CHANGING GROCERY SHOPPING
As an experience
The Smart Store is not just a retail space; it's a carefully designed ecosystem that leverages cutting-edge technology to optimize the shopping experience and foster sustainability. This UX case study focuses on the meticulous design of interactions within the Smart Store, aiming to create a seamless and engaging user journey.
A team of 6
In which my role apart from the group efforts included storyboarding for the prototype, , sketching, UI Design, documentation & note-keeping in a visual way.
My learnings
Theoretical
- The concept of speculative design
- Different ways of ideation like body storming
- Understanding the evolution of a certain activity and mapping future trajectories of the same.
Other
- How to convey your vision to the people you work with.
- How to work in a team with different standpoints
- Dividing labour and having a looser grip over the entire project.
- How to deal with non participative members of a team
Objective
The primary goal of the Smart Store is to enhance the traditional shopping experience by leveraging AI, sensors, and sustainable practices. The emphasis is on providing users with a seamless, guided, and personalized shopping journey while fostering a connection between consumers and local farmers.
Target Audience
The target audience includes individuals who appreciate technology, value sustainability, and seek efficiency in their shopping routines. The Smart Store caters to both tech-savvy users and those who prioritize supporting local and sustainable practices.
The design process prioritized user needs and preferences, ensuring that the Smart Store's interactions align with the expectations of a diverse user base. This approach aimed to create a user-centric and intuitive environment.
What it is
Context & Purpose of use
Users dislike pushing a shopping cart and often struggle to find items in the store, prompting the need for an improved shopping experience while retaining its core nature.
The Need
Finding items in the store is a common challenge, necessitating a solution for a more efficient and enjoyable shopping process.
Goals & Subgoals
Main Goal: Navigation/ Ease of Shopping
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Sub-Goal 1: Self-Checkout
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Sub-Goal 2: Seamless Interaction
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Sub-Goal 3: Recommendation Based on Existing Items
Smart phone
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Transfers grocery list to smart cart.
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Is the medium of conversation with the cart.
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Controls cart modes
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Payments
Smart fridge
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Keeps track of ingredient levels & alerts you of depleting levels.
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Conversational
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provides recipes that can be made using ingredients in your fridge.
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provides ingredient recommendations when grocery shopping.
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curates shopping list
Smart Cart
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In-store navigation
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Suggestions in shopping
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Seamless checkout by automatically adding items to your final bill when you put it in the cart. Evaluates your total at the end of your shopping experience.
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No more long billing lines.
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It can
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Lead - Act as a wayfinder in a store according to your grocery list.
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Follow - Be your companion while shopping, you do not need to worry about the whereabouts of your cart.
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Manual - Your good old shopping cart. Carry or roll it around.
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Other VUIs (like an amazon echo)
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Adds ingredients & curates shopping list
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Reminds you to go shopping
Sustainability
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decentralisation
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cutting out the middle man
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a space to sell their produce
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a re-imagined farmers market
Energy
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electricity produced through kinetic energy generated by walking inside a store.
Creating an ecosystem
Key learning
While working in a team, things should be self explanatory.
The storyboards and sketches I made were easily understood by me, but the second I sent them over to someone else, they found it difficult to understand my vision. This made me re-evaluate how I put together and design these integral parts of our design process.
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Making things self-explanatory saves crucial time that can be used to further better the product you are designing & and hence leads to a more fruitful design process.
What more could I do?
I would have liked to explore the process and develop the idea to a greater level of detail to truly understand the interactions that take place at a grocery store as well as if the projected solutions we developed would enhance the grocery shopping process. I would have liked to get into the nitty-gritty details of how the technology would work and make efforts to make this a reality.
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Future scope would include creating a prototype of the smart basket and conducting usability tests to understand what we missed out and what could be changed.
Other projects
