A content designer walks through Trader Joe’s
Do’s and don’ts from Trader Joe’s product labels
Ah, Trader Joe’s. The alleged UX queen of the grocery store game. Frequently applauded for its approachable selections and welcoming atmosphere, fans of Trader Joe’s are often loyal and vocal. Behind these beloved features is a core focus on the customer experience. The Trader Joe’s philosophy is centered on crafting a friendly, helpful, and simple shopping experience.
Sound familiar? If you’re a PatternFly user, then hopefully it does. This focus is a common value in content design. But, it’s important to remember — you can’t tell your users what your voice is. You need to show them who you are.
Trader Joe’s does that through the principles and practices that are instilled in each store, but they also explicitly reinforce their brand through unique, handmade, and sometimes whimsical price tags.
These labels always catch my eye, and I’ve noticed that I prefer some label strategies over others. (In another world I would have climbed my way to the coveted artist position).
Today, I’ve put on my content designer goggles to pull content design lessons from the price tags at my local Trader Joe’s.
Do: Answer anticipated questions
Users will almost always have questions about your product. They may wonder how to complete a task. They may wonder what something means. Or they may wonder how to learn more about a topic. To support a more efficient user experience, you should anticipate questions that your users have and answer them before they have a chance to ask.
When buying plants, most people want to know what the requirements are to help the plant grow and be happy. Trader Joe’s often places that information right on the price tag, so that customers don’t have to go digging for an extra plant marker in the soil. This is a simple, but effective example of how providing just a little bit of extra information can save time.
I do think the text in this example should be a little more distinguishable to help users locate it faster.
Here’s another example I like:
Trader Joe’s often cycles in unique items that a typical customer may not be familiar with. You could maybe take a guess at what a plumcot is, but the supporting text on this label clarifies the kind of flavor profile you can expect to find. This saves customers time and prevents them from buying something that’s not a good fit for them. They don’t have to guess at the flavor or spend time Googling it in-store.
Do: Use visual design to help users identify things
It’s essential to have good microcopy and documentation to help users understand your product. But longer pages of text can add more thinking time and exhaust your users before they find what they’re looking for. Making use of bold and noticeable callouts, like color and labels, can help offset this.
All of the “autumn” items at trader Joe’s have the same, distinctly colored product label. If you’re a regular customer, and you sometimes come in just to check out what’s new, these labels can help save time and quickly identify the products you’ll be interested in.
Since Trader Joe’s gets new items every week, it’s important to make them easy to find.
To help customers spot these new items, Trader Joe’s uses flashy labels that draw your eye. “New items” is bright and large, which helps the tag stand out amongst the others nearby.
I like this approach, but I think their label is a little bogged down with unnecessary text. It would likely be just as effective to say “new item” and perhaps advertise the weekly cadence on a separate sign by the entrance.
Do: Give complex details in an additional location
Sometimes you’ll have to use terminology that your user isn’t immediately familiar with, whether it’s something highly technical, or a branded term. You should always do your best to give meaning to unclear terms the first time that a user sees it, but sometimes more space is required to fully define and explain the details. In these cases, you should give a full and clear description of the term in an additional location, like a popup or tooltip.
I’ve seen ube-flavored items become increasingly popular at Trader Joe’s. It’s likely that some customers will immediately know what this is, but it is not common enough for it to be universally understood. To provide more context, the product packaging has additional information that suggests possible use cases for the item.
Trader Joe’s sells white-labeled products, and as a result they typically only sell one option for every product they have. This gives them the opportunity to put extra information on the product — in their brand voice.
However, the flavor description is a little vague here and it’d be nice to describe it a little better. Many liken ube to a nutty vanilla flavor (or, in my opinion, kind of like cereal milk). There was room to add that on this label and I think it would better describe what a customer would experience. It would fit right into their existing description: “This rich, sweet, and creamy spread is perfect for bringing the uniquely delicious, nutty, vanilla flavor of ube to pastries, pancakes, ice cream, and more.”
Don’t: Overcomplicate things
Most of this article has offered praise, with small critiques here and there. I’ve hinted at this, but the main offense that I’ve seen Trader Joe’s make with product tags is to overcomplicate them.
For example, this label has a ton of information. While some customers may be interested in what it has to say, it’s a bit overcomplicated and doesn’t use visual design well to help clarify things. It seems that the most important thing to know is that this is local honey, so I’d like to see that better represented. It is located near other honey, so it’s at least in an expected location, but it’s important to mention what it is to differentiate it from the surrounding products. My vote would be for something like this:
- “Wildflower Honey” — in the most bright and bold color to draw attention
- “Asheville Honey Company” — since this clarifies that the honey is local
- “Consume local honey to fight against allergies!” — to cut down on the supporting text that’s squeezed in
Trader Joe’s ultimately gets a really good content design grade. There are certainly ways that they could do better, but they already demonstrate some core content design goals and practices.
And it’s probably good to remember that there are only one or two artists per store. Hopefully your content design team has a little more support than that to help generate ideas and improve design!
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