UX DESIGN COURSEWORK
SMART CART
A gesture-based automated smart cart that enables elderly shoppers to navigate through the store with minimal efforts using an optimally mapped path to complete their shopping efficiently
PROBLEM BRIEF
BACKGROUND
EMBODIED SHOPPING
LITERATURE REVIEW
Recognizing that grocery shopping is an indispensable part of our lives, we had been tasked to “understand the needs of the contemporary grocery shopper, channeling this knowledge to inform the design of a refined experience for grocery store patrons that maximizes positive and empowering embodied patterns of interaction.”, and to consider the customer convenience-business revenue trade offs while doing so.
We conducted literature review on a wide range of issues, including shopper experience, patterns and demands, shopping habits, store layouts, general shopping difficulties, and so on. We then narrowed our emphasis to how technology has lately been deployed in grocery shops. We investigated a variety of smart technologies for the future of supermarkets, including smart carts, mobile-scanning technology to help consumers save time by checking out while they shop, and touch checkouts, among others.
USER GROUP
WHO ARE WE DESIGNING FOR?
In this project, we are designing for
- people (aged 60 and over)
- who generally shop alone
- or with someone their own age who also meet our criteria.
While "boomers have the highest value as consumers in the market today in spending per capita", the problems they face while shopping are often overlooked.
This decision also stems from the fact that younger people are better at adapting to changes, finding workarounds for problems, and might not need external assistance as much as elderly people do.
OUR APPROACH
OBSERVING USERS IN CONTEXT
To observe our target users' current shopping habits, to identify underlying patterns, and to understand their current shopping experience in naturalistic settings, we performed 9 contextual inquiries. Leaving out the insights that were out of our project scope, the following key insights were gathered:
PROPOSING SOLUTIONS
IDEATION
Having identified the problem areas, we decided to narrow it down and mainly focus on proposing solutions for one of the user problems- Maneuvering the cart. While we decided to focus on one of the problems, we decided to try and include solutions for other problems as secondary solutions.
OUR PROPOSED SOLUTION
GESTURE-BASED AUTOMATED CART
A gesture-based automated smart cart that enables elderly shoppers to navigate through the store with minimal efforts using an optimally mapped path to complete their shopping efficiently
PROPOSING SOLUTIONS
ITERATION 1
The interactive interface mounted onto the cart has the following features
PROTOTYPING
EXPERIENCE PROTOTYPING
We made some physical prototypes of our solution and tried to test them via experience prototyping. Our main goal here was to figure out if this solution was efficient and what changes did it need to improve it further.
EVALUATION
USABILITY EVALUATION
We tested our prototype on 4 users who belonged to our target audience i.e. elderly (above the age of 60), gave them the context on what the technology was and then performed contextual inquiry as they did their shopping via this new smart cart.
Based on the changes made from the evaluation insights, following is our final proposed solution:
REFLECTIONS
REFLECTIONS
LIMITATIONS
WAY FORWARD
- While we created our solution with the elderly in mind, it could also be handy to others who are not a part of our target group. As a result, retailers may find it difficult to ensure that the elderly have access to these smart carts and that they are readily available when needed.
- Stores might need to hire extra employees for the smart checkout lanes as well as to be available to provide assistance whenever required, which might lead to an increase in their fixed costs.
- Given that retailers frequently reorganize their shop layouts in accordance with their promotional campaigns, a robust system is required to ensure that the navigation system is kept up to speed with the changing layout. Failure to do so may result in consumers being unable to locate what they want where they were promised, adding to their frustration.
- Moving forward, this smart cart could include an optional chair extension for people who find it difficult to walk through the entire store. However, they may have to get off and back onto the cart several times to retrieve products from their shelves. The convenience aspect of this idea needs to be evaluated before deployment.
- We could also explore more ways to make the experience embodied.