Allergen Aware
Shop stress-free and efficiently
Inner thought process…
"Oh I forgot milk, let me go get it quickly!"
Problem
Allergic patrons struggle to identify safe products in grocery stores, causing stress and extending their shopping time.
Impact:
75% positive response
😄
Final testing showed that 6 out of 8 people were inclined to use the concept in their everyday shopping.
One of the 6 testimonials
" I would save so much time and avoid stress by not having to sift through every product, making it much easier to shop for my partner with different dietary restrictions as well! "
Business opinion
"This could build trust with our customers and encourage them to choose our brand over others."
Click to play!
My Role
Team lead - Ethnographic research, experience design, experience prototyping, usability testing
Team
Saeoul Park
Nikita Juriasinghani
Tanya Bansal
Timeline
Research - 2 weeks
Testing - 1 week
Design - 1 week
Overview
Modern shoppers prioritize quick and informed shopping experiences, with some relying on pre-purchase research and other depending on store labels. However, customers with dietary restrictions still face frustrations while finding suitable products.
Our solution is designed to understand and cater to the needs of modern shoppers, helping them make a sound and well-informed decision about items in grocery stores efficiently.
The concept was recognized as the best-designed solution among the cohort's proposals and received a 75% positive response from grocery store patrons, showing strong support for its use.
HIGHLIGHTS
A four-step approach that gives patrons more control in selecting the right products quickly and efficiently.
Scan
Enabling product to product scaning!
Alert
Receive allergen alerts with
haptic feedback
Recommend
Get product suggestions with precise locations
Reassure
Confirmation on allergen-free products
Jump to final solution
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STRATEGY
CHALLENGE
Minimize allergen purchases while balancing patron convenience with the potential impact on sales and revenue strategies.
Approach
We approached the problem with two mentalities:
Research mindset: Understanding the current shopping experience in detail.
Creative mindset: Combining speculative design with technology to enhanceKroger's shopping experience.
Design process
We adopted the double diamond design process to refine our project execution.
Discover friction points by employing research methods.
Define opportunity area by synthesizing and converging.
Develop design hypothesis by ideating.
Deliver design solution after evaluating and iterating.
DISCOVERY (RESEARCH)
Anaphylactic reactions can occur anywhere, but grocery stores can offer a unique opportunity to give shoppers control in avoiding allergens.
Understanding the gravity
Claim lines with diagnoses of anaphylactic food reactions increased by 377 percent between 2007 and 2016
More than 50 percent of the adults with food allergies have experienced a severe reaction.
More than 40 percent of children with food allergies have experienced a severe reaction.
Surprisingly embodied interactions play a huge role in grocery shopping!
Uncovering overlooked frictions with
contextual inquiries
Given our two-week research timeframe, we chose ethnographic studies to gain valuable insights into shoppers' behaviors. We conducted contextual inquiries, observing eight people with allergies in various grocery stores to understand their unique challenges.
Recurring observation pain points
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Shoppers would frequently pull out their phones to see if a product was allergen-free.
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Patrons devoted significant time reading label information to ensure a product is allergen-free.
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There was no sectional warning on the aisles about potential allergens.
Common interview pain points
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The need for assistance to find out whether a product contains a particular allergen.
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Spending considerable time making sure the product was suitable for them.
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There were no universal allergen notations for all products.
DEFINING (SYNTHESIS)
Targeting the right patterns to provide highest impact.
Allergic shopper's nightmare
We noticed an interesting pattern: shoppers rely heavily on embodied interactions. To validate this, we conducted another observational study and found that shoppers use multiple senses to determine if a product is a good fit for them.
Information
Overwhelming to read through the label data
Constantly making sure if a product is the right match
Searching about the product on the phone
Labelling data not accessible enough
Font size on the label too small to comprehend
Varied labelling style for different products
Devoting considerable amount of time on product labels
Tossing & turning product to find allergen information
Navigation
Trying to find allergen-free aisle sections
Lack of instructions or signage
Inconsistent placement of products according to allergens
Assistance
Looking for assistance to confirm product fit
Looking for kiyosks to scan products & get details
Target persona
To our surprise, when we sought general suggestion from the user group, 60% of the participants were interested in an innovative solution that could save them time in grocery stores and provide a unique shopping experience. They also shared the following likes and dislikes.
