Vivian Wang Individual Reflection | Plates

Looking back on this course, I’m happy to say that this course exceeded my expectations because of its emphasis on the human side of product management. Initially, I was worried that the class might be another STEM class in my quarter, but I appreciated the delicate balance between the technical components and business related components. At the beginning of the class, my team and I thought that we were going to build a productivity app. After conducting several user interviews, we all reconvened and realized that there was not a demand for the product that we were originally interested in building. Initially, I thought that this was a sign that I did not understand how product management worked, but after my group and I spoke with Katherine, we realized that pivoting is all part of the process.

After we pivoted to making plates, our group was able to move forward very quickly with user interviews, prototyping, and engineering the app. One aspect that was particularly surprising to me was how important organization (& lots of charts!) is for a product manager. When we were creating experience prototyping, I learned that testing key assumptions is necessary because while my team and I might assume a particular aspect of the user, it is still necessary to test it. I appreciated how the case studies that we were assigned connected directly to our projects; the case studies showed how a lack of user interviews and experience prototyping can lead to unfortunate outcomes for a product.

If we had more time, I would have liked to expand more on the social aspect of our product. More specifically, I would be interested in continuing to build this product’s social activities, such that we can provide prompts or fun activities for the users to participate in. As of right now, we do not have prompts that can help spark conversations between the plates users; I think that expanding on this social aspect could help us differentiate ourselves from other food delivery apps such as DoorDash or UberEats.

Additionally, another component that I would include if we had more time would be to include a pre-order option in which users can order their meal up to one week in advance. Currently, our app requires the user to book it the day of the delivery but I think that it would be beneficial if we allowed users to pre-order their meal. Moreover, I would be interested in doing some more user interviews to see if users would be interested in subscribing to a Plates Premium option which unlocks more restaurant options and possibly a rewards system.