My Role

I led the sketch charrette that laid the foundation of our overall design, created the user personas, conducted usability testing on the prototypes, and was the sole mobile designer.

Project Goals & Timeline

The project took about 10 weeks to complete and the timeline is listed out below. During the duration of the project, our goal was to include the following features:

• Search for previously purchased items
• Display expiration date of previously purchased items
• Suggest recipe ideas
• Display what ingredients are required for recipes
• Purchase ingredients

Design Charrette & Mood Board

Our team collaborated in a design charrette. This allowed us to quickly generate and explore different approaches for our design problem. This led to creative solutions that we might not have discovered on our own.

We also developed a mood board to communicate the overall aesthetic, tone, and style of a project.

User Personas

Our application was designed for two primary user groups: college students and parents.

Age: 19
User role(s): College student
Education: Pursuing a Bachelor's in Psychology
Interest in grocery shopping: Moderate
Traits: Curious, organized, health-conscious

"Being a college student is loads of fun but I'm always busy. I want to shop and eat healthy without have to resort to fast food."

Goals & Motivations

Frustrations

• Create a shopping list to minimize shopping time.
• Cook healthy meals on a small budget.
• Easily access information on new ingredients.
• Learn new recipes based on her favorite ingredients.

• Part - time pay and paying for tuition make it difficult to budget for health meals.
• Between class and working, remembering expiration dates for food is difficult.
• Need to shop frequently due to shared space with roommates.

Chloe is a full-time student at the University of Michigan currently pursuing her Bachelor's in Psychology. In addition to school, she is also working part-time in a behaviroal study lab in hopes to join the lab full-time. Between work and school, she still tries to find time with friends and three roommates. Howver, her busy schedule makes it difficult to dedicate enough time to other tasks such as grocery shopping.

In addition to her busy schedule, the space to store her food is limited since she shares a residential home with three roommates. Since she is unable to purchase too much in one trip, she is need to shop more frequently.

Age: 34
User role(s): Single parent
Education: Bachelor's in Nursing
Interest in grocery shopping: Minimal
Traits: Motivated, patient, loving

"Being a mom and working takes up most of my time so the last thing I want to do is grocery shop."

Goals & Motivations

Frustrations

• Save time when it comes to grocery shopping and make the trip efficient.
• Wants kid to adopt health diet.
• Spend as much time with her kids as possible.

• Most places are not open after her shift.
• Bringing her kids along is stressful as it prolongs the trip since it is difficult to manage both kids and shop.
• Difficult to locate certain items due to store rearranging items.

Patricia is a full-time nurse at a hospital in Chicago. She is always on her feet tending to patients and enjoys every second of it. Recently, Sarah divorced her husband and gained full custody of her 2 kids. She wants to spend every moment with them, but it can be difficult to do so when she's the only parent providing for the kids. Her hectic schedule leaves little time for grocery shopping.

She finds grocery shopping a chore, as it involves driving to the store and spending hours looking for specific items. "If I could hire someone to do my grocery shopping, I would!". She feels that stores should be open overnight since that is the only time she can go after she shift. When she's no working, Patricia wants to bring her kids along to spend time with them, but she finds it challenging to ensure that they behave well in the store.

Mid-Fi Prototype

After we finalized our sketches, mood board, and user personas, we went on to design a mid-fi prototype of our application. Since we saw that most users would be utilizing the application on their mobile device, we prioritized the mobile prototype, which would then be tested.  

Usability Testing

We tested 4 users on the usability of our mobile, mid-fi prototype on the following tasks.

1. Build a list of three items you would like to purchase. Complete the checkout process. The task is complete when you see the confirmation screen.
2. Create a list of your favorite snacks by using the “Previously Purchased” option and complete the checkout process. The task is complete when you see the confirmation screen.
3. Find a recipe that uses the pasta, tomato sauce, cheese, and oregano that you bought from your last trip. You can consider the task complete when you find a recipe that includes those 4 ingredients and tell me what that recipe is.
4. Find a recipe that uses the pasta, tomato sauce, cheese, and oregano that you bought from your last trip. You can consider the task complete when you find a recipe that includes those 4 ingredients and tell me what that recipe is.

What We Learned

• Navigation was clear and intuitive. Check-out process was easy and simple.
  
• Users confused Task 1 for Task 2 by adding items to cart under “Previously Purchased” instead of using the search bar.
• Participants were not able to go back to previous page or escape.
• Participants found the expiration color system and expiration to be unclear.
  
• Some expressed not liking having to calculate how many days were left with the item by just seeing the expiration date.
  
• Participants wanted more recipe options to be viewable on the initial home page.
  

Recommendations and Changes

• Add a back button to the mobile prototype.
  
• Ensure search bar is larger for users to easily identify.
• Switch the order of Task 1 and 2 for future tests.
• Show countdown in days as expiration approaches and/or coordinate expiration dates with colors.
• Change the recipe section grid to view more recipes without scrolling or clicking.
  

Iteration - Hi-Fi Prototype

Based on the test results, we used the feedback to refine and iterate on the design, ensuring that the hi-fi prototype better meets user needs and expectations.

Reflections

We wish there was more time to complete multiple iterations since we were only able to do 1. It could have resulted in more feedback on our prototypes thus, improving it. For example, we want to know if the color coding and expiration dates make sense to the users after changing during the hi-fi prototype.

We could also consider including non-perishable items to the app since every food item is currently perishable