Fly & Flo

Find retail products quickly in stores, across locations with this navigation tool.

Timeline

•  Concept
•  2 months

Role

•  UX/ UI Designer

Tools

•  Figma
•  Illustrator
•  Marvel
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Problem

•  User need for both an efficient mobile shopping experience and an interactive retail experience.

Overview

With deep interests in omni-channel strategies and how they improve customer service and brand loyalty, I chose to design a product that would improve customer relationships in retails that may be behind in incorporating technology.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Trend analysts state that retail is dead and marvel at the wonders of online shopping. However, while customers enjoy online shopping conveniences, connecting to a brand through the 5 senses beats the alternative and stores that make the experience interesting are rewarded with higher profits per purchase than online. The question is: How can we improve retail loyalty and customer-brand relationships through technology?
OBJECTIVE
Identify potential implementers who have not yet adapted their model to tech, identify what their users need, and find solutions to improve their customer service and brand engagement.
USER FLOW:
Video with user flow coming soon.

Research

QUESTIONS TO ASK
1. What are the customer engagement and retention models of successful businesses integrating tech in stores?2. How can stores improve engagement and retention?3. How do buyers experience these strategies?4. Which top stores do people prefer to buy from in-person?5. How satisfied are the users? Possible improvements?6. What’s their shopping journey like? Planned or spontaneous?7. Which are the top two and worst two store experiences?
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
The closest products on the market are made by Best Buy, Home Depot, Ikea, and Target. Three heuristics relevant to the goals defined for this project are:
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  • Flexibility and efficiency of use.
  • Recognition rather than recall.
  • Visibility of system status.
Additionally, due to the interactive nature of the goal, a 4th, special consideration was given to stores that had good in-store location systems.
Overall, IKEA had the most intuitive app, and notes were taken on each model to obtain the best result for this project.
KEY RESEARCH
The five reasons people shop in-store:
KEY INTERVIEW NOTES
The objective of interviewing the 5 people was to discover opportunities for improvement based on pain points. 4 of the interviewees were users and to obtain a different perspective, the 5th was a retail worker.
  • One user screenshots the location of store items and texts them to her husband for him to shop efficiently.
  • Another key user prefers to shop online but, being impatient, shops in-store for last minute items, or for the experience. This user also prefers digital payment methods and QR coupons.
  • One retail worker shared insights for user frustrations with stock quantity and point of sales systems with coupons.
ANALYSIS
Personas: The Young Busy Family and The Young at Heart:
The two initial target users for this app are younger parents who share the duty of shopping and young, impatient buyers.

The Young Busy Family is short on time and prefers to find their items and get home as soon as possible. The Young at Heart wants what they want, when they want it and this app reduces the time before they can finally experience their store bought item of choice.
STRATEGY
  • Since these are people with little time to waste, the app should be very intuitive. The design should be similar to things on the market and/or pull from existing data instead of being a whole new app on its own. This will lessen the on-boarding time and increase retention.
  • Instead of designing for a specific store, this will be a 3rd party app to be used across many different stores.
  • One retail worker shared insights for user frustrations with stock quantity and point of sales systems The app should have a share feature and reduce frustration due to inventory inaccuracies.with coupons.
If this were a real product, it could remain viable by a pay-for-play model. Stores would get a free trial to access users analytics, but then would pay to run ads as deal and coupon pop ups that users would subscribe for at a higher tier. Customers get notifications on ways to save money and what is new on the market in exchange for their anonymized data. The companies get more informed data on who their customers actually are to build better business strategies.
TARGET MVP
  1. A precise item locator.
  2. Accurate inventory tracking.
  3. Share shopping lists with contacts.
  4. Use of QR codes.

Development:

RAPID PROTOTYPE
Starting with quick sketches, a prototype in Marvel was made to observe the actions of users to determine which features should be changed. The goal was to to see how intuitive the features are and learn where the shortcomings are. Without making assumptions about what may be problematic, I created scenarios and allowed the user to guide me through their journey. I spoke to three people that I recruited from my day job and they provided me with insights on what wasn’t working.
  • No one used the ‘favorites’ feature because they thought they had to sign up.
  • A delayed interaction can be used to draw their attention to the feature. ie. a pulsing heart. Or maybe a heart is the wrong icon to use.
  • They thought it was a shopping app.
  • Edits to the layout or illustrations can differentiate it from solely shopping.
  • No one ‘allowed permissions’ when entering the zipcode.
  • This should be a pop up instead of a feature that lives in the design.
  • One user wanted analysis of competitor products to assist with best item to purchase.
  • Apply deals, coupons, or analysis in a later version.
WIREFRAMES I
VISUAL DESIGN
Users need to trust that the item that they are looking for will be there and that the inventory is accurate. Equally, the energy created from the desire to have their products as soon as possible requires a compatibly bright, bold color. Fun illustrations can add to the visuals to differentiate from pure shopping apps. Thus, the colors navy and a pop red were chosen.
PROCESS
In addition to the rapid sketch prototype detailed above, there were 2 wireframes, and 4 hi-fidelity iterations. Refinements for versions 1-3 focused on what is important to the design and where it should be placed.
Versions 4-5 focused on color audits and improving contrast, and version 6-7 (6 not shown due to minimal changes) focused on the perceived meaning of the illustrations, more white space balance, and better touch interactions.
USER FLOW
Set a location:
To provide the best experience while using the app, the first action must be to enter a zip code to show stores in the area.
A walk through of the app from start to set up