Punto de Interes: Zona G
1. Point of Interest
Zona G is an area in Bogota that shines due to the number of "gourmet" restaurants that reside there. Due to those restaurants, there's a lot of activity in the area from tourists and locals waiting to grab a good meal. Zona G is located between Calles 66 - 72 and Carreras 4 - 9.
2. Time
Visited the place Wednesday January 31, from 7pm to 8pm. It is important to notice a major heist had occurred the previous day in the area.
3. Rationale
The number of people that walk through this area is always high. This behavior is true starting from late in the morning and sustains until early in the night. Due to the sheer traffic this sector experiences, it should be a good place to spot user behavior for people trying to eat at restaurants.
4. Method 1. What? How? Why?
Situation 1
What: Many users are standing in line at Crepes & Waffles waiting to be seated.
How: The users don't seem particularly annoyed by the line. It seems there's a large group of friends who are waiting for a table.
Why: Due to the popularity of the restaurant, its price tag, and the time of day. The restaurant tends to have empty tables quickly that helps them seat the users that are waiting in line faster (making them less annoyed). Also, The weather isn't particularly cold thus being outside doesn't seem like a big deal.
Situation 2
What: Group of friends walking around trying to find a place to eat (it is possible they are foreign).
How: They are walking slowly browsing the restaurants that are located between Calle 69 and Carrera 5 - Carrera 7. If a menu is available outside the restaurant they discuss it with the employee that attends to it.
Why: It seems that they didn't decide beforehand what they wish to eat. They just arrived to the area and starting browsing the restaurants that were available. There are lots of options, they may be overwhelmed by them.
Situation 3
What: A lot of pedestrians in exercise clothes walking around the area.
How: A great deal of them seem exhausted and sweaty. Fewer seem clean, and full of energy.
Why: There are lots of exercise/fitness centers in the area. People attend to either individual or group classes. Due to the hour, more people seem to be finishing their workout than just arriving to start.
Situation 4
What: A man is walking 6 dogs at the same time. The dogs vary in size and breeds, from big ones to small ones.
How: He seems to be walking slowly while making sure the dogs don't go too ahead of him. He is only using one of his hands to grab all leashes. The other hand was briefly used to check his smartphone, and afterwards he used it to clean up after one of the dog's poop.
Why: It seems he was payed to walk those dogs. I assume the dogs' owners live nearby. Since there's mostly apartment buildings in the area, and dogs may get bored inside an apartment, it is nice for them to be strolled outside for a while.
Situation 5
What: A group of delivery guys that work for Rappi are sitting together nearby a restaurant.
How: They are impatiently looking at their smartphone. However, it seems they are used to be sitting idly on that same spot. They are also talking with each other to pass time.
Why: A lot of users delivery request are for restaurants on this area. By sitting there, if a delivery request comes through, they have a better chance of getting selected to perform it, and they have a better chance of delivering it faster.
Situation 6
What: Group of friends exercising in a park. Mostly doing chin ups and pull ups in the kids playground.
How: They have semi-loud music playing from a speaker they brought. They seem to be energetic and encouraging each other to do more exercise repetitions. At the moment, they are not alone in the park, there are other people there sitting by the benches, talking to each other.
Why: It is a way to exercise without paying for a subscription at a gym. They can also be more loud in the park, and feel they're in a less crowded environment.
Situation 7
What: An increasing number of young men in formal attires (suits) are starting to show up in the area to eat.
How: They tend to walk in groups. The biggest one I have spotted had 5 members. While big groups tend to enter fancier restaurants, smaller groups tend to enter fast-food restaurants like Sierra Nevada and "El Corral Gourmet".
Why: At this time, it seems people are getting out of the offices that are nearby. Since most of them are young, they probably don't have a family waiting for them at home so they can eat out much more often with their friends. If a person is alone, they tend to eat on fast-food restaurants to finish up quickly and go home. If a person is with a group, they tend to stay a lot more time in the restaurant.
Situation 8
What: Two valet parking employees are waiting outside a restaurant for cars to show up.
How: They are chatting with each other. They seem to don't mind that they are standing there idly. Once in a while, if a car passes by, they wave a flag to indicate they offer the valet parking service.
Why: The restaurant is located far from the main parking spot in the area. Due to this fact, they have to employ these men to eventually drive their customers cars to the parking lot. Otherwise, their customers would have to walk a lot to get to the restaurant after parking, making it less likely they would eat there.
Situation 9
What: A woman in exercise clothing enters a restaurant that sells healthy "fit" food.
How: She is sweaty and tired. She seems very happy that she is going to eat. She also seems very eager to get her food. After placing her order, she distracts herself with her smartphone.
