Domain Research

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce have reached a seasonally adjusted rate of 7.7% of all retail sales at the end of 2014 [1]. However, PriceWaterhouseCoopers reveals that 83% of consumers still shop in brick-and-mortar stores [2].

Factors driving sales in physical stores:

Our team decided to address the problems with shopping in physical stores using technology. Contextual design methods were applied to the application domain of shopping for groceries and household items.

Contextual Interviews

Contextual interviews were conducted with three representative users to gather observational data on their current shopping practices at home generating a shopping list and then in a store fulfilling the shopping list.

User 1 - Graduate Student
User 2 - Stay at home Wife
User 3 - An Indian Family in the US

Consolidated Work Models

We had sketched out the flow, sequence, physical, artifact and cultural models for each individual user. This gave a deeper understanding of end goals of each user.

The consolidated work models helped reveal roles, coordination, artifacts, influences, intents, and breakdowns in the physical contexts of both the home and store. Many of the current intents and breakdowns revolve around the generation and use of the shopping list, an essential artifact in this process in both contexts.

Affinity Diagram

Key areas of concern in the home context of generating the shopping list

• Requires checking multiple areas at home to determine needs
• Repetitive process to generate list before each shopping trip
• High dependency on frequent communication and memory for collaboration

Key areas of concern in the store context of fulfilling the shopping list

• Not being familiar with the layout of the store
• Going back and forth in aisles searching for items
• Needing recommendations and detailed information on unfamiliar items/brands

Consolidated Vision

Building upon the emergent themes from the affinity diagram and the breakdowns observed in the work models, several possible solutions were envisioned.
The best and most feasible design ideas were selected to generate a consolidated vision that encompasses both the home and store contexts of use, potentially offering a holistic solution for household and grocery shopping.

StoryBoards

In the home context, the shopping list app can provide suggestions of items that are likely to need restocking based on purchase patterns. This feature can help reduce the requirement to check all areas of the household before shopping trips.

User Environment Design

Based on the consolidated vision and storyboards, a conceptual design of the application was developed as a User Environment Design (UED) diagram to document the focus areas and functions that would support the users’ work model. The UED diagram distinguishes between user-initiated functions and system-initiated functions, as well as identifying links and objects within each focus area.

Wireframes

Wireframes of the mobile app were built based on the UED diagram. These wireframes were iterated upon based on user feedback.

High-Fidelity Mockups

Once the wireframes were finalized, I built the high fidelity mockups.