Designing to Leverage Spatial Intelligence Technology to Improve the Grocery Shopping Experience

Facing the challenge of e-commerce, people assume that brick and mortar retail is in trouble. However, unlike other sectors, the grocery industry is booming. Even though more shopping channels are available, more than 95% of people still purchase groceries in physical stores. While new trends of grocery shopping are emerging--such as the transition of household shopping from a matriarchal to a democratic process,and customers’ inclination in emphasizing experience over price--shoppers’ needs are changing and

cannot be simply satisfied within a traditional retail context.

To understand grocery shoppers’ demands and pain points, I conducted a series of research explorations, which includes research survey, interviews, user shadowing, observation, user-testing and prototyping. Through synthesizing the main learnings, I found five main design opportunities in this area--making grocery shopping more efficient, ameliorating shoppers’ mental load, integrating fragmented online and offline information, exploring more intuitive search and input method, and connecting the grocery store with community.

The solution I present here is a shopping assistant platform called LUMI.It provides a holistic shopping experience for users while connecting the pre-shopping, in-store and after shopping scenarios. For the pre-shopping preparation,an AI assistant enables users to easily create shopping lists. While shopping in a store, real-time AR display and filters help shoppers make better decisions. After leaving the store, people can get grocery delivery from their neighbors by using LUMI. Also, they can share their review sand recipes with their friends. With LUMI, the gap between online and offline shopping will be merged and customers can better enjoy their grocery shopping.