How do they feel?

Empathy is the best way to understand exactly how other people feel. Empathy means we put ourselves at other people positions then feel and think like they do. First, I think about who are the people that related with canteen. There are costumer, staff, cleaning service and owner of the canteen.

Costumers, who are students, worker, employee and other citizens, will have difficulties in finding seats, they may have to queue for a long time and the atmosphere of the canteen will be uncomfortable for them to enjoy their meals because it is too crowded. From student’s point of view, the problem is the long queue of waiting to be served. When finally they get their turn to be served the problem is nowhere to sit down to eat lunch. By the time you could eat lunch, the one hour noon break would be consumed only for waiting. On the other side, the food price in small canteen is usually cheaper and there is a big chance for them to meet their friends in a small space.  

 Crowded school canteen

                                                         

People are queuing for payment

Staffs must work faster and they may make some mistakes, such as charging the wrong price and giving the wrong change. For cleaning service, it will be faster for them to clean up the whole space. But the canteen will get dirty faster and it will be difficult to clean up because it is too crowded.  

 

Staff and cashier of a canteen

A cleaning service is cleaning the table

For a small canteen, owner pays lower rent fee. Owner also does not need to hire many workers. But on the other side, small canteen means less costumers and less income. The rating of the canteen also will be not so good. 

  

There are both positive and negative sides for people if the canteen is too small, but generally it is more to the negative sides.