design safari

for this 'design safari' a few friends and i went to 'spud-u-like' and observed the different people an there interactions with each other. one of the first observations i made was that as soon as people enter the restaurant they frantically scan for a seat in kind of a scared manner, clearly this is tens moment. the next major hurdle that the customer has to overcome is choosing what they want from the vast menu. when my friend an i want to the counter there was no queue so the staff were eager to take our order even before we had decided what we wanted, this made us feel rushed and a bit flustered. when we got our food there was n care in how it was delivered or assembled, the filling was just thrown on the potato's and your tray was thrust at you as if to say 'here you are now go'.
after we had finished eating, we continued our observations. whilst looking around i discovered that people don't take their coats and hats off this is a very informal way of dinning, although the restaurant is a form of fast food like mcDonald's and kfc, a potato isn't really fast food you have to eat it a bit more slowly with a fork and knife. i also noticed that there is no door which makes you feel rushed and unable to settle, people often look out of the door and windows just kind of staring into space probable trying to relax in and an stressful environment.
when observing the kinds of people that were dinning i noticed it was mostly mothers with children there were however 2 business men and a few older people. at about 1.30pm the shop began to get really busy, a queue had started to form, at this point the struggle to find a seat had intensified and as some people leave a large mess on the tables the customers find them selves cleaning up for others when the staff should be doing this but are busy serving. the people who tend to be more considerate about leaving a mess are mainly mothers and older people.
my final observations are that no one looks at the posters promoting the 'new spud' they appear to completely ignore these signs and the ones saying how great the food is, i think people ignore these because the are constantly bombarded with information that has no point, for instance there were 6 or 7 signs promoting the same thing, this is just over kill and is so unnecessary.
this assignment has opened my eyes to what is around me and the way people act. there are hidden rules surrounding our day to day lives and no one seems to pay much attention to them.