Why: It seems she just finished her workout and she is very hungry after the fact. Since she just did a workout, she enters the healthy restaurant to avoid losing all the progress she made at the gym.
Situation 10
What: The police is threatening all the cars that are parked at the side of a road that they will be toed. They are also issuing parking tickets.
How: The police is calmly doing their job. At the same time, users are hurrying to move their cars out of the road. They are angry and frustrated.
Why: The police issue the tickets because the cars are making a traffic jam since only one lane can be used at a time. However, the users park there since the place they want to go to (the gym) has no parking lot.
Situation 11
What: A lot of people at a Starbucks are working/planning entrepreneurial projects.
How: They all have laptops, or tablets on the table with different software open like Slack, Powerpoint, Word, etc. They are discussing with the other persons in their same table about the ideas, and business pitches.
Why: People tend to like working at Starbucks since it is a place outside of home that has good wifi, and its tables enable discussion between the team. It also has a good view. For some, just the act of speaking of creating a business with their friends is enough, and no actual working on the business needs to be done. I have yet to see a group actually implementing, prototyping, or contacting clients there.
Situation 12
What: Low-income / Street merchants stand in the sidewalks trying to sell random goods to pedestrians. They vary from "Eucaliptus" branches with leaves, to toy cars for kids.
How: Most of them kindly ask if you wish to purchase one of their goods. At times, beggars appear who angrily demand for money (they don't sell anything). They seem tired.
Why: Since this area has a lot of pedestrian traffic, it is useful for them to sell merchandise here. People also tend to carry money since they are visiting the restaurants nearby. They are tired since they arrive early in the morning and leave in the night every day of the week.
Situation 13
What: A man riding a bike transits in the sidewalk instead of using the road. Pedestrians must uncomfortably move to make way for the bike.
How: He seems to be reluctant to what he is doing. It seems he doesn't think it's wrong. He is riding the bike at a moderate speed. He is not carrying additional items like bags or a backpack.
Why: It seems he is avoiding cars as much as he can. There's no bike lane in Zona G, and cars tend to ignore people riding bikes. He feels safer in the sidewalk.
Situation 14
What: A bunch of kids from different schools are hanging out in a Cupcake bakery (Fratelli).
How: The kids sit only with kids from their same school. They seem upbeat. They are still carrying their backpacks with them.
Why: There are lots of highschools nearby. It seems they like to hangout in Zona G after school is over. They only interact people from their same school since it is the people they are familiar with.
5. Travel Map
The travel map is focused on a group of users that just arrived to Crepes & Waffles. I sat on a bench right beside the restaurant. This is a picture of the area that was not taken the same day I visited it. The picture was not taken at the specified times in the Travel Map since heists have recently gone up in the area and I was taking precautions. However, I did sketch some drawings using stick-figures. In order to increase their quality, I used clipart to represent what I had represented on paper.
7:23pm: Group of 3 friends arrive at the line outside of Crepes & Waffles in order to get a table. Around 4 people were ahead of them in the line. They are all wearing jackets and pants. However, the jackets don't seem particularly warm.
7:23pm: A female employee approaches them, asks them the size of the table they sought. They respond they want a table for three. It seems they are not waiting for other friends. They request to be seated near a heater if possible. The employee and the group were all calm during this exchange.
7:30pm: The group of friends were still waiting to be seated. They are chatting with each other. They don't seem to be minding the wait. The people in front of them have already been seated. They should be next.
7:35pm: The employee approaches them, tells them a table is about to be free. They should wait a couple of minutes while the other users pay and they clean the table. They are happy that they are going to enter the restaurant soon. One of them claimed to be very hungry. Another one stated that he really wants to eat a dessert (nutella waffle). At this point, they were speaking very loudly.
7:41pm: The group of friends enter the restaurant and are seated at their table. There are no more people waiting in line. The employee goes back inside the restaurant and stays inside.
6. Brainstorm of problems encountered in point of interest
1. Parking spaces (there's only one big parking lot in Zona G, if its full people wait in a line with their cars). The line to enter the parking space causes a traffic jam.
2. Long lines to be seated on popular restaurants. It is very uncomfortable for a user to have to wait to be able to get a table at a restaurant. Specially if the weather is cold. Lines also make the user consider other restaurants to eat at in order to avoid them.
3. People exploring freely the zone with no idea which restaurant to pick. It is really hard to make up your mind due to the sheer amount of restaurants in the area. It is also difficult to look at ratings for all of them. Specially when looking through Google Maps.
4. It is hard for pedestrians to transit the area since the roads are very busy. This leads them to cross the street while the stoplight is in green which is very dangerous.
