Future Sessions: Q&A with Angela Wong from H-E-B
In 1905, Mrs. Florence Butt used $60 to open a grocery store in her home with the vision of feeding not just her own children, but everyone in the state of Texas. H-E-B is now the #1 food retailer and the largest private company in Texas. And they’ve received a lot of attention this year due to their ability to quickly and safely adjust to the changing needs of their customers and employees during COVID-19.
H-E-B Digital is a newer arm of the business, tasked with providing solutions at scale for new business needs — from farmers to warehouse workers to checkers to customers. Angela Wong joined their team as the Director of Experience Design two years ago, and she and her team are making a very real impact.
On September 29, Angela is joining other leaders in design and tech for Future Sessions including Meetesh Karia, CTO of Austin startup The Zebra, and Callie Thompson, Director of Service Design and Design Research at Headspace, for Future Sessions — a free livestream conversation discussing how to design for unknowns and how we build a sustainable future across industries and disciplines. Reserve your ticket and join the conversation.
As we prepare for the event, our team is thinking a lot about this time of great upheaval and how we — as designers, strategists, entrepreneurs, or developers — imagine the future. And then what gets in our way of building the kind of future we imagine? Modernist Studio design strategist Catherine Woodiwiss spoke with Angela about the short and long-term future of food and the importance of designing with and for the communities we serve.
Angela Wong: I had a lot of the standard ideas when thinking about technology and the future — like the ways spaceships might be integrated into our day-to-day.
I thought there would be easier ways of travel. Maybe some of that is being cross-cultural and having traveled to Asia quite a bit. I thought ways of getting to places fast would be more wide-spread and there would be less reliance on cars — in America or more wide-spread.
AW: Future-readiness, at least at H-E-B, is making sure there is alignment internally. I’m thinking about some of the emergency-relief preparation that set us up to respond to a crisis like COVID. There is a very strong sense of banding together and working together for the good of Texas. There’s a high mission-oriented thinking that is important.
As a digital organization the product design is newer for H-E-B, but over the last few years we’ve been thinking about and imaging a lot of what that mission is and how we want to move forward based on that. Preparing for the future means using that creativity and imagination.
AW: It’s a challenge. I don’t know if we’ve necessarily found that right balance. Especially in spaces of food, there’s a very real known and a very real decision-making that happens with a level of urgency. Within that balance, it is important to think about and prepare for the future, but also be able to meet the needs that we have right now. We consider if, in the work that we’re doing, there is a good balance of that in our portfolio of the things we focus on.
AW: It’s two-fold — it comes down to the same mission-oriented mentality in that there is such a strong focus on people, whether partners (our employees) or customers. There’s a very deep connection with the communities that the stores are based in. They really understand the community they serve. And H-E-B as a whole thinks a lot about the partners. In times of crises, that translates to everyone being willing to pitch in and work together to serve those communities.
As an example of how that looked, all the way from the designers to the engineers on our teams are thinking about the people that are on the front lines — everyone was willing to shift to what was needed in order to meet the needs of our community. We had a bunch of designers go in and bag groceries for a couple weeks. We pushed all of our work toward things we thought were going to impact and support the stores.
AW: I don’t know if it’s invention as much as shifts of thinking. There is a lot of inventiveness around how to connect. With self-isolation and quarantine, I’ve seen a lot of creativity in ways to be able to continue connecting, whether that’s in digital spaces or in person — doing happy hour online now or watching movies together via YouTube. Also connecting around ideas people care about — conversations around race or our political climate. There’s been a lot more creativity around how we connect with other people who care about those same things.
AW: It comes back to that connection piece. A lot of the work we’ve done with the digital expansion of information, and even looking specifically at food and how people run their homes, there’s so much to navigate now. Putting together a meal or planning out how to clean your home, there are many more ways to do that, and it’s so visible now as far as social media. That comes with a lot of anxiety and brings disconnection to the community, as well.
I think stores that have a very deep connection with the community and the people have been a really valuable place for us to look, so that we don’t lose that as we expand to digital experiences, and instead amplify those kinds of connections. I think that’s what people want more of: How am I connected to the community, how am I connect to a person versus a flat digital experience?
AW: I think that kinship we’ve seen people feel with the stores in their community is a really valuable piece of the H-E-B experience as a whole. How that looks digitally is something that we’re working through.
AW: That’s definitely an important piece. H-E-B thinks a lot about it, in terms of where their stores are located, how people can pay, and things like that. It’s a big question with a lot of factors, going all the way from supply chain to how prices are set to how we surface those things online and in stores. Accessibility is an important area we’re thinking through.
AW: I have two kids and the way they experience the world is so different from the way I did in terms of how they get information, how they problem solve. Information is just so much more at people’s fingertips now. I think a lot about that when we’re creating experiences and what kinds of solutions we commit to at H-E-B.
A good example is thinking about how a child might come and experience a store with their parents today, and the way they think about food and nutrition is very impacted by those kinds of experiences. What will that look like in the future? The way our kids make decisions will look really different if that becomes a totally online experience — how do they navigate that? The learning experience is a big part of that.
About H-E-B
Founded in 1905, H-E-B operates more than 358 stores in a number of formats, including superstores, supermarkets, and gourmet Central Markets. Employees are called Partners because everyone works together to build the company and create a sense of community here in Texas.
H-E-B is headquartered in San Antonio, Texas with approximately $23 billion in revenue and 100,000 Partners. H-E-B is the largest private company in Texas and one of the 15 largest privately held companies in the U.S.
Reserve your ticket for Future Sessions September 29th at 5:30pm CT. This free event is part of World Interaction Design Day (IxDD), presented by Adobe and IxDA.
Read past interviews on Perspectives on Design with Callie Thompson from Headspace, Meetesh Karia from The Zebra, Diana Griffin from Nava, and Joah Spearman, founder of Localeur.
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