by visiting 5 gas stations in different cities to observe current station layout, services offered, and noted customer and employee behavior. Our ethnographic observation research included photos, notes and key insights.
We used the personas we developed to map out a journey map for both an individual driver and a family. Key pain points we found were: people want to get gas as quickly as possible and leave; there is a desire to go inside the store, but they don’t know if they should move their cars from the pump to a parking spot; shoppers want to get in and out of the store as fast as possible and they’re annoyed by long lines.
Prototyping Solutions
Through prototyping, we learned how to explore new ideas, assess associated risks, and develop methods to reduce uncertainty for stakeholders. We learned to identify opportunities and solutions through experimentation and immersive pilots of service designs.
Prototype 1 Kiosk & Delivery Service to Order at Pump
Prototype 2 Dual Checkout option
Prototype 3 Dual Checkout POS Technology
Prototype 4 Order at Pump, Pick Up at Drive Thru
Prototype 5 Loyalty App & Convenience Incentive
Prototype 6 Mobile Gas Station and Convenience Store
Key Findings
Based on our prototype facilitation, surveys and revised design solutions, we categorized solutions based of feasibility and importance to created an implementation guide.
SERV732 Service Design Prototyping: Testing Service Solutions; Professor Craig Alun Smith Project Team: Jesse Himsworth, M.A. Service Design • Emily Mayer, M.A. Service Design