5. High number of homeless people in the area. Most of them sells goods, but some are just beggars. Decreases the zone's allure.
6. Very high number of delivery guys in the same place leads to great competition among them to get orders from users for restaurants in the area. They waste valuable time waiting for a request.
7. Dog walkers main source of new clients is only through word of mouth. This leads them to have a small number of clients, which means their income doing that is limited.
8. Menus tend to be in only one language. Foreigners that don't speak Spanish have a hard time figuring out what a restaurants offers, and thus might overlook it when they could actually love it.
9. There's no space for drive throughs on restaurants since the area is overcrowded. This can potentially be a huge source of revenue since the area has a lot of traffic.
10. There's no signaling to indicate which streets are still part of the Zona G, and thus, have restaurants in them. A pedestrian that is not familiar with the area can miss out the opportunity of trying new things due to ignorance.
7. How Did I Do It
In order to observe the users in the point of interest I first walked around Zona G. Specifically, I started at the Carulla in Calle 71 with Carrera 5, and walked my way to Calle 69A with Carrera 7.
I brought a notebook and a pen that I was using to make observation of the different things I saw on my journey. I had my smartphone with me, but was taking precautions with it since heists had recently occurred in the area. During this walk I saw the majority of situations since I had access to a wide range of restaurants.
Small bullet points of what I saw where jotted down in the notebook I carried. Afterwards, I sat at the local Starbucks to elaborate on the ideas I had previously recorded while they were still fresh. After compiling all my thoughts, I went outside the Starbucks and sat at a bench that is in front of "Farmatodo" and right besides Crepes & Waffles. There I created my travel map of the users doing a line to enter the restaurant. Taking into account that my drawing skills are subpar, I made stick-figure sketches of what was happening to the users I was observing closely.
After I finished my travel map I headed home. There, I refined my drawings for them to be more easily interpreted. I did this by using clipart with the Sketchpad software.
Zona G is an area in Bogota that shines due to the number of "gourmet" restaurants that reside there. Due to those restaurants, there's a lot of activity in the area from tourists and locals waiting to grab a good meal. Zona G is located between Calles 66 - 72 and Carreras 4 - 9.
2. Time
Visited the place Wednesday January 31, from 7pm to 8pm. It is important to notice a major heist had occurred the previous day in the area.
3. Rationale
The number of people that walk through this area is always high. This behavior is true starting from late in the morning and sustains until early in the night. Due to the sheer traffic this sector experiences, it should be a good place to spot user behavior for people trying to eat at restaurants.
4. Method 1. What? How? Why?
Situation 1
What: Many users are standing in line at Crepes & Waffles waiting to be seated.
How: The users don't seem particularly annoyed by the line. It seems there's a large group of friends who are waiting for a table.
Why: Due to the popularity of the restaurant, its price tag, and the time of day. The restaurant tends to have empty tables quickly that helps them seat the users that are waiting in line faster (making them less annoyed). Also, The weather isn't particularly cold thus being outside doesn't seem like a big deal.
Situation 2
What: Group of friends walking around trying to find a place to eat (it is possible they are foreign).
How: They are walking slowly browsing the restaurants that are located between Calle 69 and Carrera 5 - Carrera 7. If a menu is available outside the restaurant they discuss it with the employee that attends to it.
Why: It seems that they didn't decide beforehand what they wish to eat. They just arrived to the area and starting browsing the restaurants that were available. There are lots of options, they may be overwhelmed by them.
Situation 3
What: A lot of pedestrians in exercise clothes walking around the area.
How: A great deal of them seem exhausted and sweaty. Fewer seem clean, and full of energy.
Why: There are lots of exercise/fitness centers in the area. People attend to either individual or group classes. Due to the hour, more people seem to be finishing their workout than just arriving to start.
Situation 4
What: A man is walking 6 dogs at the same time. The dogs vary in size and breeds, from big ones to small ones.
How: He seems to be walking slowly while making sure the dogs don't go too ahead of him. He is only using one of his hands to grab all leashes. The other hand was briefly used to check his smartphone, and afterwards he used it to clean up after one of the dog's poop.
Why: It seems he was payed to walk those dogs. I assume the dogs' owners live nearby. Since there's mostly apartment buildings in the area, and dogs may get bored inside an apartment, it is nice for them to be strolled outside for a while.
Situation 5
What: A group of delivery guys that work for Rappi are sitting together nearby a restaurant.
How: They are impatiently looking at their smartphone. However, it seems they are used to be sitting idly on that same spot. They are also talking with each other to pass time.
Why: A lot of users delivery request are for restaurants on this area. By sitting there, if a delivery request comes through, they have a better chance of getting selected to perform it, and they have a better chance of delivering it faster.