GADGETS
TECH
Hello, I'm Tracy. I'm hoping to avoid one of the following 14 allergens when grocery shopping! Can you help me?
In grocery stores, what frustrates me is...
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Spending excessive time & effort to evaluate if a product is allergen-free
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There are no standardized allergy notations on all items..
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Cannot locate the allergen-free products in the big grocery stores.
In grocery stores, what
I would like is…
✳︎
To quickly figure out whether an item is safe for me without residing on assistance
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To not learn different notations and spend time understanding them.
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Suggestions for other product if an item isn't safe for me.
Shoppers' journey
After the second round of interviews, we discovered that shoppers felt more autonomous and confident when they could physically handle products to confirm the right match.
Hide target area
Journey stages
Thoughts
Activities
Emotions
Aisle search
Wondering where to search a product
Searching for signs and exploring the store
Finding product
Thinking if they found the right product
Grabbing the product
Evaluating product
Anxiously assessing if the product is a safe option
Tossing and turning the product;
Reading the label information
Decision making
If allergen-free buying it;
Or not
Putting it in cart;
Or repeating the
whole process
Thus converging helped us narrow down to the actual problem
CUSTOMER PROBLEM
How might we streamline the grocery shopping experience for patrons with allergies by providing clear, easily accessible product information that reduces stress and time spent verifying dietary suitability?
DEVELOP (IDEATION & HYPOTHESIS)
The challenge evolved from simply helping customers find the right fit to leveraging their usual embodied interactions
Speculative design approach
Thanks to user feedback, we could design freely using a speculative design approach. However, we chose to avoid an over-reliance on advanced technologies. Because After all, effective design should make technology feel accessible and within reach.
The "AHA" moment:
A watch almost becomes part of shoppers body & could play a key role.
AR glasses was an extremely far fetched idea and would not be a cost-effective solution
App intervention could work but it disrupts shoppers' embodied shopping flow.
What if watches could scan products?
PRODUCT FLOW
Leveraging and developing on the current setup of Kroger card system.
DELIVER (TESTING & ITERATION)
But there were drawbacks…
Area for improvement
To identify flaws in our design concept, we used experience prototyping and usability testing methods, given the context dependent nature of the problem. After testing with 8 individuals who have allergies, we identified the following issues.
Shopper concerns
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What would happen if shoppers did not have a Kroger card with them or were new to the store?
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Would there be any haptic feedback after a product is scanned?
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Wouldn't one haptic feedback for allergen-free and two for allergen-containing items be confusing?
Business concerns
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Would directly providing product decisions counteract grocery store benefits, such as drawing attention away from store advertisements and offers?
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If counter-suggestions are given to shoppers, would it discourage them from exploring other items in the store, thereby negating the grocery store's benefits?
Show paper prototypes and usability testing
And given the time constraints, we could only focus on the following three aspects.
Iterations to fix important flaws
Haptic feedbacks once product is scanned
Introduced confirmation haptic beep whenever a product is scanned.
Different cues for allergen-free & allergen-containing items
Introduced positive & negative haptic feedback for the respective instances.
Different cues for allergen-free & allergen-containing items
Added product suggestions to help customers find the
perfect fit.
FINAL DESIGN
An end-to-end experience for new users and current users
Shop without the stress of wondering if a product is
right for you!
Scan
Show all screens
IMPACT
Unconventional ways of gauging impact
How would our design perform in reality?
We relied on qualitative data to understand the user experience deeply and complemented it with quantitative data to measure the inclination rate toward our design concept.
Surprisingly, 6 out of 8 users were interested
to use our design approach for their typical shopping!
Opinions from our users
Expert review on our design concept
Store manager
"This could build trust with our customers and encourage them to choose our brand over others."
Store employee
"I believe this idea would genuinely benefit customers and reduce the frequency of their requests for allergen information."
Store employee
"I've had multiple instances where customers asked for allergen details. If not implemented via smartwatches, this feature could be replicated on store kiosks throughout the store."
REFLECTION
What could I have done differently?
Hindsight
✳︎
It is crucial to keep context in mind while doing research and usability testing.
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New innovative concepts may benefit users, but they may not necessarily align with business objectives.
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Understanding and working without technological limits encouraged us to think creatively and find novel approaches.
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CONTENTS
Overview
Challenge
Research
Synthesis
Ideation
Testing
Design
Impact
Retrospect