Skeeper

Skeeper, the cure for Dinner Amnesia

Problem

“Where should we meet for dinner?” There are so many factors to consider: Isabel is in Boulder and she’s gluten-free. Wes doesn’t like chains. We want to be waited on so that we can talk more. “Why can’t we remember what we liked before?” If we reach for Yelp, Urbanspoon, Foursquare or Open Table it will tell us what everyone else in the world wants, and even if we “hearted” a restaurant, it won’t know the difference between good for weekday dinner and a Mother’s Day brunch.

Solution

You know that feeling when you walk out of a restaurant and say “That’s a keeper!”? It was right for the occasion, right for the friends and family members, right location. This app, Skeeper, utilizes the “check in” functionality of restaurant apps to create something more substantial. In the same amount of time it takes to say, “Hey. I’m at dinner with my kids,” on Facebook, you can make yourself into that person who “always knows the best spot to meet.” Skeeper collects what works for you and your specific friends and family, It uses that information when you search for a place to meet.

User Research

Summary

• Several consistent themes emerged around the process to answer “Where do you want to eat?” including frustration over the multiple phone calls/texts, anxiety about pleasing everyone, and a sense that it should be easier. Dinner Amnesia is a term used by some to describe the baffling experience of drawing a blank as if “I’d never been to a restaurant.”

• When you are searching for a restaurant, you are never everyone nor alone. The people you eat with are a predictable group. Most often you eat with the same 3-5 people (husband, wife, significant other, kids). On a less frequent level, there might be 10-15 people (parents, nieces, girlfriends, work friends) and they tend to fall in groups. These 3-20 people’s specific preferences, location and time constraints are more critical to the restaurant choice than the standardized information that can be offered in a mass market product such as Yelp etc.

• The event type or mood is the starting point. Although Yelp, Urbanspoon and some attempt to classify the mood or goal of the event (romantic, family, noise-level) they often fail because the crowd’s idea of a good happy hour, for example, doesn’t not match personal preferences of our 20 people.

What a solution should offer

• Fewer back and forth calls/texts
• Avoid one person having to compromise for another
• Facilitate connection between people, not interrupt
• Make suggestions based on past choices
• Remember critical constraints like location and food allergies.

Point of View

• When people meet at a restaurant, the goal is connection over good food. Neither aspect can make up for the other if unsuccessful,

• The planning can add to the connection or take away; if the process is frustrating it can cloud the event itself.

Flow Diagram