An Innovative Food Delivery System with Offerings Etiquette of the Funeral Culture in Taiwan: Foodagogo (II)
Project Scope: 4 months
Project Type: Personal
Role: UX Research, UI Design, Prototype
Tools: Sketch, Invision, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, After Effect, Audition
2020, Gold Award in Student Web/App Category, Muse Creative Awards, New York, USA
Overview
In recent years, the food ordering system has been growing up tremendously and people relied on using a mobile phone to order meals gradually. The idea of the Foodagogo system with offerings etiquette is inspired by the personal experience of the researcher. The researcher noticed that the funeral industry hasn't developed an application on offerings delivery platforms, in addition, the offerings has high market demands not only on funeral ceremonies but also on specific festivals in Taiwan.
The traditional offerings etiquette in Taiwan was inherited from ancestors. With the development of modern society, a prosperous economy, and intensive life, fewer and fewer people are willing to understand the meaning of Taiwanese traditional funerals, even a few people understand how the funeral to proceed, but people still follow and respect the etiquettes devoutly either on special festivals or funerals.
In the early agricultural society, the Taiwanese people lived closed and were very concerned about the local community. Without any service system, everything had to be done by themselves with help from the community, including weddings and funerals. Nowadays, most people feel out of tune with traditional etiquette because of the cumbersome ritual process and time-consuming impression for funerals except the elders who still have some understanding of various religious ceremonies, etiquette, customs, and taboos. Most people just follow the instructions of the etiquette from the funeral company and turn to seek support from professional companies in a competitive commercial society.
The concept of Foodagogo service is to innovate and develop the business strategy among the food delivery system, offerings etiquette, and funeral industry in Taiwan. Foodagogo would like to deliver three main concepts for the customers, "new traditional", "educational", and "transparent". Foodagogo provides not only new offerings experience among mourners, relatives, and friends but also provides the educational meaning of worship offerings knowledge for the users.
Design Process
1. Research
- Background intro
- Traditional funeral culture in Taiwan
- The custom of worship offerings
- The custom of giving canned food tower
- Observe funeral company from a customer perspective
- Observe mourner from a customer perspective
- HMW question
- Opportunity
2. Ideate
- Best practices
- The best possible solution
3. Build
- Design elements analysis
- Final UI screens
- Prototype
- Cost and revenue estimate
4. Outcome
- Recommendations
1. Research
Background Intro
The traditional offerings etiquette in Taiwan was inherited from ancestors. With the development of modern society, a prosperous economy, and intensive life, fewer and fewer people are willing to understand the meaning of Taiwanese traditional funerals, even a few people understand how the funeral proceeds, but people still follow and respect the etiquettes devoutly either on special festivals or funerals.
Traditional Funeral Culture in Taiwan
According to the custom of Taiwanese society, it usually takes 10 to 15 days from death to burial.
During the period, the family will hang the different color lanterns in front of their house based on people who pass away at different ages.
Funeral Process: Body Placement, Erecting the Spirit, Obituary, Layout the Remains, Funeral Ceremony, Cremation Burial, Place in the Columbarium, An Ling, Worship
The Custom of Worship Offerings
The offerings etiquette is to provide the meals to worship the deceased every morning and evening (aka filial piety meals).
The worship meal is serving a bowl of rice, three dishes, and one soup.
The Custom of Giving Canned Food Tower
In the beginning, the relatives and friends in the neighborhood would buy rice, dried fish, pastries, and other foods for the mourners, they were worried about mourners would forget to eat because of sadness and busyness. There was another meaning of "Caring of the Family" for the mourners. Therefore, the canned food tower is an expression of the warmth and care of relatives and friends.
Observe Funeral Company from a Customer Perspective
The funeral company is...
Observe Mourner from a Customer Perspective
The mourner is...
How might we envision a transparent ordering experience among food delivery system, offerings etiquette, and funeral industry?
Opportunity
The food delivery system for the funeral market in Taiwan would bring high benefits for this specific industry and customers. According to Table 1, there are a total of 176,296 deaths in 2019, the average funeral cost per person is about $10,000 USD, the estimated revenue is about $1.7 billion USD in Taiwan. The researcher looks forward to using funeral knowledge, offerings etiquette to connect with the creative ideas of the food delivery service to explore the crux problems.
2. Ideate
Best Practices - Jinyu Enterprise
Jinyu Enterprise is a professional canned food tower manufacture in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Jinyu provides two types of customized services, budget consideration and product consideration for their customers. Budget consideration, according to the budget demand and product quantity from customers and customizes the canned food tower for customers. Product consideration, the customer would specify the products then the manufacture takes responsibility for designing and packaging the canned food tower.
Best Practices - My Sunny
My Sunny is an autonomous, intellectual, sustainable, professional, and transparent funeral service system. Autonomous service, the customers could buy anything they need through this platform, they don't have to be distracted by the salesperson. Intellectual service, the system could distinguish the location and the plan chosen by customers and give the best suggestion for them. Sustainable service, the platform would make a specific purchase procedure for an environmental funeral for customers.
The Best Possible Solution
What is Foodagogo?
The concept of Foodagogo service is to innovate and develop the business strategy among the food delivery system, offerings etiquette, and funeral industry in Taiwan. Foodagogo would like to deliver three main concepts for the customers, "new traditional", "educational", and "transparent". Foodagogo provides not only new offerings experience among mourners, relatives, and friends but also provides the educational meaning of worship offerings knowledge for the users. Foodagogo, a food delivery system consists of two ordering services, ready-to-worship and ready-to-care.
Ready-to-Worship
Ready-to-worship is to provide customized worship offerings meals for mourners to show their filial piety and respect for the deceased and to help the industry build up a sustainable food delivery system. What's more, the service provides a food waste compost plan that the company would recycle the meals as fertilizer to compost the trees, that planted in the burial cemetery, after the funeral ceremony.
Ready-to-Care
Ready-to-care is to provide customized canned food tower service for relatives and friends which is helping them show their concern and expression of warmth and care of mourners, furthermore, in order to provide a transparent price for the customer, this service would show the prices of every canned product and the total manufacture fee on the application also would match the local manufactures which collaborate with Foodagogo directly, near customer's location.
3. Build
Design Elements Analysis - Colors
According to the traditional custom of the society in Taiwan, during the funeral period, the mourner has to hang the different colors of lanterns in front of the house based on people who pass away at different ages (Table 1). In the Foodagogo system, the researcher would like to use modern colors (Table 2) to attract users of the younger generation instead of the traditional colors which were usually used by a funeral company.
Table 1. The Different Lantern Colors for Different Age
Table 2. The Color Hierarchy of Foodagogo
Final UI Screens
Prototype
Cost & Revenue Estimate
Total Costs €30,700 / Month
Total Revenue €85,143 / Month
4. Outcome
Recommendation
The researcher would like to give some recommendations for the future funeral company also to help the industry increase the market demands in Taiwan:
1. The company should educate or hire more professionals who are known about e-commerce knowledge to enhance the acceptance of technology from employees. The employees could also take the professional training course in Workforce Development Agency, Ministry of Labor.
2. The funeral company could look up some popular delivery applications, such as UberEATS, Foodpanda, as their reference to design a new application for specific services.
3. The funeral industry could develop the marketing strategy of online to offline. To make consumers buy offerings products on their mobile phones or on the website, and then consumers could pick up their orders and enjoy the service at their local retail store.