A LIDL Redesign Project
Introduction
For this project, I wanted to dig deeper into users behaviours on the daily things we do, where digital comes in as an essential part of our routines and the household — And can make it a lot simpler. I myself try to find every way to live a more digitalised life and rely on apps and programs to help me manage all the to-dos of life. But it needs to work well and add value, otherwise what’s the point for me as an user to have it?
With this in mind, and as a frequent enthusiastic user of several grocery chains apps, I chose to redesign the Lidl Plus app. A redesign of an existing app would be a good way to reach my own goals of using design heuristics and working more by myself in Figma. Also learn more about personalisation.
Background
Lidl Plus is a free customer club that gives the user access to all of Lidl Sweden’s offers, promotions, digital coupons, digital receipts & more directly on their phone. The app launched successfully in October 2020. Barely 2 years after launch, it has reached over 1 million users. Meaning, every 10th swede has downloaded this app.
To take advantage of all their offers and collect points, the customer scans a QR code from the app into the scan machine that is available at every cash register or self checkout stand.
A survey made by a survey company about swedish grocery store chains, showed that that Lidl’s customers became slightly more loyal and the number of customers increased by seven percent compared to 2021. However, loyalty is low in comparison, as Lidl ranks sixth place in loyalty.
The Challenge
Although the app offers a lot of great discounts and gives incitament for the customer to check it often, the app is lacking in user-friendliness in many ways. There is a lot going on at the same time and the design feels is overwhelming. And to add on that, it isn’t particularly aesthetically pleasing either.
The app carries a lot of important functions, and has a good amount of users already, so a functional and accessible design is essential. I see tremendous potential in the app and how this can be reached with a few UX tweaks. Handling all your shopping concerns smoothly seems to be quite hard at present stage.
As I now was the only project member and was short on time, I already knew I had to be mindful and narrow down the scope after the initial research had been done. I decided to not try to redesign the whole app, just some essential parts that would improve the user experience a lot.
To guide me throughout the early phase of the problem solving stage and planning, with an open mind, towards opportunity areas ahead, I ideated on a few How Might we’s:
They didn’t feel quite “there. So I iterated a bit more, combined a few, and decided to go with:
How might I — Improve customer loyalty and engagement with an easy-to-use, accessible, and functional one-stop-shop digital solution that adds value to both users and the company?
Week 1: Let’s make a plan!
I first started out as I usually do, with a broad scope to go into the inital research start with an open unbiased mind. Ideas and thoughts were written down,I gathered tools, frameworks and methods I like to use in a Figma file, as well as using Notion for all the parts regarding the research.
A project plan that followed the structure of the double diamond process was created:
To keep track of all the tasks and keep a flexible work style, I also made a Kanban board where I put in each task, could categorize them and move around, and keep track of each individual process, by writing comments in the cards.
Desk Research
I started with desk research about the company, the grocery shopping industry in Sweden, consumer behaviours, competitiors and then continued to look at the research that I could find about the app.
I wen’t thru the app extensively and wrote down everything I could find that felt badly designed, unclear, difficult, or just about anything that could be an issue for users. I also looked into all the reviews about the app as well as the store experience connected to it.
Findings
Biggest finds where how complicated it was to go thru their offers and deals. They we’re not on one page, but divided in offers, coupons, and then I had to see all their offerings thru a external leafleet. Their landing page was messy and unstructured and the app felt overcomplicated in so many areas.
There was also no way of saving their offers and marketed products in a shopping list of some sort, or via the leafleet, so I had to do it externally in apple notes, or the good old writing it down on a paper. What is this, 1989? ;)
Competitiors
Next step was to look thru their biggest competitiors app to note the differences. As I already was a experienced user and a customer club member of all the apps, I tried to look at it in a more technical way, from everything from functionality, to design, on features and how smooth the user journey was.
I found two things all the other chains have with their customer club apps, that Lidl doesn’t.
- The customer can connect their paycard to the club, so they are not obligated to use their app to register their points, or get the member deals.
- Lidl’s offers are divided into general deals and customer club deals.
So are a few other stores as well, but in Lidl’s app, the customer needs to activate the deals in the app before scanning, to access the deal.
This was also a prominent part of the of complaints when I looked into the user reviews of the app on App Store and Trustpilot. I could see in a few comments that the developers had answered users, motivating this design choice with an aim to create a living app, they want their users to go into the app and not just swipe card at the checkout, and miss something.
I understand those decisions can increase the amount of active app users but I also questioned the accessibility. They might exclude a large group of customers that isn’t so familiar with apps. Their whole business idea is to be a low price store that attracts people that want those deals, so there’s a risk that this decision could hurt their loyalty and trust. Convenience still is a major factor for people.
