A UX Case Study (Based on the COVID period): Abmart Supermarket
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ROLES: UX Designer (Brainstorming, Research, User Persona, Wireframing)
TOOLS: Google Forms & Sheets, Whimsical, Miro, Trello, and Figma
DURATION: 4 weeks
Overview
The case study is based on Chief Abasa, a Lagos-based merchant with a chain of supermarkets located in the 4 major cities in Nigeria. He sells all items ranging from foods, electronic gadgets, groceries, and clothings. His goal for the year is to be the number one go-to store for anyone’s shopping needs. He really wants to beat the likes of Shoprite and Spar. His business has been booming for several years until COVID struck and the government ordered a lockdown.
This is a team case study in view of completion of the training at the “Uranus Academy for the fundamentals of UI/UX Design.”
Problem Statement
Covid-19 pandemic really took its toll on physical stores and businesses of which Chief Abasa’s supermarket was a part. The inability for customers to visit supermarkets due to the lockdown measures and restrictions hampered his business. As a team of UX designers, the challenge for us was how to help our client convert his business to a digital platform to ensure sustained progress and possible upscaling opportunities in the business.
The Solution
Since the above problem was on physical shopping constraint due to the pandemic. We as a team were tasked on using digitalization to help solve the client problem. As such, a mobile app that will help customers make orders from the comfort of their home and getting the orders delivered to them whilst conforming to the lockdown measures and regulations was the solution we provided.
The Goal
The key goal was to create a new product to rescue Chief Abasa’s supermarket from plummeting during the lockdown period viz:
- Empathize user pain points during the pandemic to facilitate areas for improvement.
- Design and prototype key flows for the app
- Test and validate the solution.
Design Process
With such a short time, we followed the design process we were exposed to during the classes to gain insight, motivations and identify user frustrations to inform the final product design.
Requirement Gathering
With a view to address our client’s business constraints and solve user problems, we made efforts to understand the requirement needed in order to know the best approach to use in solving the problem.
The requirements were:
- Business Requirement
- Technical Requirement
- User Requirement
For the business requirements, the Chief made it known to us that he has the capacity to upscale in terms of employing delivery services and other necessities. We concluded based on financial statistics that his major targets are people in Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan, and Benin, where he has his supermarket located.
For the user requirements, we could conclude based on the situation, people can not go out to get items they need. They would either have these items delivered to them or some other means which would be evaluated later on.
For the technical requirements, based on preliminary research, an online presence has really helped a lot of businesses overcome the gap created by the pandemic, especially in commerce; e-commerce being one of the most productive and evident areas. We concluded that conducting a competitive analysis on businesses (both direct and indirect competitors like Konga, Jumia, Walmart, etc.) that have thrived during the pandemic will help foster ideas on how to help provide an online presence for the client with a view to help him thrive during this period and also note areas that would require or need improvements which would improve user experience and in turn bring more conversion that would help boost sales.
We also opted for two methods of data gathering. With the pandemic as a constraint, we decided to use methods that would not require physical contact; Online user interviews and Surveys.
Empathy
We conducted an online survey using Google forms to inform our design decisions and empathize with the users. We were able to collate 132 responses and from this, we gained valuable insights as to the problems and pain points of users during the pandemic.
Some of the questions that we asked were:
- What is your marital status?
- Where is your current location?
- What was your experience shopping during the lockdown?
- If it was difficult, were there any specifics that you had difficulty getting?
- How were you able to solve this problem?
- How do you feel about shopping online?
- What payment method do you prefer?
- If there’s any specific feature you’ll love to be improved, what will it be?
- Would you love to give feedback after every product you order?
- Did you experience any problem shopping online?
- Is their anything you would like to tell us about how you were able to adapt to Covid-19 lockdown situations?
User Personas
Using the results from the user survey, I and another team member analysed the data received, discovered the major target users and proceeded to create the following personas to inform the design in terms of empathy, which is geared towards a user-centered process.
Competitive Analysis
As a team we carried out a market and competitor analysis on businesses that have physical and online stores like Spar and Shoprite and also those that are solely online like Jumia and Konga. We compared common features and looked into features that could improve the experience during this period.
Define
To identify user needs, we as a team came with various suggestions and insights on how to solve user pain points by using an affinity map to vote on the right solutions to implement in the design with a view to provide a better experience for users.
User Flows
Afterwards, we created user flows for various task users can perform on the app such as purchase of a product and checking out.
Ideation
After gathering multiple insights, brainstorming and priotizing ideas together, we created a low-fidelity wireframes on Figma after gathering inspiration and other visual design related tasks with the goal of creating a good experience for users.
Style Guide
Since the project didn’t have a style guide of its own, we created a brand guideline for the project.
Prototype
After creating the low fidelity wireframe, we proceeded to create the high fidelity wireframes and prototyping afterwards. Meanwhile, the style guide we already did made high-fidelity very easy.
The wireframes were fully prototyped and the link is attached here
User Testing
We tested the prototype with 4 users and their responses were as follows:
User 1
Experience: The flow is okay and works well.
Difficulty: 8/10
Suggestions: None
User 2
Experience: Easy to navigate, flow works well. I like the idea
Difficulty: 8/10
Suggestions: Increase the display for COVID tips. text is not really visible.
User 3
Experience: The process seemed good and okay
Difficulty: 7/10
Suggestions: Include order tracking, interaction to show an item has been added to cart.
User 4
Experience: The process seemed good and okay
Difficulty: 7/10
Suggestions: Being able to swipe on onboarding screens, interaction to show item has been added to cart, reviews on the product page.
Lesson Learnt
We were able to gather from the testing that users were able to navigate quite well. We also gathered that interactions should always be made primary actions to show that an action has been performed. We were also able to identify that users would want to see reviews for any product description in order to inform their buying decisions.
Features to be added
Due to the time frame, we were only able to prototype one flow (adding an item to cart and checking out). Other features we intend to add based on research analysis are:
- Order Tracking
- Choice of delivery date selection ( for flexible delivery).
- Customer service chat feature for quick resolution of problems and improve customer service.
Thank you for reading!
