Safe Shopper

We wanted to provide a solution to the above context, but needed to find out what has already been done, where and how we could intervene if their was an opportunity.
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We conducted research using recent sources (at the time of the project) such COVID-19 news in broadcast media, local health authorities, social media discussions in our peer network, and any COVID-19 apps that were already made and served Metro Vancouver. We also took into account of the new updates from our local health authority on their progress of studying the virus's potential impact to public health too.

By analyzing online conversations on social media and the web, we found two themes dominating the discussions. The first is how commenters were expressing anger, fear and frustration towards fluctuating news on social distancing with people supporting and against it.

While not specific to any organization's social media, posts reporting about COVID-19 and its regulations had comments venting of the lack of accessibility of personal and public services. (Ex. Hours waiting for a customer service agent on the phone for assistance on claiming COVID-19 related financial support that they were eligible for or booking a specialist appointment.) Most of these comments were posted as a one-time input and not every comment generated a discussion for further analysis.

Three of our team members noticed that there were more sponsored posts and 'giveaways' from local businesses and creators in our Instagram feeds with the message of 'support local'. So we hypothesized that social distancing restrictions were pressuring them to find alternative ways to generate revenue and engagement.

Therefore, we narrowed down our possible intervention spaces to shopping, and recreation in larger shared spaces like transportation, dining, doctor offices and medical laboratories.

To find out who we could design for, we made a Google Form survey with questions asking for the participant's demographic data and how they were navigating public spaces. We also wanted to find out what other challenges social distancing were impacting in user's daily life as well. We also asked our survey participants for their participation in a 1-on-1 interview to discuss what other challenges social distancing has brought into aspects of their life, such as relationships, scheduling and mobility. (We also asked about what they were already doing to adapt to the situation.)

16 survey responses and 5 interviews. Our survey results showed that 31.25% to 53.85% of our participants had specified feeling additional stress that impacted their daily life, especially with tasks such as essential shopping and managing their existing health issues (e.g. routine checkups, testing).

Through our 1-on-1 interviews, stress was most significant to this group because of potential exposure to the virus amongst surfaces and within other's social proximity. This is due to the extra time they spent outside for necessary tasks, like essential shopping. (Ex. longer line ups, moving to different locations if stock had been sold out.)

Delivery apps/services were reported as a poor option because of lack of variety offered through apps or personal preference of the interviewee's shopping habits. (For example, a person whose lifestyle includes a dietary restrictions or cultural diet lack diverse options of goods in the online menu, such as fermented goods.) The additional fees that came with using theses apps also deterred some people from using it at all.
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Overall, we concluded that the sudden need to adapt and facing health risks were causing the problems that could impact personal health and lifestyle for immunocompromised individuals.

Our research led us to create two kinds of people to design a solution for: the person who is in charge of house hold affairs and the person who lives an independent and practical lifestyle. They share 3 key pain points that impacted their autonomy, financial health and comfort toward ambiguity.

We conducted 30-45 min remote observation sessions through video calls (ex. Zoom). The research team observed how the tester went to complete tasks on the Safe Shopper interface. An interview was conducted afterward with qualitative based questions before sending a survey for the users to provide their final comments.

A questionnaire with suggested tasks was offered to our testers to record their first impressions.  This method was only applied when we dealt with connectivity and time constraints. This method helped us capture our tester's thoughts that could have been missed if we relied only on ideal methods.

Our apps intention is to support health promotion behaviors while users are shopping in-person. To support our narrative, we added more health-promotion content at critical touchpoints such as the onboarding phase and home page to explain how the app should be used. We've eliminate empty sentences in the copy and revised our tone as straightforward and conversational.

70% of our users had significant delays when interacting with our CTAs and navigation elements. For example, a horizontal menu tab on a Store Page was designed to be swiped but our users had spent time figuring out whether they should click or scroll. 20% of our testers commented that this part of the app was not working and moved on to other parts of the app.

We needed to evaluate the app’s holistic experience and define directional clarity, specifically the journey it takes the user to complete a goal. The visual and interaction designer worked closely to add consistency and cohesion to the experience than work separately after meeting. Other team members tested the revised iterations, provided more feedback and helped the duo-designers present this iteration to the teaching team for additional feedback.

These are the design principles created for a visual consistent experience.