Goals and Objectives

Develop a complimentary mobile experience for Walmart Grocery to help customers easily access grocery products and schedule pick up.

Challenge

• The challenge is to understand current Walmart users' response to the website, discover pain points, and propose a mobile solution to improve user experience.

Process

Starting from the initial user research phase, I conducted user interviews and a moderated usability study of the current website to understand the problems users face. I also conducted a competitive analysis to ensure the new app will be up-to-date with current trends. During the synthesis phase, I gathered all of the data and created an affinity map to determine priority pain points. Then I created two personas to ensure empathy during the entire design process. I also created a user journey map to understand where users are having trouble, created Lo-Fi sketches and a Hi-Fi prototype in Figma. By the end, I was able to validate that the user pain points had been solved by the designs. The project timeline was 4 weeks.

Preliminary Research

Since Walmart does not have a dedicated app for their grocery services, I conducted a competitive analysis of direct and in-direct competitors to ensure the new app will be up-to-date on current trends and provide unique opportunities.

User Research

Using this article about the key demographic for Walmart. I selected four frequent Walmart shoppers between the ages of 25-34 and 45-54, two males and two females. Each was interviewed about their thoughts on the current Walmart website, then participated in a usability study using the current site.

Key Findings

I created an affinity map to sort out the data gathered from the usability study and user interviews to better determine the priority pain points.

Personas

After the data was processed, I created two user personas based on research to communicate the struggles the key demographic face for the duration of the design.

User Journey Map

I created a user journey map to ensure an intuitive user experience. This allowed me to pinpoint any additional problems or opportunities before starting the design phase.

Lo-Fi Sketches

Based on the established user pain points, I sketched multiple options for each screen. During the process of the design, I continuously referred to the target audience and research data to ensure the designs were focused on improving the user experience.

Based on my research insights, I prioritized three main objectives:

• Provide a platform where users can easily search for the items they need using a variety of filter, sort, and search options.
• Provide a platform where users can discover new items, categories, and see related products.
• Provide a platform where users can search for and choose the substitutions they want.

Hi-Fi Prototype

Moving forward, I turned my Lo-Fi sketches into a Hi-Fi prototype.

Clickable Prototype

The clickable prototype was created to test and validate the design. It was very useful in understanding how real users navigate the app and I gained realistic insights on what worked well and what required further improvement. The prototype only includes the main user flow and aspects that I planned to test users on.

Conclusion

After four weeks of user research, analyzing, and designing, I was able to create a Hi-Fi prototype and validate the assumptions and changes I made. Using the clickable prototype with four participates, I received the following data:

Below is the results from our Hi-Fi usability study:

• (60% increase) 5 out of 5 users were able to successfully check out and reserve pick-up.
• (20% increase) 4 out of 5 users were able to successfully add an item to the cart.
• (60% increase) 4 out of 5 users were able to virtually select substitutions
• (40% increase) 5 out of 5 users intuitively knew how to sort and filter the search.

After Thoughts

This UX case study was an amazing learning experience. At the beginning of this project, I was fascinated to learn how other users interacted with the Walmart website when shopping for groceries. It was very insightful to see how differently each user used it. This gave me valuable insight into the issues users face.

This project really showed me how important research is and how each piece of data is a valuable part to the puzzle.

Note: I do not work for, nor am I affiliated with Walmart. This UX study was done as a learning experience to explore the products I use and how to improve them.