Conceptual case study done as a solo project for my junior year class Communication Design Studio: Digital Product Design, at the Parsons School of Design, NYC.
My Role
Product Design, UX Research & Testing,
Market Research
Team
Solo Project
Timeline
3 Weeks
~ An estimated 10% of the available food supply in the U.S. at the retail and consumer levels goes uneaten, resulting in approximately 43 billion pounds of wasted food.
~ Estimated $161 billion worth of food waste in the U.S. (as per USDA estimates) is attributed to groceries.
~ Busy adults struggle with managing their household inventory and very often have groceries expiring before they can consume them.
ShelfSmart is a mobile app that enhances grocery and household item management by seamlessly integrating with store Inventory Management Systems. Users effortlessly sync both in-app and in-store purchases, receiving timely reminders before items expire. The app provides intelligent shopping assistance, creating lists and sending alerts based on users' shopping patterns for a more efficient and organized experience.
ShelfSmart has integrations with inventory management systems at grocery chains such as Target and Walmart that allow realtime tracking of grocery and household purchases by users
~ ShelfSmart gets accurate shelf life/expiry information about products from stores’ databases
~ Easily sort personal inventory by month, week, and specific date ranges to track everything better
~ Manually add products to your inventory by scanning the barcode
~ Edit or delete products to keep your personal inventory up to date
~ Mark products such as milk as "opened" to get appropriate expiry reminders
~ ShelfSmart sends you reminders about expiring products based on your preferred frequency settings
~ Based on your shopping lists and history, ShelfSmart predicts when you may be running low on items and optionally sends reminders
~ Find partnered grocery chain stores near you and view their products
~ Place pickup or delivery orders, synced automatically with your inventory
~ View your entire purchase history and easily add entire purchase buckets to inventory
~ Easily place re-orders for pickups
~ Create simple lists to plan grocery store runs and get auto-fill suggestions based on your history
~ Receive reminders to go shopping based on your lists
~ ShelfSmart’s business will primarily rely on a B2B model, charging grocery chains a fixed recurring (annual/monthly) fee for integration and partnerships.
~ Grocery chains can gather data on user preferences, purchasing habits, and popular product. Enables data-driven decision-making, targeted marketing.
~ Real-time syncing with store inventory can reduce overstocking and understocking.
~ Allow grocery chains an additional channel for customer acquisition by attracting people with dynamic pricing and a superior user experience.
I conducted a survey with a diverse audience of 42 individuals aged between 19 and 55. Additionally, I engaged in in-depth conversations with a select few of them and a few friends who struggle with managing groceries. Here are the key findings:
~ About 80% of respondents reported experiencing at least one unexpected grocery item expiration per month
~Approximately 90% of people consistently shop at the same store, with the majority preferring large grocery chains
~ 50% of participants had previously tried to track groceries using note-taking tools or other apps but found the process too involved.
I crafted two user personas and a user journey map based on these findings.
Based on the user research, I looked into some notable apps in grocery management and shopping space and also evaluated the interaction of using pen and paper or the native notes app on a phone to manage groceries.
The key insight I gained through this was that all existing solutions demand too much of consumers, and had no clear business value proposition. On the other hand, shopping apps like Instacart on focus on one part of this user journey, i.e shopping.
This leaves a gap in the market for a more holistic and low-touch user experience - from making lists and managing groceries to shopping - to make the entire process of grocery management a breeze for consumers, with an upfront revenue business model.
Based on my research findings, I designed and information architecture, then initial low-fidelity wireframes, and progressed to a first iteration of high-fidelity prototypes on which I conducted 5 rounds of guided user tests. I gathered a number of insights (recorded below) from this, based on which I iterated further.
View information architecture FigJam file here.
After peer reviews, further user feedback, and testing sessions, I got a lot of valuables ideas for the direction in which this concept could expand:
~ Since a lot of people manage groceries collectively (either with family or roommates), the next important feature would be a provision for inviting and adding housemates
~ I would like to further expand on the B2B monetization strategy, to visualize a more concrete solution in the form of an interface that grocery chains could use
~ Design a more in-depth onboarding UX to educate users effectively on the novelty of the app's flow with store integrations