Situation 6
What: Group of friends exercising in a park. Mostly doing chin ups and pull ups in the kids playground.
How: They have semi-loud music playing from a speaker they brought. They seem to be energetic and encouraging each other to do more exercise repetitions. At the moment, they are not alone in the park, there are other people there sitting by the benches, talking to each other.
Why: It is a way to exercise without paying for a subscription at a gym. They can also be more loud in the park, and feel they're in a less crowded environment.
Situation 7
What: An increasing number of young men in formal attires (suits) are starting to show up in the area to eat.
How: They tend to walk in groups. The biggest one I have spotted had 5 members. While big groups tend to enter fancier restaurants, smaller groups tend to enter fast-food restaurants like Sierra Nevada and "El Corral Gourmet".
Why: At this time, it seems people are getting out of the offices that are nearby. Since most of them are young, they probably don't have a family waiting for them at home so they can eat out much more often with their friends. If a person is alone, they tend to eat on fast-food restaurants to finish up quickly and go home. If a person is with a group, they tend to stay a lot more time in the restaurant.
Situation 8
What: Two valet parking employees are waiting outside a restaurant for cars to show up.
How: They are chatting with each other. They seem to don't mind that they are standing there idly. Once in a while, if a car passes by, they wave a flag to indicate they offer the valet parking service.
Why: The restaurant is located far from the main parking spot in the area. Due to this fact, they have to employ these men to eventually drive their customers cars to the parking lot. Otherwise, their customers would have to walk a lot to get to the restaurant after parking, making it less likely they would eat there.
Situation 9
What: A woman in exercise clothing enters a restaurant that sells healthy "fit" food.
How: She is sweaty and tired. She seems very happy that she is going to eat. She also seems very eager to get her food. After placing her order, she distracts herself with her smartphone.
Why: It seems she just finished her workout and she is very hungry after the fact. Since she just did a workout, she enters the healthy restaurant to avoid losing all the progress she made at the gym.
Situation 10
What: The police is threatening all the cars that are parked at the side of a road that they will be toed. They are also issuing parking tickets.
How: The police is calmly doing their job. At the same time, users are hurrying to move their cars out of the road. They are angry and frustrated.
Why: The police issue the tickets because the cars are making a traffic jam since only one lane can be used at a time. However, the users park there since the place they want to go to (the gym) has no parking lot.
Situation 11
What: A lot of people at a Starbucks are working/planning entrepreneurial projects.
How: They all have laptops, or tablets on the table with different software open like Slack, Powerpoint, Word, etc. They are discussing with the other persons in their same table about the ideas, and business pitches.
Why: People tend to like working at Starbucks since it is a place outside of home that has good wifi, and its tables enable discussion between the team. It also has a good view. For some, just the act of speaking of creating a business with their friends is enough, and no actual working on the business needs to be done. I have yet to see a group actually implementing, prototyping, or contacting clients there.
Situation 12
What: Low-income / Street merchants stand in the sidewalks trying to sell random goods to pedestrians. They vary from "Eucaliptus" branches with leaves, to toy cars for kids.
How: Most of them kindly ask if you wish to purchase one of their goods. At times, beggars appear who angrily demand for money (they don't sell anything). They seem tired.
Why: Since this area has a lot of pedestrian traffic, it is useful for them to sell merchandise here. People also tend to carry money since they are visiting the restaurants nearby. They are tired since they arrive early in the morning and leave in the night every day of the week.
Situation 13
What: A man riding a bike transits in the sidewalk instead of using the road. Pedestrians must uncomfortably move to make way for the bike.
How: He seems to be reluctant to what he is doing. It seems he doesn't think it's wrong. He is riding the bike at a moderate speed. He is not carrying additional items like bags or a backpack.
Why: It seems he is avoiding cars as much as he can. There's no bike lane in Zona G, and cars tend to ignore people riding bikes. He feels safer in the sidewalk.
Situation 14
What: A bunch of kids from different schools are hanging out in a Cupcake bakery (Fratelli).
How: The kids sit only with kids from their same school. They seem upbeat. They are still carrying their backpacks with them.
Why: There are lots of highschools nearby. It seems they like to hangout in Zona G after school is over. They only interact people from their same school since it is the people they are familiar with.
Situation 15
What: Pedestrians try to cross the road (Carrera 5) while the traffic light is still in green.
How: They seem to defiantly look at the car coming at them and just start crossing. Some look angsty, others have a neutral expression. They majority tend to walk fast as they cross the road.
