Make grocery shopping easier than ever.
Problem
For people with visual impairments, shopping can be a daunting task. Grocery delivery applications would be a useful solution, but the popular applications are not catered towards people with visual impairments. This often leaves users frustrated with the inability to easily navigate these apps. For many people without visual impairments, online shopping can also be a difficult and time-consuming task. In this case, we decided to reverse the traditional way of online grocery shopping by having someone be your own “shopping aide”. This aide helps to create a shopping cart for you based on your needs, and then delivers it right to your door. Simple Shop was designed to create an easy way for users to buy groceries, whether they are blind/visually impaired or simply want an easier way to shop for groceries.
Storyboard 1:
Storyboard 2:
Solution
Our main user that we aimed to design for are individuals with vision impairments or blindness. By designing for these users, our app would also be useful for anyone who wants groceries without the difficulty of online applications. This can include users with physical limitations, or simply users who want an easier way to order groceries. Users can place an order for grocery shopping without the excessive steps of manually looking for items and adding them to their cart by themselves. With Simple Shop, they are able to call the Shop Aides to communicate their needs to them vocally and the Shop Aide will help add every item to their cart. After the user confirms the cart and address, the Shop Aide will shop for the items and deliver them to the customer. This solution is meant to provide a seamless way for users who cannot see their screen to order the groceries that they need. They are prioritized in the application design, not an afterthought.
​SKETCH
The design for Simple Shop changed significantly from early sketches to the final digital prototype. Throughout each phase of the design process, new challenges or insights were revealed which resulted in altering the design of the application. Beginning with transitioning from sketches to the paper prototype, the action of seeing how each screen connected to one another caused us to question when the Shop Aide should call the user. When sketching more generally, we did not have to evaluate the specifics of when the Shop Aide should start and end the call and how that relates to adding items to the shopping cart. However, upon making the paper prototype we tested multiple iterations and decided that it was most intuitive if the call began after the Shop Aide started the order (see screenshot below).
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When we began to design the wireframes, many questions arose relative to how we can make the user flow as easy as possible. Not only were we creating the application from the Shop Aide point of view, but we also had to prioritize the customer view with blind users as the primary audience. Both sides of the application had to be as seamless as possible in order to create an efficient grocery shopping process. When making the wireframes, we noticed that beyond the phone call itself the customer did not have a lot of autonomy. To change this, we decided to include a Shopping Cart page where the customer can evaluate the items being added to the cart in real time and edit or adjust it as needed (see image below).
Design
The design for Simple Shop changed significantly from early sketches to the final digital prototype. Throughout each phase of the design process, new challenges or insights were revealed which resulted in altering the design of the application. Beginning with transitioning from sketches to the paper prototype, the action of seeing how each screen connected to one another caused us to question when the Shop Aide should call the user. When sketching more generally, we did not have to evaluate the specifics of when the Shop Aide should start and end the call and how that relates to adding items to the shopping cart. However, upon making the paper prototype we tested multiple iterations and decided that it was most intuitive if the call began after the Shop Aide started the order.
When we began to design the wireframes, many questions arose relative to how we can make the user flow as easy as possible. Not only were we creating the application from the Shop Aide point of view, but we also had to prioritize the customer view with blind users as the primary audience. Both sides of the application had to be as seamless as possible in order to create an efficient grocery shopping process. When making the wireframes, we noticed that beyond the phone call itself the customer did not have a lot of autonomy. To change this, we decided to include a Shopping Cart page where the customer can evaluate the items being added to the cart in real time and edit or adjust it as needed.
Future
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The intended impact of our app is to streamline the grocery shopping process for users with visual impairments. Through the interviews with blind users, we found that most of the current grocery shopping apps are not designed for the ease of usage for users with visual impairments: they have complicated and inconsistent navigation designs, as well as redundant information that interrupts the use of voiceover and the overall time consuming process of picking items. Therefore, online grocery shopping can be a frustrating experience for many of the users with visual impairments, which discourages them to buy items that they really need.
To that end, our app is designed for such disadvantaged users to address their needs and make online grocery shopping more convenient and accessible for them. By allowing users to call the Shop Aide to get the groceries that they want, our app largely mitigates the disadvantages that most modern technology places upon them and makes them feel valued and considered in the process of developing new technology applications.
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Potential Negative Consequences
Because the use of our app heavily relies on communication by phone calls, any situation that might lead to poor phone communication would negatively impact the user experience. For example, occasions of poor signal strength can affect the timeliness of communication between the user and the shop aide, and missing a call from either side can result in a longer shopping process. At the same time, phone calls can also create an additional communication burden for the shop aide side, and the shopping efficiency is not very high due to the large time cost of communication by phone calls.
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Unintentional Consequences
Although our app is made to help blind users, it can still be used by anyone. As an example, if someone is driving home and they want to place a delivery they can use our app to call an aide. This could cause aides to not be available when they are most needed by our intended users.
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Another consequence would be that it might make the users dependent on this technology. As it becomes easier to order online, they might choose not to go to stores in person anymore and over time that could make it so they aren’t able to. There are programs available to help blind people get around but if they don’t use them as much, they could go away and no longer be available should they need it.