sreyan.com — Shop It

About the Project

The focus of this project was to look at improving the user experience at shopping malls. Shopping malls across metropolitan cities in India are getting larger in size by trying to accommodate more and more shops leading to a major wayfinding problem inside. The research pointed out that often more times than not users are unaware of whether a particular shop exists within the mall and have trouble navigating to mall services such as washrooms, elevators, etc.

Design

The app was conceptualised and designed in accordance with iOS Human Interface Guidelines targeted at the iOS 9.0 platform. The design aims to intervene and improve the various stages of interaction for an user inside a shopping mall.

Other Stakeholders - The Mall Owner

While the various shop owners get to have their own portal for pushing advertisements to relevant users, the mall owners have their own portal for monitoring footfall. Other than graphs and charts, the mall owners get to see a heat map based on data gathered. Depending on these big data analytics, the mall owners can potentially implement variable rent for shops in different areas across the mall.

Process

UNDERSTANDING USER PAIN POINTS

Data from the secondary research helped map and design the questionnaire for a quantitative primary research survey. I proceeded with the research hypothesis that "navigation within malls can be cumbersome even for returning visitors". The data from the primary research helped me identify the user pain points that led the way to designing the features.

Have you ever got lost in a shopping mall?

All data in percentage.

In which situation would you use way-finding within a shopping mall?

All data in percentage.

What do you think is the best technique for way-finding within a shopping mall?

All data in percentage.

Do you think efficient way-finding can enhance your shopping experience?

All data in percentage.

How do you think way-finding can be improved in the future?

All data in percentage.

EXPERIENCE MAPPING VS. FEATURE PLOTTING

To better address the problem, I divided the shopping experience into five different stages. I designed the app in a way such that it addresses the various experience painpoints at these stages. I also wanted to make the app non-intrusive such that it is only limited to these stages.