Instacart Spotlight: Design Team

Design at Instacart encompasses more than just the interfaces our customers use. We have products that our huge fleet of Shoppers use to fulfill orders with, tools for our Partner Stores, more tools for our amazing Support & Operation teams, unique design channels and complex problems we’re solving daily. We are a team of seven composed of product and brand designers and a user researcher.

Melissa Chu and Dave Banse caught up with the design team and their roles in the big picture at Instacart.

What are the challenges you face day to day?

Himani: We have certain business goals we have to meet and I love working with our Operations and Engineering teams to meet them but shoppers are a large part of our business as well. And it’s tough because as a Designer its my job to stand up for the Shoppers, so we solve problems through design with empathy. A lot of times, working towards certain goals means making drastic changes to get results, but we have to fight for the shoppers and give them a voice. We have to evaluate if they’re doing their best work and if they’re enjoy it on top of helping us meet our business goals.

Francisco: One of the interesting things on our Shopper side is the interaction between operations and technology. You have to account for every situation that happens in the store. In your mind you have this perfect situation about how an order will go, but the interface needs to accommodate for when things go wrong like the scanner not working, the item is missing, the cashier is not there, bags are missing…so you build these escape mechanisms which are really interesting because once you go into the store you find all these scenarios that you didn’t account for. It’s user testing but on a whole other level. You have to fully immerse yourself in the shopping experience in-store to really get it.

Jordan: When you’re shopping online as a customer you’re hindered by what you know and what you can see. With groceries, it’s a very particular experience touching and seeing the lettuce, knowing the size that you want. We can’t do those same things as if you’re at the store but we can remove other challenges that encumber you in the store. For instance, being able to reorder exactly what you got last time or sorting every flavor of yogurt by the unit. We have to play to our strengths and the things that give you superpowers you can’t have in the real world, but you can have when using Instacart.

Damon: For the Partners team, being in sync with Business Development, knowing who we’re designing for like our Partners, CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods companies) and then being apart of the larger Instacart picture. We have two audiences that propose different ideas that we have to evaluate to consider a direction to go in and implement where necessary.

Zain: We sit with our respective teams that we ship with on a daily basis. We have to make time to collaborate with each other (designers) and maintain that cohesion across all of the product teams in the company. Everyone has different release cycles and different approaches to the business goals so we have to maintain a streamline of communication in order to make it all flow.

What do you like about designing at Instacart?

Kim: There’s never a shortage of work because our experience is end to end, online to offline. There’s so many pieces moving at any given time that design has a large role throughout the entire experience. We’re always thinking about improving the experience whether it’s how the groceries are received or how you browse through the products. The experience tells the story of how Instacart works.

Jordan: I really like that we have a whole bunch of data and an awesome user researcher who can balance that out. We’re doing so many new things for the first time, having all three of these things is so fun and interesting because it involves such a diverse set of challenges.

Himani: I really appreciate that we work on a product that is used by normal people, not just the tech industry. We have moms that choose to use Instacart so they can spend more time with their kids and elderly folks that really love the convenience of it. And I especially love hearing customer stories like that one dad that told us about how he was sad when his daughters went off to college so he would send his daughters groceries to their apartments via Instacart and felt that he was still taking care of them even though they were so many miles away. There’s so may unique stories from our customers that remind you that the work you do impacts so many people in a very meaningful way.

Zain: I really like that we can come up with an idea and it comes to fruition so quickly. We can try an experiment if we really believe in that idea. We work directly with our engineers to ship a product that we’re all proud of. The synergy is unique and the impact is huge when there’s no limits.

What are some recent projects you worked on that you’re proud of?

Kim: Our order status page wasn’t serving the needs of our customers. Support tickets were going up, confusion on the customers end and communication between the Shopper and Customer was unclear. We solved these problems with a new design by providing the correct information at the time its needed- whether you’re on the Customer Happiness team, a Shopper or the Customer.

