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Background
Fortune Business Insights says that the global bubble tea market size was valued at USD 2.02 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach USD 3.39 billion by 2027. The expansion of franchisee stores, investments/funding, and new product launches are becoming the key market trend. The market currently target those in the 15-30 age range, all of whom actively use social media and are interested in what’s trendy.
The sad truth that we all must come to terms with is that Boba Tea is bad for our health.
Is there a way to get boba tea low-cal or make the withdrawal less painful?
Secondary Research
What's in it, and how can we cut back on all the calories?
To make the pearls soft and sweet, they are cooked in hot water with sugar. While ready-to-eat toppings like aloe vera and lychee jellies are immersed in a sugary liquid to keep them moist and fresh.
18.5
teaspoons
of sugar
It's found that brown sugar milk tea with boba has the most sugar of all flavors: 18.5 teaspoons.
An adult’s daily recommended sugar intake is 8 teaspoons.
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Tea without any milk or other ingredients, is a zero-calorie beverage. It contains antioxidants that may help reduce the risk of heart issues or cancer.
grams
of fat
10.5
A regular-sized milk tea with tapioca pearls contains 10.5 grammes of fat, with most of it coming from the milk ingredients.
325
kcal in
one cup
A typical 500ml milk tea with boba consists of 325 calories. Most places now offer a larger 700ml as the regular size, which has 455 calories.
Recommendations to ordering healthier boba tea
-
Choose a smaller cup size
-
Pick “plain” green tea, oolong tea or black tea
-
Ask for 30 per cent sugar levels or lower
-
Ask for fresh, low-fat or skimmed milk instead of non-dairy creamer
-
No toppings (or pick lower-calorie options like aloe vera and white pearls)
Survey & Interview
Does boba tea mean the same to everyone?
How much are they willing to quit or start to cut on the calories?
Asuka Li
"Drinking boba is a lifestyle for me; it seems to be the natural transition from every meal. Everyone could bond over boba. It is almost like the "middle-man" for every social event. If I want to get to know someone, we have to get boba. Not to mention, my wallet is stuffed with various stamp cards from multiple boba places."
Graphic Designer
David M.
"When I was first introduced to boba, I treated it like a sinful desire.
But after I started ordering bubble tea after every lunch break, funnily enough, I stopped enjoying it as much. It no longer felt like a rare treat, but a day-to-day routine. Like sucking up the last pearl in the cup, I’d sucked the joy out of bubble tea."
Product Author
Sophia C.
"For context, I am hardcore about bubble tea. At the peak of my consumption, I drank 3 cups a day. Usually, it’s 1 cup a day. The longest I’ve gone without bubble tea is probably a week, when I challenged myself last year. That lasted maybe 3 weeks, at periods of 1 week straight."
UX Designer
Goals
22 participants
Reduce the total cost on boba tea
7
6
Slowly quit boba tea
13
Control fat and sugar intakes
Insights
-
For 1/3 students, boba tea is taking over half of their food budget.
-
3/5 of the people interviewed said they significantly gained weight (more than 5 pounds) in a month at the peak of their assumption.
-
After ordering boba tea so many times, it's no longer a temptation but a day-to-day routine to most of them.
-
Less than 1/5 people know exactly what's in a cup of boba tea and how much fat and sugar it provides.
-
The existing solutions (eg. food tracking apps) don’t feel helpful and reflective of their individual conditions.
-
People who announce that they're quitting boba tea are more likely to achieve it.
Behavior Evaluation
How might we help people change their behavior of drinking too much boba tea?
How might we optimize their choice when ordering boba tea to reduce calorie intakes?
How might we meet the different needs of people who want to quit, reduce frequency or control calories?
Learning about the product
Using the product
Continued use and reflection
Why do people struggle to be motivated to change this behavior?
-
People get sensory satisfaction by drinking boba tea.
-
One cup doesn't seem too expensive.
-
It gradually becomes a routine that is hard to break.
Why do people struggle to stay motivated as they try to change?
-
Not drinking boba tea has a delayed long-term effect.
-
People don't see the benefit it brings.
-
Drinking boba tea with others gives them sense of social belonging.
How do people who are already motivated sustain their motivation?
-
Visualize the progress they've made and what benefits it brings
-
Give rewards ( e.g. cheat day)
-
Only give suggestions, allow freedom of different options.
Motivation
How does this project
trigger people to begin changing their behavior?
-
Notifications whenever they enter boba places.
-
Pop-up window that offers a healthier choice right before ordering.
How does this project
trigger people to continue
changing their behavior?
-
Make the process of inputting and calculating calories easier and faster.
-
Display healthier choices as default.
-
Design more engaging UI.
How does this project
trigger people to reflect on
changing their behavior?
-
Generate and send weekly journals through e-mail.
-
Notify people to check their progress.
Triggers
How does this project enable people to begin
changing their behavior?
-
An app that's initiated upon user entering a boba place.
