Brendan Washnak
Kroger Raceway
A five week project in which my team and I investigated and developed a new grocery store shopping experiences to engage consumers and encourage in-store shopping.
Role
Design, Research
Date
March 2023
Duration
5 weeks
Project Overview
Problem
We found that it can be difficult for busy individuals to get through grocery stores in a timely manner, primarily parents who are in a rush to get things done, and wanted to assist them getting through the store as fast a possible while earning additional rewards.
Solution
A google-maps-like feature for the Kroger app that guides you directly to items and generates the quickest path through the store, rewarding discounts and coupons as you progress through your shopping trip.
"Stores can often change their layout in certain display cases/coolers, meaning that there's always a faster route to getting your needs." — Logan McCurdy
Primary Research
Current Features
The first step of our primary research consisted of us investigating what the Kroger app already featured and how we could integrate our idea into it. We found that the Kroger app is full of features that could easily connect with our concept, so we began listing them along with our intentions.
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Aisle ##
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Will direct people to the isle needed.
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Purchase History Coupons
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Determines which coupons will be rewarded while shopping.
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Shopping List
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Shopping list can be used to generate map when at the store.
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Store Locator
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Shows nearby Kroger stores, reinforcing the apps capability to have a built in map.
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With knowledge of these features already existing in the Kroger app, we decided to move ahead, as our concept would heavily compliment the existing features.
Interviews
We sat down with middle-aged parents in locations of their choosing and asked them questions about their shopping experiences, preferences, and thoughts on our concept. We focused on questions that directly relation to our topic, such as:
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"Which do you prefer, online or in person shopping? Why?"
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"Are there any explicit reasons you enjoy going to the store in person?"
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"How would you feel about a map to guide you through the grocery store? Would you use it?"
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As we talked about their experiences and thoughts, we concluded that while not all parents might use this, many parents would find it enjoyable to spend less time in the store while still getting the in person shopping experience. There was positive reception to the map, and many of our interviewees expressed interest in being able to use it themselves.
"I prefer in person shopping because it allows me to see what I'm getting, no tricks or scams." — Interviewee
Source: Food Business News
Secondary Research
Shopping Statistics
To begin our secondary research we investigated how shopping has changed in the past 4+ years as people have gradually shifted away from shopping in person and instead opting to order groceries online. According to a poll done by Marist, 76% of adults choose to shop online.
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Furthermore, only 44% of adults prefer online shopping to in person, meaning that there is some other issue resulting in the majority of adults choosing to shop online. (Robin 2022)
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According to the data gathered in our interviews, parents don't like shopping online due to the lack of reliability that it provides, as they don't always get the items they want. Additionally, it can be time consuming to go to the store, hunting for replacement ingredients and items for new recipes. Finally, our interviewees all shared the same sentiment that being able to see an item in front of you provides a different feeling than looking at it online, and that they are more likely to make impulse purchases while walking around the store.
Research Takeaways
After completing our research we decided to summarize the primary takeaways, all of which are found below.
Source: Our Miro Documentation
Brainstorming
Store Ideas
In order to fully dedicate ourselves to a concept, we had a brainstorming session, listing out our favorite app ideas and our collaborative thoughts on each one.
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Food-tasting Service
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Grocery stores already have samples, which fail to attract enough customers to the store by itself.
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Electric Cart
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According to our research, the cart isn't the primary issue that shoppers run into when in person.
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Store Map
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We found that the store idea was the best solution to the issues presented in our research and interviews.
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After finalizing our idea, we began to sketch out different ideas for what we wanted the app to look like and how we wanted the user to experience it.
Ideation
Sketches
As a team we collaborated to decide on the key features that we wanted to include, and the general appearance, as well as the theme. We decided that it would be best to follow Kroger's color scheme and simplistic layout, sourcing their app for inspiration in our designs. We also wanted to include other pages that the user would have access to through the map.
Digital Designs
Our next step involved digitally creating the sketch, getting a solid understanding of how it might look once finalized. We talked about the things we wanted to keep, discard, and alter, and ended up making some small UI changes for clarity.
Mockups
Finally, we created some final looking possibilities for the app, including the map screen and the coupon screen. We wanted to ensure that our design felt like Kroger, which is why it follows the color scheme down to the pixel.
User Experience
Storyboarding
We created two storyboards to examine two different scenarios about how a user would go about using our app.
Rush
The goal of this storyboard was to understand how a user on a time constraint would use our app, along wwhat we could do to streamline their process of getting in and out of the store.
Chill
The goal of this storyboard was to understand how a user who was casually using the app would use it. This version of our app had mini games, which were later abandoned due to negative feedback received in peer reviews.
User Journey
In addition to our storyboards, we also created a user journey.
Pitch Video
Finally, we created a pitch video to help people understand our idea in a couple of minutes. The video is available to watch in the embed below.
My Contribution
I assisted in the development of our core idea by creating the user journeys, sketches, digital images, and mock ups. Furthermore, I researched the Kroger app and it's capabilities, determining that it would work for our project. Finally, I created the entirety of the pitch video alone, creating all visualizations in Photoshop, and editing it in After Effects.