Transcript

Grocery shopping is another one of those tasks that people either love or hate. I believe there are only a few people that kind of like it and are therefore somewhere in-between. Due to that I would like to introduce, how solutions with a high UX could improve the joy of grocery shopping. I'm your host, Chris, and this is the UX Globals Podcast!

Intro

Chris

Let's have a look at how conventional grocery shopping works. Most people I know write themselves a sticky note with the things they need to purchase, drive to the supermarket and get these things, or simply go there and get whatever they can find without a specific plan.

With the new solution, I would like to begin even before writing the list. Why do we need to go shopping at all? Simply because we need some groceries. That means we have to keep updated at which items we have purchased in the past and are still somewhere in the cupboards.

Therefore I would begin with tracking what our users need. Obviously, no one wants to open an app every time he or she eats an apple or so. But we could combine our software with a cookbook or health app that tells its users when they could eat certain things to reach their fitness goals. We could calculate the nutrition from different meals and give optimized advice. If our app offers this feature, we can not only track what our users currently have at home, but also what they can cook over the next few days and, therefore, automatically add items to their shopping list!

Of course, users need the flexibility to add, remove or edit items on their shopping list themselves. I have experienced it in multiple households that one person takes responsibility for grocery shopping, and everyone else comes to the person once they need something specific. Why can't the family share their shopping list so everyone can add items and the one purchasing them knows immediately what everyone else needs? Of course in-person interaction is always better as we are actively communicating with others, but what if we are at work and can not talk to our family members? Then this would be an excellent solution.

When the list is completed one or multiple family members drive to the supermarket and get everything. What would happen if our app knew where everything is located in the supermarket and adjusts the order of the list accordingly? People would never have to run from the end of the supermarket to the beginning again because they forgot one item there. Whenever a family member puts something in the basket, our app can detect which item it was with an image detection. And then, we can also leave the store again because our users can pay with their smartphone when they leave the store as everything was scanned while walking through the market.

And this is where the cycle of the application could end as all purchased items are bought and will only be brought back home now. Join the UX Globals Community on Facebook, and remember to always keep pushing! Have a good one!