Forager

Easing the tension that customers feel to find all their items in the safest and most efficient way during the COVID-19 pandemic

Context

Interaction Design Studio I, CMU

Team

Eric Li
Tam Nguyen
Onyekachi Nwabueze

My Role

I served as a UX Researcher on the project, and was responsible for conducting pop-up interviews with grocery shoppers. I worked with my team to define the functionality of our proposed app, as well as document our findings and insights.

Timeline

November - December, 2020

With the rise of COVID-19, we have seen dramatic changes in the way we go about and view in-person interactions. These sudden changes have undoubtedly affected shopper behavior while browsing for, selecting, and purchasing groceries.
Our app reimagines grocery shopping, a universal activity, to address our rapidly changing world. We set out to find the intersection of safety, comfort, and cost, and we believe Forager delivers on all three fronts.

Problem

The need for groceries has not changed. We found that shoppers still visit grocery stores as frequently as they did before COVID-19. However, there is a trichotomy we discovered in the planning effort, shopping safety, and task priorities for customers:

1) Customers prioritize staying safe when shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic…
2) Shoppers are willing to take extra precautions to stay safe…
3) Yet, shoppers are not thoroughly planning their store visits.

How might we reshape how customers think about their perceived safety, reduce pain points customers experience, and aid in setting them up for  successful shopping experiences?

Solution

Forager

My team worked to create a phone and smartwatch app, Forager, for easy navigation through grocery stores. Users can generate navigational paths through the grocery store based on their grocery list, thereby not only making their trip more efficient but minimizing potential exposure to COVID-19.

Methods: Initial Research

Pop-Up Interviews

To begin our research, each member of the team conducted three pop-up interviews with volunteer participants. The questions prompted the participant to speak about their experiences, particularly the pain points and how their behavior has evolved with the current COVID-19 pandemic. Our goal was to learn about people’s grocery shopping experience, specifically, how their shopping behavior has been affected by COVID-19 before, during, and after their trip.

Affinity Diagram

After conducting our interviews, the team came together to conduct an affinity diagramming session. We broke down our interview notes and grouped them based on common themes. This was a useful step in understanding how to distill the insights we gained from our interviews into key customer goals and actions represented in the customer journey map.

Customer Journey Map

We then synthesized our findings into a customer journey map. We consolidated the themes from the affinity diagram into clear phases of action. These phases describe common goals, actions, thoughts, and experiences during the process of grocery shopping during a pandemic.Creating grocery lists, finding items, forgetting items, and the relevant frustrations within the context of COVID-19 were common experiences of our interviewees.

Research Findings

After conducting our initial background research, three common themes emerged:

‍1) Customers are concerned with remembering both the items that they need at the store and preparing the proper protective measures to ensure their safety while shopping. 

2) While shopping, customers want to be efficient in the store, as well as minimize their contact with other shoppers. Priorities lay in getting their essential items quickly without getting sidetracked looking for items.

3) Once customers were ready to check out, they focused on minimizing contact with others and quickly wrapping up their shopping experience.

Design Goals

There is a tension between the effort, safety, and priorities for customers when they go grocery shopping. Customers prioritize staying safe when shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic, and are willing to take extra precautions in order to do so. Innovation might help in rethinking how customers can feel safe before planning their journey. We want customers to feel less paranoid and fearful of coronavirus.
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Additionally, a majority of customers focus on speed and efficiency, especially under the influence of the COVID, and tend to go directly to relevant sections/aisles rather than wander around. Common issues such as customers frustrated by searching for items or forgetting items, are exacerbated during a pandemic, requiring customers to stay in stores for longer periods of time, or return to stores. Innovation might help in reducing the pain points customers experience while grocery shopping and setting them up for successful shopping experiences.

First Prototype

As we began working on our prototype, we ran into several logistical concerns when planning the flow and actions that users can take. We decided to specifically ask users for feedback and suggestions for how to improve these issues:
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1) There is no feedforward that alerts users to tap the item icon on the map to indicate that they have picked up that item.
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2) If their grocery list is very long, then the item icons could be overwhelming and take up a lot of the map. We resolved this by having one icon that indicated the number of items in that area of the store.
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3) What to do once the user has collected all of the items on the grocery list. We knew we wanted to lead them to the checkout, but weren’t sure whether to have that as part of the original route or to let the user select that they wanted to go to the checkout, then populating the route. We decided to wait until the user indicated that they were ready to checkout to provide alternative shopping options.

Second Prototype

Once the user got an overview of the route on the map, it would zoom into specific parts of the store and highlight the next leg of the route. It improved upon the low-fi prototype that relied on icons on the map to show the next item; users were confused and it wasn’t clear that those were the next steps in the route. We also eliminated showing the number of items in the aisle, and instead show one item at a time.

User Feedback

Responsive Design

In thinking about other ways that users could use and benefit from our design, we wanted to focus on users who were familiar with the store and wouldn’t need step-by-step directions. We decided to create a responsive design for a smartwatch which offered several new benefits for users:
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1) Users would not need to continually pick up their phone when shopping for groceries. Pushing a shopping cart or picking up items can require more than one hand, and having your customer’s grocery list on a wearable device allows for more freedom when collecting items.
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2) The items and their locations are shown in the most direct and efficient order, which helps the customer move quickly through the store without needing to frequently reference the map. It also saves the customer time and energy when building their grocery list; they don’t need to worry about adding or organizing their items in a specific order.
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3) Users can use voice commands to mark off items to further minimize touch interactions and keep their hands free. This can be helpful particularly when they only have a few items and want to carry them without a hand-basket or cart.

Hi-Fidelity Prototype

A critique we received for our medium-fidelity prototype pointed out the challenge a user would have accessing the items in the top navigation bar. We realized our app was not ergonomically designed, keeping human factors in mind. A user of our application would need to mark an item as found numerous amounts of times. We needed to revisit our foundational design specifications and make them more human-centered.
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In our original design, the shopper’s list and the map route were two separate screens that were accessible via a bottom navigation bar the user could tap and switch between. Our new design combined the currently routed item and the full shopping list by way of a swipe-up gesture. This allowed for the map and the shopping list to be within the same page/screen. Ergonomically, this design choice makes it easier for the user to operate the app while on their phone as the user’s thumb, closest to the lower part of the phone screen, can control the app from the bottom. An added benefit of this shift in design is the user would now be able to quickly operate their phone and app functions with one hand if they are in suboptimal conditions (i.e., pressed for time, holding items in another hand, etc.).

Final Prototypes

Take a look at the videos below for demonstrations of our final phone and watch prototypes!

Reflection

One of the strengths of this particular project was the push to consider edge cases and value across stakeholders. Through our user feedback and discussions amongst the team, I learned how to design and construct a product that mapped clearly onto a specific and frequent activity for users. For example, we were encouraged by our instructor to define how the app adapted when a customer skipped an item. Additionally, the choice of a smartwatch app for our responsive design allowed us to target a specific set of users while providing a hands-free experience as they shop. I learned how to hone in on crucial human factors in order to craft a product that was practical and valuable not only for the customer, but for the client as well.