-
A button that tracks geo-location.
-
Provide options of healthier substitutes.
How does this project
enable people to continue changing their behavior?
-
Visual cards that give personalized insights and advices.
-
Set reminders that help user keep track of any boba tea consumption
How does this project enable people to reflect on
changing their behavior?
-
Access to a personal dashboard that shows order history and total intakes
-
Enable users to set short-term and long-term goals and see their chronological progress
Ability
If you wanted to measure the success of your project at changing the behavior
described above, what would you measure?
-
A general downward trend in weekly frequency of drinking boba tea.
-
A significant decrease in weekly calorie intake from boba tea and other drinks offered in boba places.
-
A transition in personal preference from drinks of larger size, higher sweetness, high-calorie toppings to drinks of smaller size, lower sweetness and less or no toppings.
Problem Statement
Target User
-
Consumes over 2 cups of boba weekly
-
Social media active user
-
Seek to change the behavior
-
Aged between 15 and 30
Problems
1. Users don't have access to the specific nutrition facts of boba tea
2. Users don't realize the long term effect of this habit
3. Current solutions are not reflective of their individual conditions, can't tend to their needs
So they find it hard to break the habit of drinking boba tea, thus gain weight or increase cost
Goal
To enable users to keep track of their boba tea consumptions and constantly reflect on their behavior change.
Product
An App that can
1. Be activated when users are in a boba shop
2. Provide detailed calorie facts of ingredients
3. Store information of each order history and show total intakes
4. Generate reports on user's progress and give personalized tips
A button that knows when users are in a boba shop and gives signal by vibration.
User Flow & Screens
Match behavior to desired metrics and build a strong core loop
Onboarding
The visitors will only be asked one piece of information at a time, which doesn't feel like too long and will put in all the information required to get them to the goal.
Required
Users are required to share their geolocation and allow notification when using Bobasum, in order to begin to discover the value of the product - tracking your consumption and providing insights.
Encouraged
Besides the guilty feeling the amount of calorie brings, users are also encourage to choose smaller sizes of boba tea, less add-ons and healthier substitutions like fruit tea before they make the final decision.
Habit Building
Reflecting on the behavior change progress will give users a sense of accomplishment. Users return to the App regularly to get fresh personalized tips, analyzed data and insights.
Final Prototype
Designed in Adobe Xd and prototyped in Protopie.
Interactive prototype available at https://cloud.protopie.io/p/982367e0fe
When you open the App for the first time,
we will ask for some of your basic information.
After setting your goal, there follows a quick test that will help us know about your habits of drinking Boba Tea.
Based on your information, a personalized button will be sent to you.
Once the button is connected to the app,
we know all the Boba Tea places near you.
- Every time you walk into one of these shops,
you'll receive a notification and your button will keep vibrating until you open the App.
You'll have calories listed above every choice you make, as well as the total calories in the drink.
While you're hesitating, a pop-up window will give you a suggestion, which saves you calories and is satisfying as well.
You can view your Boba Tea order history and weekly calorie intakes on the dashboard .
Physical Product
I decide to use a button as the physical product, because it's a form of announcement that tells those around you that you're going to cast aside the desire for Boba Tea. It's also small enough to be worn all day long.
To make this boba button, I put plasticine over a pin-back button badge, and painted it. After the button dried, it was fixed into a small box with a booklet.
The trifold booklet was designed in Adobe Illustrator, using the same color swatch with the App.
Storyboards
Visualizing the layout and sequence of my product video.
Learnings & Next Step
Originally, I was going to design a diet-tracking product that analyze the nutritions in a meal using imagery machine-learning. This specific feature depended too much on the emerging technology that I didn't know much about. When I was doing the first-round interview, people talked about their eating habits and lifestyles that are so varied. Because that kind of personal condition can be so ingrained and hard to change, I felt like an App that simply tracks intakes and suggests better choices wouldn't make a big difference in modifying people's behavior. Later, in the process of doing wireframes, I realized that the diet system need a sophisticated information architecture, which I wouldn't be able to sort out in less than a week.
While boba tea is something that all my peers to some extent are addicted to. There's a shared reason that we like it - the combination of sweet delicious milk tea and pearls that we cannot resist bitting into. Drinking boba tea is a simple behavior that are easier to intervene. I want my product to be involved with users' life more directly. Then at the middle of this project, I made the decision of changing my topic.
To make up for the lost two weeks, I expedited my research and interview. Thanks to my roommate and some of her friends who are heavy enthusiasts of boba tea, I was able to learn about their interesting experiences and gain enough insights.
If I had more time, I would make an interactive prototype to test with my users. I would keep track of their ordering history and intakes for three weeks using spreadsheet. Hopefully I could validate my design by measuring the changes in their behavior.
Credit
Research Statistics:
Research Image:
Icons:
Video Actors:
Mingjing Zhang, Sarah Huo
Video Setting:
Boba Guys, 1002 16th St, San francisco, CA, 94107