



The future of grocery shopping experience

Fall 2018
Institute of Design
Illinois Institute of Technology
In partnership with the Institute For Food Safety And Health, ESHA research
Redesigned individually on December 2019

Research
Cultural Probe
In-store observation
Shopper shadow
User interview

2. People's relationship to nutrition and how it fits into their overall health?
We seek to understand...
1. How people make decisions when they shop for groceries?
_Priorities
_Value
_Needs
_How does the environment factors into this?
Context
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mom and pop stores
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farmers market
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bodegas
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big box- grocery & department
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convenience stores
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drugstores
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specialty stores
About Urban Millennials - Target User
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UM are more health-conscious and they are facing lots of life changes/choices associated with health.
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UM are more social and easier to be engaged as long as the decision is aligned with their sense of "Who am I" or "Whom I want to be".
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UM shoppers are dividing their grocery shopping among several stores, rather than relying on one supermarket.

Shopping landscape before 1920
Scattered - Supermarket
Today’s shoppers are springing for options in a market that supermarkets once monopolized.
Consumer's understanding of health - Cultural probe
Grocery shopping decisions are internally motivated as well as triggered externally by grocery environment, the cultural probe is a good way to document the genius decision-making process. It also reflects the whole process from planning, shopping to consumption continuously. It helps us learned consumer has a broader understanding of health which is related to beauty or strength.
We asked for:
Emojis to show feelings before and after the shopping;
Tools and technology they use to make decisions;
Products that they pick up then put back and why;
What does "health" mean to you?
- See the pimples on my face,
it means I am not healthy

Impulsive purchase



Meal prep
Window shopping

Carb counting

Locate the subconscious behavior - Shopper shadow
" What they do is more important than what they say." By immerse ourselves into shoppers' experience, by observing their body language, facial expression, the pace and the time they spent in each area, shopper shadow helps us find out the subconscious behavior that shoppers themselves don't notice.
For example, they look into the ingredients of instant noodle and will pick up the one with more nutrition to reduce the guilty; Also seeing them pick one up and put it back, reveling their mental activity and trade-offs;
Millennials distribute their grocery shopping into different stores and they behave differently in different modes of shopping.

Processed food

Reduce guilty


Homesickness
Modes of shopping experience - In-store observation
[Amazon Go] - A high tech convenient store with great profit potentials
[Whole food] - Exploratory space that sells local, authentic food
[Trader Joe's] - Homy environment grocery store with selected products
[Farmers' market] - Vending machine for healthy salads
One supermarket doesn't fit for all - Millennials shoppers
Millennial consumers increasingly emphasize value over price and are dividing their grocery shopping among several stores, rather than relying on one supermarket. Different types of shoppers will behave vastly differently.
Modes of shopping experience:

Improviser

Pragmatist

Explorer

Scientist


Dig into the user behavior - User interview
Card-sorting game:
How do people understand nutrition?
How do they read food labels?
How do people perceive food emotionally?
Visit people's living space:
Learn about people's practice of diet, how do they store the food and prepare the food, understand how does the value of health influences their eating habits.
Bridge to Observation:
How long they took to make decisions reflect how long they stay in the area of the grocery store, which might be the knowledge gap.

From the store
-"At all Whole Foods, there is a regional or corporate buying office… look at data to help forecast inventory management. Local planners do the store layouts; allocate how much square footage every product or product category gets.‘’
-"Every time he checks out at Whole Foods, he uses his Amazon Prime card. Grocery stores know more about my health than anybody. You can totally provide info that 'the people that eat the healthiest eat this type of diet…”
-“Shoppers want information and experience,” “They want the retailer to do more curating. Help them make the best choice. Give them guidance. We expect retailers will invest heavily to up their game in personal engagement.”
From the User- Quotes
The grocery store is an opportunity to be inspired
- Cook without following the recipes
Future of grocery experience
- A financial planner works with you
- An accountant to save every receipt
Today is all about convenience. Society is shifting in how we source our food and prepare healthy food choices in ways that are not eating out every night.

Making sense of findings






Ideation Process
Prototyping- inBalance
1.Brainstorm according to design principles and frameworks
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Entice Enter Engage Exit Extend
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People Object Environment Message Service
2.Evaluate the idea with card sorting prototype
3.Select 4 Ideas
4.Comprehensive service
inBalance makes it simple to plan and shop for well-balanced, nutritious foods. By combining our robust Amazon-enabled database with real-time, tech-driven updates about your in-store shopping habits, we are able to give you up-to-the-second nutrition information about the purchasing decisions you are making and nudge you toward options that balance your basket. This very same database allows us to help you plan your meals ahead of time, scan hundreds of Amazon crowdsourced recipes recommended for your needs, and consider the needs of others in your household or social circles for whom you need to shop.
Ideation
Prototyping 2ed Iteration



Gamification + Simplicity

Prototyping 2ed Iteration



Engaging + Simple + Tailored
Gamified
Social interaction
Grocery shopping guidance
Actionable fitness suggestions


Further steps
Engaging
Gamified
Social interaction
Win coupons,
Sell your avocado, grow other vegetables and adopt a pet
Share shopping experience,
Share grocery list, recipes, and fitness plans
Simple
Grocery shopping guidance
Shop with friends modes
Shop for more than yourself
Combined with Alexa, talking to you while shopping
Privacy- hidden mode
Tailored
Actionable fitness suggestions
Connect with your fitness app