Why: The stoplights tend to last too long on this street. Also, there's lots of speed reduction mechanisms laid on the road to avoid cars from going too fast. Some of the pedestrians are in a hurry, but that is not always the case.
What: Pedestrians try to cross the road (Carrera 5) while the traffic light is still in green.
How: They seem to defiantly look at the car coming at them and just start crossing. Some look angsty, others have a neutral expression. They majority tend to walk fast as they cross the road.
Why: The stoplights tend to last too long on this street. Also, there's lots of speed reduction mechanisms laid on the road to avoid cars from going too fast. Some of the pedestrians are in a hurry, but that is not always the case.
5. Travel Map
The travel map is focused on a group of users that just arrived to Crepes & Waffles. I sat on a bench right beside the restaurant. This is a picture of the area that was not taken the same day I visited it. The picture was not taken at the specified times in the Travel Map since heists have recently gone up in the area and I was taking precautions. However, I did sketch some drawings using stick-figures. In order to increase their quality, I used clipart to represent what I had represented on paper.
7:23pm: Group of 3 friends arrive at the line outside of Crepes & Waffles in order to get a table. Around 4 people were ahead of them in the line. They are all wearing jackets and pants. However, the jackets don't seem particularly warm.
7:23pm: A female employee approaches them, asks them the size of the table they sought. They respond they want a table for three. It seems they are not waiting for other friends. They request to be seated near a heater if possible. The employee and the group were all calm during this exchange.
7:30pm: The group of friends were still waiting to be seated. They are chatting with each other. They don't seem to be minding the wait. The people in front of them have already been seated. They should be next.
7:35pm: The employee approaches them, tells them a table is about to be free. They should wait a couple of minutes while the other users pay and they clean the table. They are happy that they are going to enter the restaurant soon. One of them claimed to be very hungry. Another one stated that he really wants to eat a dessert (nutella waffle). At this point, they were speaking very loudly.
7:41pm: The group of friends enter the restaurant and are seated at their table. There are no more people waiting in line. The employee goes back inside the restaurant and stays inside.
6. Brainstorm of problems encountered in point of interest
1. Parking spaces (there's only one big parking lot in Zona G, if its full people wait in a line with their cars). The line to enter the parking space causes a traffic jam.
2. Long lines to be seated on popular restaurants. It is very uncomfortable for a user to have to wait to be able to get a table at a restaurant. Specially if the weather is cold. Lines also make the user consider other restaurants to eat at in order to avoid them.
3. People exploring freely the zone with no idea which restaurant to pick. It is really hard to make up your mind due to the sheer amount of restaurants in the area. It is also difficult to look at ratings for all of them. Specially when looking through Google Maps.
4. It is hard for pedestrians to transit the area since the roads are very busy. This leads them to cross the street while the stoplight is in green which is very dangerous.
5. High number of homeless people in the area. Most of them sells goods, but some are just beggars. Decreases the zone's allure.
6. Very high number of delivery guys in the same place leads to great competition among them to get orders from users for restaurants in the area. They waste valuable time waiting for a request.
7. Dog walkers main source of new clients is only through word of mouth. This leads them to have a small number of clients, which means their income doing that is limited.
8. Menus tend to be in only one language. Foreigners that don't speak Spanish have a hard time figuring out what a restaurants offers, and thus might overlook it when they could actually love it.
9. There's no space for drive throughs on restaurants since the area is overcrowded. This can potentially be a huge source of revenue since the area has a lot of traffic.
10. There's no signaling to indicate which streets are still part of the Zona G, and thus, have restaurants in them. A pedestrian that is not familiar with the area can miss out the opportunity of trying new things due to ignorance.
7. How Did I Do It
In order to observe the users in the point of interest I first walked around Zona G. Specifically, I started at the Carulla in Calle 71 with Carrera 5, and walked my way to Calle 69A with Carrera 7.
I brought a notebook and a pen that I was using to make observation of the different things I saw on my journey. I had my smartphone with me, but was taking precautions with it since heists had recently occurred in the area. During this walk I saw the majority of situations since I had access to a wide range of restaurants.
Small bullet points of what I saw where jotted down in the notebook I carried. Afterwards, I sat at the local Starbucks to elaborate on the ideas I had previously recorded while they were still fresh. After compiling all my thoughts, I went outside the Starbucks and sat at a bench that is in front of "Farmatodo" and right besides Crepes & Waffles. There I created my travel map of the users doing a line to enter the restaurant. Taking into account that my drawing skills are subpar, I made stick-figure sketches of what was happening to the users I was observing closely.
After I finished my travel map I headed home. There, I refined my drawings for them to be more easily interpreted. I did this by using clipart with the Sketchpad software.
Comments
Post a Comment