GroSave App
GroSave App
The Product
I designed a grocery savings app to address the challenge of rising food costs and limited visibility into price differences across stores.
Project Duration
Three Weeks
My Role:
All Design and Research; Ideation, User Research, Wireframing, Prototyping, Testing
Overview
Problem:
Due to rising grocery prices and limited affordable options nearby, many shoppers are forced to exceed their budgets or sacrifice time and energy searching for better deals.
Goal:
My goal was to design a grocery shopping experience that reduces the financial burden of rising food prices by helping users quickly find and choose affordable options in their local area.
User Research
Summary:
Currently, people are struggling to find groceries that fit their budgets and are affordable. Companies are raising the prices of groceries at rates that surpass wage growth. This is making groceries less affordable for people. Costs are not only raised for groceries, but are also raised for other expenses making budgets tighter for many people. There also seems to be fewer options that are cheap nearby, and with time/energy constraints people just have to go for the more expensive options.
Pain Points:
Time & Energy Constraints
Single parents, shift workers, disabled or elderly shoppers have less time/energy to compare, cook, or travel. They trade savings for speed and buy convenient foods, shopping fewer stores, or skipping deals.
High Prices & Shrinkflation
Rising sticker prices and hidden cost increases (smaller packages for the same price). Makes budgeting unpredictable; low-income shoppers lose trust in brands
Limited Cheap Options Nearby
Few affordable grocery stores or cheap but unhealthy options can dominate specific locations. Even if people want to shop smart,, geography + transit costs mean they pay more or sacrifice nutrition.
Personas
User Journey
I created this user journey map to emulate the current experience of a shopper, and to highlight what pain points are experienced through the experience. This was really helpful in understanding what aspects I should focus on in my design, specifically making it easier to track what items are being bought, how much is being spent, and how long it will take to get to the grocery store.
Starting the Design
Digital Wireframes
For these digital wireframes, I focused on 4 core functionalities: a map to find the cheapest groceries in the area, a list maker to find where a specific list will be the cheapest if purchased at, a trip tracker so that multiple trips can be planned ahead of time, and an in-store scanner to scan for similar cheaper items and coupons where available.
Usability Studies Findings
Improve Label Terms
Participants were confused on the meaning of ambiguous labels. Need to create labels that prompt users more/ match user expectations.
Enhance Visual Cues
Need to add icons with images or text labels to improve discoverability of key features. Will add icons, like “+” to add an item, to help prompt users on how to act.
Improve Price Transparency
Participants want cost comparisons to be clear upfront. Need to add labels to pricing even as lists are being created to give a sense of the range of prices, and inform grocery list choices.
Mockups
For the mockups, I decided to go with a green theme, to match the color of produce, and evoke feelings of balance, to help ensure users that this app will help them to reach their financial goals with groceries. I made sure to add more labels and icons, and create a simple
Accessibility Considerations
Simple Color Palette
I used two colors and made sure that both had high contrast with the white and black text so that legibility would be easier for users.
Hierarchy
I used three main sizes for text in the app to make sure that users can quickly understand what is important on the page and easily find what they are looking for.
Typography
I used a sans-serif font because some of the text was going to be smaller than others, and I wanted to make sure that no matter the size, the text was still easy to read for users.
Conclusions and Next Steps
Overall, this project was a great challenge, and allowed me to propose a solution to a problem that many people face on a daily basis. I really challenged myself to create an app that I felt like I could see myself using, but also was intuitive and innovative. I would be excited to add more features to the app such as figuring out if multi-stop grocery trips and including gas prices for car rides to determine total cheapest trip.