Himani: I just finished working on the application for becoming a shopper at Instacart. It needed a little bit of love, especially since we’ve learned so much from our Shoppers and have a lot more data to work with. With the effort we spend on driving potential applicants to that page, it was really awesome to know the monetary impact I made by redesigning that application with conversion as a goal.

Dave: At first it was finding out who our customers are — understanding real goals, behaviors, needs around food, meals, and shopping. Distributing a research mindset and practice to engineering and operations team members outside of design has been valuable too. Right now, it’s supporting the Shopper Application Team and this complex product that serves a variety of Shopper roles in the chaos of a grocery store & real world. There’s a huge operational side that needs to work in sync with the product itself, too. It’s a beast of a problem, and I love the service design aspects.

How would you describe the culture on your team?

Damon: We have such an awesome team that can hang out together and talk about the vast things that we’re working on. There’s a lot of freedom to build things the way you envision them because there is ownership to evaluate what’s best.

Zain: Everyone has a totally different background and their strengths really shine showing what they’re great at. Kim’s architecture background was able to come into play when she designed a booth for a recruiting event all the while shipping product on the Consumer team. I think it’s all of it combined that really shows the synergy amongst us.

Himani: Design culture is something we all believe in, want to foster and put at the forefront of everything we do. It comes up a lot how we want to strategically handle design when it comes to working on the Instacart Shopper Team especially since we’re a service and everyone on our team takes designing every aspect of that service very seriously. It’s really great how motivated everyone is, I definitely feed off of that. I feel extremely lucky to work with engineers that get so excited about the tiniest details of a design and are eager to provide feedback and build it!

Jordan: The fact that we have seven people on the design team and still no head of design, we’ve all come together to self-co-manage this thing. That’s just a testament to how well we’re learning to cohesively work together. We’re handling almost every piece ourselves and operating like no other team in the company.

What are you looking for in mentorship and leadership?

Jordan: Someone who understands what they want from a designer and the team in general. They should have gone through the motions of shipping product and understanding output of a team of this size as a whole is very important.

Kim: I’m looking for a lot of boldness in a head of a design because that’s the nature of the role. You’re pushing your team to put out top quality work and helping design have a seat at the table with different stakeholders outside of the team. They have to think about the business goals and how design plays a part in it, especially how design should be taken to the next level in the company.

Francisco: I really want someone who’s been in the trenches and has worked on products that we admire, all while providing mentorship in that regard. Instacart is a product still in its early stages and there’s so much opportunity beyond what we’re doing. Having someone help in realizing the potential of the team is valuable.

Dave: Design sense and execution are the table stakes. I look for humility, confidence, and critical reflection. I like when anyone has strong views on best-practice processes like critique, hiring, and project structure backed by experience, but it has to come with an openness to challenge and desire to keep learning and improving.

What are some words that describe this team?

Francisco: Eclectic — we all have such different backgrounds it’s cool to see the different personalities come together.

Damon: Empathetic — we have to have empathy with so many types of customers, whether it’s our shoppers, our partner stores, our actual customers getting groceries delivered.

Jordan: Impactful — our business priorities are aligned with who our users are so it’s really gratifying that your design changes can impact the business and people’s lives immediately.

How do the other functions of Design play a role in the design process and shipping of product?

Dave: I think all good designers do research. It’s the foundation of the design process, and important to understanding the consequences of design.

I’ve never been on a project team that knew everything we needed to know up front. I’ve seem some who think they do, and those projects don’t always end well. As a function of design, research means starting with a curious mind, asking the questions that will push work forward, and getting the answers we need to do good work.

Zain: We’ve steered away from spending on marketing in the past. Our bags are a big hit, they have stories behind them, full of groceries for a family, a get together, a picnic in the park. There are stories all over Twitter and Instagram, you can go on there at anytime and see how Instacart is changing people’s lives every minute. We have unique opportunities in-store that each partner lends us, whether it’s our awesome branded checkout lanes and staging areas, parking lot signs to freezer door stickers. Not many companies get to be in the position we’re in which makes it a lot of fun to play with the unique opportunities.

We’re currently looking for an awesome design director and product designers, check out the openings here.