Improving the in-store grocery shopping experience for the 858,400 international students who come to the US every year.
Overview
4
Weeks
Figma
Procreate
Team of 4 (myself + 3 HCI grads)
Domain Research
Observation
Ideation Interface Design
Product testing
Main Goal
Trying to bridge the gap between international students and local grocery stores using the 'Smart Cart' by understanding the challenges they face while shopping in a new country and how technology can be helpful in bridging this gap.
Understanding the challenges faced by international students through research
We conducted traditional observations across different grocery stores in Bloomington, Indiana to observe:
Behavioral tendencies
Challenges
In-store experience
We then used affinity mapping to translate our findings from our observation to design opportunities
Based on the findings we narrowed down our problem to 3 different user groups and then selected international students as they face more problems than other 2 groups
After fixing our target audience based on the mapping, we had an interview scheduled with the manager of Kroger's on September 29th, to discuss the various challenges faced by the international students.
Interaction with Adam (Manager) at Kroger on understanding international students’ behavior, pain points, how they navigate, and the overall business model.
And then we found the pain points based on the interview and secondary research findings focusing on international student’s experience as a first time shopper
Problem Identification
Uncertainty due to unfamiliar ingredients.
Discount Awareness.
Difficulty in accessing products not at eye level.
Challenges with unfamiliar products.
Confusion with product variety.
Aimless Wandering.
Language barriers.
Based on the mapping, we scoped down to focus on one problem faced by the students
Problem
“International students struggle to familiarize themselves with grocery products and often find it challenging to enhance their shopping experience in a new country.”
How might we familiarize the grocery products and enhance the shopping experience for the international students.
The Design Challenge
We used story boarding as a method to explore the shopping experiences of an international student to uncover the common challenges faced.
We ideated different concepts as a team to find a effective solution to address the issue
Idea
Some concepts involved holograms, voice assistants, and digitizing product tags to give customers an inclusive and user-friendly interaction. Some ideas must be discarded because of their limitations in open surroundings like grocery stores.
Later we finalized a solution that will help the international students to familiarize the products and the grocery shopping experience.
The different channels and touch points for each feature in our solution
Feedback and Insights
We organized a body storming session at a team member's residence. During this session, we invited a user to engage in shopping using our system and closely observed their actions.
The user expressed confusion regarding the functionality of the direction feature.
The user lacked confidence in the direction feature's ability to navigate them within the store.
The user found it challenging to switch between screens seamlessly.
The user faced difficulty adding items to their cart during the shopping trip due to the list being uploaded at the outset.
Here are our final designs
Reflection
I learned the value of observation and usability testing, enhancing our empathy user’s grocery shopping challenges.
I realized that design is an iterative process, requiring feedback and continuous improvement while balancing innovation with feasibility
Effective team collaboration and communication were crucial for our success.
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Entrance
