Field Research in a Shopping Mall Complex
Nov 2014
Recently the largest shopping mall complex has just opened near my neighborhood, so my study group decided to use field research as part of our service design study. This shopping mall is also notorious for safety issues and the complexity of its structure, so we tried to discover the “pain points” that customers might experience. We did that using ‘town watching’ observation.
Phase 1_Brainstorming
In the first week, we had a brainstorming session about what people normally do in shopping malls and compiled the list below.
A summary of brainstorming result. Among them our team picked 6 tasks (marked in yellow)
After that, we split into three groups, and each group picked five to seven tasks to complete consecutively. The group leaders then gave the instructions on field research.
Phase 2_Shadowing
One member of each team played the role of a visitor, and the rest of the team members track down the “customer” and observe his or her actions.
Find the entrance from subway station > Looking around the B1F > Take a selfie > Find a couple of shops and browse
Move up to the ground floor and search the way annex > Order a cup of coffee > Go to the main building and find an electronic shop
As a visitor, I found several pain points that actual mall visitors may experience.
01 Map Guide Only Chinese and Japanese guides could be found. No guides for local visitors.
02 Fire Shutter In case of emergency, I often check the location of fire shutter, but it was not recognizable.
03 Path Sometimes, I had to take a circuitous route to get to some stores.
04 Floor Information I could find location information in both the main building and the annex on the B1F, but
when I went to the ground floor, the main building map was no longer on the information
panel.
panel.
05 Trash bin Very hard to find. They are only placed right next to escalators.
Phase 3_Sharing Findings
After completing the field research, each team shared the results of their observations with each other.
Below is a list of the common “pain points” that each team learned. Overall, all agreed that safety issues needed to be improved at this mall to prevent accidents. We also thought that shopping mall staff needed to be fully
trained, especially for guiding directions, because the shopping mall is a complicated structure. Finally, there was an opinion about the bookstore. Its interior design needs to be changed, as many visitors were seen just reading
books and then leaving the store and not buying anything
Summary
This was the first time that I completed design research in a real-world location. The most useful exercise was posing as a customer; I could understand the user’s point of view and gain important insights about the benefits and potential problems of a service. Tthis experience will help me conduct further design research in the future.
