Work

People nowadays have very little time to spare. A full-time job combined with a tedious commute, along with day-to-day household duties are some of the worst offenders in this regard. Personally, I have found that a decent amount of time is wasted while simply waiting in long queues at checkout after getting groceries.

Operating at a high standard is something that a customer always looks for, more so during a global pandemic. Figuring out strategies to minimize the risk of infection is of the utmost importance.

I am determined to build a companion app that will facilitate and ensure an effective checkout experience, while also steering clear of human contact and queues as much as possible.

According to a survey conducted by Box Technologies and Intel, which took place in the UK, 90% of all interviewed shoppers actively avoid stores with lengthy wait times. 70% have said that they might not even return to a store with long queues.

56% of the survey participants admitted they would not shop at a store that requires either direct interaction with a cashier or using a shared card reader.

Having the problems defined in the previous step, helped me to better understand the audience and also allow me to come up with solutions ideas and focus on what is more important.

To improve efficiency but also dimmish queues, we will give customers the possibility to create a shopping list from home and let them scan the barcodes from the products. Those products will instantly appear on the app screen and you have the possibility to change the amount, having a clear way to visualize the total amount they have to pay.

In terms of accessibility, customers will be able to use Augmented Reality to find the products on their list. Alongside with this, customers will benefit and enjoy an intuitive and easy to use interface of the app.

To keep our customers safe, they will pick their own products and scan them through the app. After the finish everything they will be able to pay for everything from the app, without interacting with a cashier or use shared card readers. They will receive a QR code that needs to be scanned on the shop exit to open the doors.

After I roughly did some sketches and put some ideas on paper, I started working on low fidelity wireframes, defined customer flows, and prepare for the first usability testing session to quickly validate my ideas.

"Fail fast and often, then go back to the drawing board and make improvements where you failed."

During prototyping, I want to test the feasibility of ideas and see if they can turn into final solutions for the defined problems. I want to create an experience for the end-user, get feedback, and use the feedback to constantly make improvements on the prototype until results in a better solution.

Further iterations included creating high-fidelity screens with in-depth animations, while also wrapping up the solutions.