IH02-RakeshVij
From IEOR 170 Spring 2007
The Ultimate Pizza Box
Persuasive Design for Campus, City and Community
Rakesh Vij // IEOR 170
Background: Since my youth I have always been exposed to the pizza industry. When I was young I often helped run our family pizzeria, and as I grew up I got even more exposure to the industry. When I was in high school my father decided to solve the customer-pain that he faced along with all the other independent pizzerias. Namely, large paper houses don’t provide independent pizzerias with the custom printed pizza boxes they desire since they use little volume and require constant delivery. To resolve this manufacturing problem we decided to create an operation that utilizes a just-in-time manufacturing system to serve this niche market. Having received the opportunity to actively design, produce and sell pizza boxes I have received the quite an abundance of exposure to the industry and have been able to thoroughly understand what pizzerias and consumers are looking for in a pizza box.
In my pursuit of creating a better pizza box I took my own needfinding approach to learn what users are looking for in a pizza box. By working at the pizzeria I received first hand experience as a user of the actual product, and learned that they key points of interest in a pizza box are: strength, ease of use (opening/closing), ability to withstand warping from steam, and ability to keep the pizza warm for a long period of time. From actively going out there and selling these pizza boxes to over 300 other pizzerias all over Northern California I was able to interview many other store operators to learn what they value in a pizza box and use that knowledge when designing my own pizza box. The result of my research was that they value pretty much the same things that I appreciated as a pizzeria operator except that they highly value the marketing aspect of the pizza box and the unique graphical designs that can be printed on them. Recently I had the distinct pleasure of being able to graphically design the pizza box for our very West Coast Pizza. In Figure 1 below you can see the difference between this unique design and the conventional white pizza box design.
Figure 1:
Problem: Having this exposure to the industry and product I have been able to learn of the various other needs that consumers of pizza have. The most direct need that is generated when pizza is ordered is that of a plate or device to eat the pizza upon. As a college student I have often experienced the agony not having a plate (or at least a clean plate) to put my pizza on when we order pizza at my apartment and have to resort to using a napkin or just eating the pizza without my bare hand. Not only do I end up with a dirty hand, but often the pizza is very hot and ends up burning my hand.
Solution: To alleviate this problem I have designed The Ultimate Pizza Box, which incorporates all of the great design features that I have already built into our pizza boxes but also has an additional layer corrugated layer folded on top which splits into four square cardboard plates that easily tear off the top of the box. Below in Figure 2 you can see a sketch of what this box layout will look like.
Figure 2:
Solution Cont’d: Taking a closer look into this design it can be seen that the four cardboard plates are of perfect size and the perforations allow the plates to easily separate from the box. Pizzas generally vary from 12” to 18” in diameter, but for the most part are shared by 3-4 people. Each of the four plates can hold one quarter of the pizza, so if the pizza has 8 slices each plate can easily hold 2 pieces at a time. If the pizza is larger and has 12 slices each plate will also be larger and will be able to hold 3 larger slices at a time. This product not only satisfies the need of plates when takeout pizza is ordered, but also provides an additional benefit for the environment. Currently, consumers request the pizzeria to send plates with the pizza, and these paper or Styrofoam plates are more often thrown away than recycled. However, due to the large size and cardboard makeup of pizza boxes they are usually thrown into the recycle bin after use. This increased tendency to recycle cardboard should result in the complete recycle of The Ultimate Pizza Box effectively increasing the amount recycled. The product also has ease of use built in so that it is not too hard for pizzeria operators to assemble. There are tabs at the top of the plates that easily slide into preexisting grooves holding the top flap in place. Let’s now take a look at the target user group of my product.
Target User Group: The pizza industry in the US alone is a $2 billion industry, and having received extensive exposure to it I am aware that all kinds of people eat pizza. It is one of America’s favorite dishes and provides a delicious and easy dinner solution. To be quite frank the target user group of this product is everyone that orders and eats takeout pizza. These people are generally looking for an easy meal solution and out of ease would rather use paper plates than have to clean dishes later. However, there are various user groups who have more of an intense need and appreciation for this solution. This group is primarily the community that I belong to: the college student community. Every student group or department on campus has at least one meal gathering every semester, and more often than not the meal being served at these get-togethers is pizza. Being an active college student I have witnessed multiple such pow-wows in which the pizzeria either provides paper plates or the hungry college students simply resort to making a mess. In summation the target user group is the majority of our communities, but the product is especially useful for serving pizza in large group gatherings.
Problem Context and Forces: This analysis has already been done for the most part since the Target User Group section goes in depth about the reasons that pizza consumers need The Ideal Pizza Box, but we will dig a little deeper into this analysis here. As substantiated before people of all communities eat pizza. Just taking a look at the Berkeley college community I can think of ten prosperous pizzerias around town that serve pizza to students, faculty, and local dwellers. Pizza is often eaten as a tasty and easy dinner substitute through which users look for the most ease. Due to the presence of this food in every community the educational background of the consumers varies from elementary school children to PhD candidates. Thus this product design caters to people of every background. The Ideal Pizza Box’s simple and logical design is aided by printed instructions on the box showing users how to tear the plates apart. The problem of needing plates to eat on is a problem every pizza eater faces so there is a natural force that compels each user to find a solution to this problem. However, there is an especially strong force to use this product when large groups gather to eat pizza. This is because they generally lack adequate resources to serve all of the people present. That about sums up the analysis below is an additional sketch of The Ideal Pizza Box.
Figure 3:
