Smart Cart
“The quicker way to grab groceries”
Don’t have time to waste when shopping for food? Smart Cart is the perfect way to plan your trips to the grocery store. It finds the quickest path to grab all the food items you need. Can’t find the Hellmanns low-fat Mayonnaise for your world famous potato salad? Find it using Smart Cart!
PROBLEM
Berkeley Innovation is UC Berkeley’s Human-Centered Design Consultancy. The following design challenge was given by them as part of their membership application:
“Consider the experience of finding an item in a grocery store. Understand your user and propose a design solution.”
“Consider the experience of finding an item in a grocery store. Understand your user and propose a design solution.”
USER RESEARCH
The scope of the problem was broad so I conducted user research by going to a local grocery store and talked to people while they were shopping in order to figure out their needs and pain points when finding an item. A couple of questions I asked them were:
- While shopping, how do you know what to buy?
- What is something you needed to buy today?
- What is something you needed to buy today?
• Could you describe or even show me your process for retrieving that item?
- What do you do if you can’t find an item you need when: • The store has it, but you can’t locate it
• The store doesn’t have it
• The store doesn’t have it
OBSERVATIONS AND INSIGHTS
Here were some of the things I learned after interview a handful of people at Safeway:
- Shoppers had different ways of tracking what they needed (lists, texts, memory)
- People will buy things they didn’t intend on buying if they see it and realize they want or need it
- People will rely on the signs at the end of each aisle to figure where their items are
- People will buy things they didn’t intend on buying if they see it and realize they want or need it
- People will rely on the signs at the end of each aisle to figure where their items are
• More experienced/regular shoppers have an idea of where things are so they only use signs when they can’t remember
- People prefer to look for their items themselves before going to an employee
• there’s an expectation for employees to know where items are
• You can either walk around until you find an employee, or go to the front of the store
• Most people will go to an employee after not being able to find an item
• People don’t want to talk to an employee if they don’t have to
• You can either walk around until you find an employee, or go to the front of the store
• Most people will go to an employee after not being able to find an item
• People don’t want to talk to an employee if they don’t have to
PERSONAS
From there, I created a couple Personas using the interviews I conducted in order to frame the design space.
IDEATION
After synthesizing personas from my interviews, I sat down and brainstormed possible solutions, guiding my ideas with the following “How Might We”:
“How might we make it easier and faster for shoppers to find the items people need when grocery shopping?”
“How might we make it easier and faster for shoppers to find the items people need when grocery shopping?”
I took a couple of these ideas and decided to create a mobile app that incorporates the following features:
This app focuses on the following assumptions gained from interviews:
- map/directory of the store
- catalog for looking up items
- mapping and direction
- A grocery list
- catalog for looking up items
- mapping and direction
- A grocery list
This app focuses on the following assumptions gained from interviews:
- People are already used to using aisle signs to look for their items
- Frequency of use would allow them to get a better feel for the store
- People don’t want to talk to another human when looking for their items
- Frequency of use would allow them to get a better feel for the store
- People don’t want to talk to another human when looking for their items
SKETCHES
The goal of the product was to have users find the items they need as quickly as possible. A couple of the features I wanted to include were:
- Pick a store location
- Map of the store
- search for items
- take items from the list and plan an optimized route in the store
- Map of the store
• Explore sections of store
• Show products in each section
- List • Show products in each section
- search for items
• add items to list
- add items - take items from the list and plan an optimized route in the store
INITIAL WIREFRAMES
FEEDBACK
I showed the wireframes to some friends and asked them if they had any feedback or questions for me. Here were some takeaways I got from them:
- Add search functionality for products on the map screen
• “I don’t necessarily want to map out my whole plan, I might just be looking for one item that I can’t find”
• “It would be annoying if I had to click on different sections over and over until I found the right section”
- Bookmark specific stores • “It would be annoying if I had to click on different sections over and over until I found the right section”
• It wasn’t clear if the user had to pick a new store every time they opened the app
• “It would be nice if the app just remembered the store I wanted to use after the first time”
• “It would be nice if the app just remembered the store I wanted to use after the first time”
FINAL PRODUCT
Feel free to explore my Invision prototype!
IF I HAD MORE TIME
I wanted to do more, but simply didn't have the time!
- I would take the time to create a mid-fidelity prototype for usability testing before moving on to final screens.
• It wasn’t very realistic just showing people the Sketch file and asking for feedback
- Another round of user testing using the hi-fi prototype
• It would have been good to see what could be improved with the final product!