On the other hand, their competitiors seem to be achieving an active app by offering a lot more features like great shopping list functions, personalised offers, your favourite/frequent bought products, recipes with products on discount, beautiful landing pages and other nice features.
After this gathering phase, I decided my areas of focus and wrote a hypotheses:
1. Give the user a way to create a full shopping list without exiting the app.
2. Help the user see and use all actual offers/deals with more ease.
3. Bonus: Improve scan function and design on landing page to be more intuitive and delightful.
Hypothesis:“ If the app was easier to understand and use, hold functional features that makes it even more essential to use for customers, it might be able to improve the business goals and help gain loyalty for the business”
Week 2: Interviews, surveys & stalking people..
I started with observation studies in Lidl Karlskrona. This was harder than I imagined, as I had to linger around in the store, and people outside just wanted to get to their cars asap as it was winter. I did ask for permission but the staff did not want me to disturb their customers too much, it didn’t feel right to go against their wishes.
In Stockholm they have self checkout counters and a more open store design, so I could observe how many that was using the app, while pretending to be really invested in picking out the perfect vegetables..
In Västerås, the staff and customers we’re much more easy to work with.
I stood outside the store and made sure to ask short questions as it was around the christmas break, meaning swedish winter + stressed swedes. I kept it to 3 questions and managed to ask all of them to 20 people. I also note down what type of costumer I talked with, to eventually use that same profile for coming interview targets.
To get a deeper more qualitative understanding and find pain points about their whole customer experience, it was time for interviews.
I chose to use an affinity diagramming process to synthesize the answers. I did in Figma with digital sticky notes, and clustered them on the commonalities I found.
From the interviews + surveys I could extract the following insights:
Insight #1 — Checkout Experience Matters:
A seamless checkout process and flexible options for club members are key to improving customer satisfaction and minimizing tech-related frustrations during use.
Insight #2 — Price Sensitivity: Shoppers are attracted to Lidl primarily because of it’s low prices and acceptable product quality. They appreciate offers, discounts, and campaigns, but for these to be effective, they should be easy to use and adopt.
Insight #3 — App Usability: While customers appreciate the Lidl app for its product scanning function, there’s a strong desire for a more user-friendly, personalized, and functional app. Some users revert to traditional methods due to app difficulties, missing out on valuable Lidl offers, which play a crucial role in their loyalty to the brand.
I created problem statements & redefined How might I’s;
#1 — The current checkout process for club members lacks flexibility, leading to customer dissatisfaction. HMI enhance the checkout experience to make it more seamless and accommodating for club members?”
#2 — While price and product quality attract shoppers, the effectiveness of our offers, discounts, and campaigns is hindered by usability issues.
HMI make these offers more user-friendly and accessible to strengthen customer loyalty?”
#3 — The Lidl app’s current usability issues deter users from fully embracing its benefits, including valuable offers. HMI redesign the Lidl app to be more user-friendly and personalized to drive greater app adoption and customer loyalty?”
Before heading into the design phase, I created a persona.
Testing & feedback
I tested the wireframes with family members and neighbours that were all familiar with the Lidl app. I wrote down a short script of features I wanted them to try/look for, and let them discover themselves via mirroring the wireframes on my phone.
I observed and took notes of their reactions, comments, how easy it was too understand, and the response in general.
The positive:
- The shopping list feature was met with praise and appreciation and easy to understand.
- All the deals on one page was met with positive reactions.
- The card scan function felt less in the way now, and easier to close down.
- Keeping the leafleet in deals, was received well for a few of the testers that prefered it in paper format
- Being able add products from the leafleet was a nice surprise
- the menu choices was perceived as clear and user friendly
The “needs more work”:
- The deals on landing page, majority of the testers felt that it was a bit too long to have all of them there as they would probably still check the deals page to not miss out.
- Some hesitation about how the favourite products work, and how to add several products at the same time came up.
- A wish for being able to add other products to shopping list, like writing in “milk, bread” etc. (I had this idea but forgotten about this so it was really good feedback!)
- In the leafleet, users prefered could add one product at a time instead of marking several.
Design
Reflection
I realize that I could have managed my time better and not pushed tasks to the last minute. Even with planning, life got in the way and pushing stuff just creates bigger risks for failure.
I wish I had more time to test the final design with users and iterate again, as this would have allowed me to refine the user experience further and address any potential usability issues, as well as finishing my prototype.
I did learn a lot about design heuristics, working independently in Figma, and the importance of personalization in app design. Over-all, I am happy with this project and the learnings from it.
Moving forward, I’ll prioritize better time management, allocate more time for testing, and starting off immediatly with my tasks.