Yanqianfang Sun
N-KITCHEN
Individual project
2021 Jan-Feb
BREIF
Due to the increasing population, a faster pace of life and COVID-19, food safety has become a potential challenge for China. With this in mind, my original goal is to improve citizens’ food safety under the big trend.
TARGET USERS
Young Working Citizens
- Who does not intend to eat take-out food but have difficulties preparing meals
- Who lacks healthy diet
- Who lacks mental and social communication
Old Citizens
- Who lacks mental and social communication
- Who just retired and want to find something to do in their retired life
- Who plan to find a job near home
SOLUTION
N represents Neighbor and Nutrition. N-Kitchen is a type of community kitchen in China. It offers a platform for the aged who have leisure time to prepare personalized and healthy lunches for the young working citizens in the same community for holistic improvement of well-being sense from physical, mental, and social perspectives.
CONTEXT
Start with an infeasible idea
After testing the prototype of my initial idea, which was to create an online farming platform with the concept of contactless shopping, I have come to the realization that the idea is not feasible. During my interviews with potential users, I discovered that there is limited interest in online farming, and as a result, the idea is not likely to be successful.
In addition to finding that my idea of online farming with contactless shopping was not feasible, I also discovered the following:
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Many individuals are short on time, making it difficult for them to commit to online farming.
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A significant number of people prefer not to cook for themselves.
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Some younger individuals are not interested in online farming due to the heavy pressures they face and their desire to relax during their leisure time.
I rethought the project's aim.
RESEARCH & LEARNINGS
I discovered that a lack of well-being sense had become a potential issue for society…
Based on the research, I found that :
- Less than 60% of the citizens were not up to the Chinese daily dietary standard.
Occup and Health，Nov. 2016，Vol. 32，No.21
- All urban residents were unqualified in SHMS score from physical, mental and social perspectives.
J South Med Univ, 2019, 39(3): 271-278 doi 10.12122/j.issn.1673-4254.2019.03.03
I also conducted research to identify the causes of the lack of well-being sense from three perspectives.
I analyzed some current products that were helpful to improve citizens’ well-being sense based on these perspectives.
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70% were from a physical perspective.
People need to have awareness and self-control before using the product, which is self-contradictory.
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20% were from a mental perspective
The communication that these products provided is distant because they mainly rely on online mode.
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10% were from a social perspective
Most of the products for social sub-health are offline and uncommercial.
OPPOTUNITIES
The community comprises individuals of various ages, and as such, there are differences in their habits and routines over time.
During my observation, I noticed that some elderly individuals woke up early and went to the community market to buy ingredients at around 6:30 am. In contrast, working citizens tended to wake up 1-2 hours later to prepare for work.
Overlapping routes of action can be exploited
Additionally, I observed that the movements of the majority of citizens in my community overlapped due to the recent introduction of garbage classification. Since they were only able to dispose of their garbage at the front gate, most citizens left their homes through the front gate.
PROBLEM
How might we improve the well-being sense of the citizens in the same community by using the differences in their habits and overlapping routes of action ?
DEVELOP
Brainstorming and evaluation
Based on all of the information gathered from my observations and research, I conducted a brainstorming session to generate potential ideas. After careful consideration, I have selected a final concept that I believe has the most potential for success.I picked up the final plan with the highest social value and certain business strength. I also added some advantages from other drafts to the final plan.
Concept variation
After creating a prototype of my final plan, I tested it with various groups of people, and the majority of the feedback was positive. However, I discovered that some elderly individuals were unable to use a particular service that required an application. As a result, I made adjustments to the interaction format to accommodate them.
SOLUTION
Introducing you N-KITCHEN
N-KITCHEN is a community kitchen in China that aims to improve citizens' well-being. It leverages the differences in wake-up times between young and elderly individuals to create a business resource. Using N-KITCHEN as a platform, young citizens can bring personalized and healthy lunchboxes, made by the elderly, to work. In return, the elderly can receive payment and have the opportunity to communicate with young citizens in the same community through the lunchboxes. N-KITCHEN utilizes interpersonal contact to promote overall health and develop a unique community culture, setting it apart from other products.
1.1 Preview In The Community
1.2 Value Proposition
1.3 Persona
1.4 The lunchbox with the message
1.5 The advertisement
1.6 The application
1.7 User journey
1.8 Business model
N-KITCHEN uses win-win cooperation and outsourcing as the operation pattern. N-KITCHEN first picks up the target community and negotiates with the property management company responsible for the community. Then N-KITCHEN will sign an agreement with the property and the property management company can get 50% of the future profit from the kitchen as they become the biggest investor. A manager will also be hired to manage the kitchen in the community. The manager gets the basic salary and 5% of the future profit. At last, N-KITCHEN will offer 25% of the future profit to find a material supplier as a long-term partner and keep the rest at 20%. As N-KITCHEN develops, local government will also join as an investor.
Potential risk:
- property in the community may not allow the existence of the community kitchen
- food safety
- negative comment in favor of the lunch
- a small number of costumers
1.9 Route to market
REFLECTION
Self reflection
There is also a weakness in my design. It would be better if I could interview some people in the life service company to understand more about the ecosystem. This project is an experiment for testing the new business model. Based on my project, other designers could bring this type of business model to other areas and explore the possibility of business implementation.
A chance to execute
Fortunately, a friend gave me the chance to get in touch with a manager who currently worked in a live service company. In order to ask for some recommendations and a chance for carrying out the project, I brought the plan of N-KITCHEN to one of the biggest life service companies in China — Yin Cheng Life Service Co.LTD. I shared N-KITCHEN with one of the managers and she was obviously interested in my concept. She declined that N-KITCHEN will be suitable for the future trend of value recreation from retirees. In China’s 14th Five-Year Plan, the value of recreation from the retirees and home-based care for the aged were the two key points mentioned. And she was also interested in carrying out this concept with me because building a new brand by developing and utilizing community resources was the future direction of the company.
In order to carry out the plan of N-KITCHEN together, she gave me some advice for future development:
- Collect more feedback from multiple communities.
- Build a trail kitchen in the community, in order to find out more problems.
- Try to focus on the aged who just get retired. This plan will help with their adaptation from working mode to retiring mode.
- Try to add some options for the empty-nesters. Some of them are not survived by their families and some are in poor health. It is important to think about all the members of the community.
- Follow China’s 14th Five-Year plan, which may help to receive the investment application from the government.