Green grocery(name changed) is a medium scale Indian grocery based in Salt Lake City. Although their customer satisfaction ratings have remained relatively constant over the last 4 years, their market share has been decreasing by 8% each year. If they continue at this rate for another year or two, they’ll be forced to shut their doors.
Role: User researcher, UX/UI Designer, QA Tester
UX Team of one
Tools used: UX Pin, Lucid chart, Photoshop
Completed it for VX Media in 2017-18
The business outcome of the project would be to increase the annual profit by introducing online service with the best UI platform designed using user research outcomes.
Green grocery believes that if they allow their customers to shop and buy their products online, they can expand their customer base and market share. They plan to design and release a pilot program in Salt Lake City and San Francisco, iterate based on what they learn and then expand the product to other cities around the country.
The users’ goal would be ordering the groceries online without any hindrance and time delay.
I accomplished this goal by developing a Green's app that will allow users contact free methods to shop for groceries online, and receive their groceries through curbside or delivery.
In order to better understand the grocery industry and consumers, I identified the following research methods to better understand the problem.
This project began with secondary research on the market, the grocery industry, which allowed me to better understand how grocery stores are operating the online business line. I found that companies have implemented curbside and delivery options to accommodate consumers, while Green has not made these changes. I wanted to identify why Green has not made these accommodations and to analyze their current digital presence. In addition to that, it allowed me to explore online user shopping habits . With this research, I began to understand that there was a huge uptick in online shopping as users seek easier shopping practices.
I moved on to interviews and to explore users, their needs, pains and shopping habits. In order to get a better understanding customers, I sought out participants who are frequent shoppers of Green’s to gauge their perspectives within the context of this project.
Through some market and user research they’ve determined that this decline is most likely due to the increase in online grocery ordering & delivery products, like Amazon Green and Walmart Fresh. Many customers prefer these products to shopping in-store because they’re faster, easier and more convenient.
Green grocery has put together the following vision for their new inline product: Green grocery is a grocery shopping tool that helps customers quickly and easily shop and purchase groceries online, and then have them delivered promptly at little to no cost.
Four participants who are frequent shoppers at Green were interviewed. They were asked about motivations for shopping at Green, grocery sites they like and their least favorite part about shopping online and user's goals and pain points when shopping online for groceries using other sites.
The goals for the interview are,
Key findings from the interview are,
Considering the major players in the field like Amazon green and Walmart fresh it would be a huge challenge for Green groceries to increase the market share but considering the unique Indian spices and vegetables and increase in Asian population along with introducing the online store , the market share will increase considerably. The challenges faced would be ,
Based on my conversations with users, and an understanding of the market, I was at a point to begin developing the information architecture. I completed a card sorting activity to understand how users categorize grocery items and user flows to plan how a user would navigate the app to complete specific tasks.
Eight participants were asked to sort and group a series of items found at grocery stores, such as, yogurt, rice and hand soap. Once users grouped items, they were asked to give these items a category name. Trends in category names and grouped items influenced the information architecture shown in the user flow.
They were given a list of 25 items to sort and group. The 25 items that has to be sorted out in their respective cards(categories) are - Rice, tomato, onion, banana, peas, carrots, eggs, fish, pineapple, bitter gourd, moong dal, Bengal gram, spinach, milk, yogurt, garlic, cinnamon, all purpose flour, ghee, butter, black pepper, Himalayan salt, jalapeno, olive oil, coconut.
Result of card sorting
The Feature Prioritization, along with secondary research of the market influenced this user flow and its navigation. The user flow seeks to include clear language and navigation for a user and showcases how a user would sign up on an app, elect a product and checkout.