RIT FARMERS MARKET

This week for our second class we were given the opportunity to jump right into actual fieldwork to practice empathy in regards to design thinking. Our assignment was to attend the RIT farmers market and observe the market sellers, customers, and overall environment that made up the farmers market that day. We where asked to take down observations of the environment, ask sellers questions and ask potential customers why they had come to the market and what sparked there interest for attending the market.

When we got there an observation I made immediately was the fact that there seemed to be a lack of advertisements that actually told people there was a market happening. Location is very important for this market because it really doesn't get much advertising from RIT other than an email. The location that the market was held at this week was right behind the Gordon Field House.

As you can see the location of the market was directly to the side of the quarter mile, just as you walk into dorm side of the RIT campus. The location was directly down a hill and off to the side of the quarter mile almost hidden by trees as you walked along the path. Although this spot was preferred by the marketers because of its closer location to campus, its poor visibility and lack of advertisement might cause people to walk right past it without even knowing what was going on. One person I ask said that the only reason she came down to the market was because she saw all the tents and was curious.

Another observation that we noticed was the various different layouts that each vendor had. Many of the vendors for the most part displayed there items in a typical display layout where the vendor is on one side and the customer is on the other separated by there table that held product. We did notice that one vendor implored a different layout that seemed to be more effective in customer engagement.

Below is the layout that we believed to be a much more effective layout. This layout enticed customers to come into a store like environment where they were surrounded by merchandise. This layout also allowed the vendor to provide customers with a more personal experience. Creating greater customer engagement.

During our 30-minute observation we were able to ask various people that were attending the market various questions. Many of the customers where RIT students or faculty but there were also peopling who where not associated with the school. Many of the people attending the market were returning customers there were a few first time customers but almost everyone had heard about the RIT market in some manner.

The Last major observation that we notice was that there were people at the market other than food vendors. One of these vendors seemed to be some sort of student organization raffling off prizes and the other was Brick City Catering. Brick City Catering also had a tent and provided visitors with food samples. The cool thing we found out from RIT catering was that the recipes they were cooking and giving free samples out where made from materials that could be bought at the market that day.

After our observation the class headed back to the conference room and split up into teams and created posted notes of things we observed in related with design thinking. After brainstorming a bit our team grouped these various ideas into clusters of observations.

Observation Grouping:

Restrictions: Perishable Items, Utilities, Inventory, Non Perishable items, time of year.

Products: Ready to eat, product availability, fresh foods, farms from Bloomfield, Baked Goods, Product selection

Location: Weather, Tent Layout, Environment Location, And Poor Visibility

Accessibility: Customer accessibility, Prices, Time, Cash Market, Vendor accessibility

Campus Involvement: RIT dinning, Raffle?

Marketing: Better advertising, free samples, Self-promotions, Presentation, Product layout, Uniqueness to campus, Customer engagement.