Sunshine Foods

Bhavina
Bhavina
Aug 25, 2017 · 5 min read

Overview

For the second project, we created an e-commerce website for Sunshine Foods. Sunshine Foods are a local health shop selling particular healthy food products. Based near Liverpool Street Station, Sunshine Foods have a clientele ranging from local residents and small businesses. Sunshine foods want to enter the e-commerce market while at the same time maintaining their ‘small shop appeal’.

Using the double diamond process, I was able to carry out the following methods: competitive analysis, user interviews, finding a persona, card sorting, user journeys, experience maps, site maps, design studio, wire frames, and a low to mid-fidelity digital prototype.

Competitive Analysis

Conducting an in depth investigation for Sunshine foods was key if they wanted to enter the e-commerce market.

I split the competitors in two, first focusing on big brands such as Whole Foods, Planet Organic and Ocado and then small brands like Alara and Borough Market.

I was surprised to see that Whole Foods didn’t offer online shopping in this country, yet a shop as small as Alara did. So immediately I felt more of a connection with Alara in that it’s a small “family” styled company just like Sunshine Foods.

Site Visit

To gain an understanding of Sunshine Food’s setting and clientele, I visited Planet Organic, my local health shop in Liverpool Street and looked into the store’s clientele and it’s product placement.

Customer and staff interaction in Planet Organic

Additionally, if there was a new product being sold the store would have a stand near the entrance with free samples, mirroring the way their website displays deals and offers on the homepage.

User Interviews

Identifying Planet Organic’s clientele offered an insight into the kind of customers likely to shop at Sunshine Foods.

With this in mind, I conducted 3 user interviews and found 3 consistent trends among each user. All 3 users enjoy cooking, shopping for rare items and leading a healthy lifestyle all of which matched ⅓ of the personas we were pre -assigned with.

Charlotte, the persona, also enjoys cooking and keeping fit and healthy. However, she doesn’t like waiting for orders to arrive and shopping through big brand stores.

Charlotte (Persona)

Eagerness and particularity are two themes gathered from her persona.

User Journey and Experience Map

I began creating a scenario to gain a deeper understanding of our personas pain points.

In this scenario, Charlotte wants to place a food order in advance for a dinner party with friends.

Experience Map

Through the experience map, I was able to find a frustration in Charlotte.

Close up of Experience Map (Charlotte’s frustration point)

Essentially, having no online delivery is the main frustration highlighted and going back to the competitive analysis, online delivery is a missing ingredient in many UK health stores.

Refining the scenario to include next day online delivery would tackle Charlotte’s frustration of having to wait for orders.

So ideally, Charlotte’s journey through Sunshine Food’s would look like this:

User Flow

I chose quick delivery as the main factor because it links with her eagerness.

With an understanding of my persona, the next step was to ensure the information on the Sunshine Foods was set out in a way that’s easy for Charlotte to navigate.

Card Sorting

Ensuring Charlotte’s journey is quick and seamless, is what led me to conduct 4 open and 2 closed card sorts. Given the Sunshine Food’s products list, the card sorting participants came up with subcategories for the navigation.

Site Map

Sketches

I took the scenario and persona into the design studio with a group of 4 participants. I received interesting designs of which included online delivery information on the products page as a way for Charlotte to receive this information straight away.

Testing and iterating

After combining all the sketches, I created a low fidelity wireframe and conducted 3 user tests.

For the test, I assigned my users with a goal to buy brown bread that needs to be delivered by tomorrow.

Products Page (prototype v1)

3 out of 3 users expected more information about delivery on the products page as well as a way of refining by next day delivery. This would improve the experience for Charlotte and would ultimately solve her problem.

I took on board what was said in the user tests and included the changes in the mid-fidelity wireframe below.

Products page (prototype v2)

Click on the link below to view the prototype. The goal is to buy some brown bread that needs to be delivered by tomorrow. Best of luck!

Reflection

You can’t please them all! During testing, participants would suggest different changes to be made to the website. Panicked, I made these changes and eventually found myself incorporating all the tiny suggestions which did not correlate with the general theme found through testing.

I took a deep breath and focused on the 3 key findings found from all 3 users.

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Bhavina

Written by

Bhavina

Junior UX Designer taking on the world one user at a time!

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