Oja Express:
The United Nations of Groceries At Your Fingertips
Client
Oja Expres
Roles
UX Designer
UI Designer
Summary
Collaborated in the design of a mobile-first website for Oja Express, an e-commerce website focused on same-day delivery of ethnic foods and groceries.
Problem Statement
People who shop for culturally diverse foods on Oja Express need a trustworthy, white-glove experience to find and purchase groceries because they delight in discovering significant items and want to feel confident entrusting that responsibility to an online platform.
Goals
Focus on mobile-first website design.
Streamline the first-time user flow.
Establish trust and credibility through efficient service.
Use technology to complement the in-store shopping experience.
Solve the high cart drop-off rates.
Research
Customer interviews
Market Research Analysis
Customer Empathy
Usability Testing
Information Architecture
After analyzing the data, a pattern began to emerge that was unexpected. The data was showing that there was a heavy bias towards mobile application use. There wasn’t enough data about the website to gather enough information about the problem.
Digging Deeper
A guerilla usability test on the mobile and desktop versions of the existing website produced better results by gathering insights into users’ motivations and frustrations. The team conducted tests on 8 participants, and through additional market research, I was discovered that cart abandonment was an industry-wide problem. Mobile devices and sites that required too many steps for checkout, had a higher abandonment rate. This new data validated my usability test and assumptions.
Key Focus Areas
• What are the challenges or barriers with app use and adoption of the website?
• What’s essential for a great website experience?
• What are the store shopper’s needs and unmet needs, both online and off?
• How are customers interacting with their smartphones using the website?
• Low fidelity prototype feedback
What Customers Need
Images are key
We understand that photos can serve as a universal language and facilitate communication and understanding.
Be supportive
We know it’s a big deal to entrust others with choosing and delivering your groceries, so our designs will exude approachability and attentiveness, so users feel heard.
Culture-Forward
Our designs will respect and enhance the complexities of cultural richness while making them more accessible.
Effortless-Convenience
Everyone has their hands full. Our designs will put ease and convenience at the user’s fingertips.
Defining the MVP
Following customer interviews, market research data, the team synthesized and presented the findings to the client. Finally, discuss the results through collaborative workshop exercises.
These exercises helped in building the foundation to ideate features and prioritization for the MVP.
Style Tile & Mood Board Options Created In Figma
Welcome to Oja Express!
The culmination of the research and hard work! The prototype for a mobile-first design with a focus on eight key areas:
Homepage & Navigation
The search bar is more prevalent and an option for users to search by category. We added a culture forward way of shopping by allowing users to shop by regions and stores with a call to action buttons.
Business information is made clear to users, and business-related links have moved to the footer. Alternatively, using a sliding menu to help users navigate with minimal effort.
Store Department Navigation & Filter
Users can navigate between departments when shopping at a specific store and view a wide selection of items upfront.
The filter can help users narrow down and simplify the search process to save time when shopping for cultural-specific items.
Product Description Page
In keeping the design visually appealing, we used large images for products, kept a clean aesthetic, and allowed users to choose size preferences for items.
As culture plays an important role when shopping for groceries, it was essential to display from what country an item came from or is traditionally used.
Shopping Cart
In keeping with the design’s visual aesthetic, the shopping cart has prominent imagery. Products are listed by departments to make it easier for users to view and edit.
Cart Quantities & Visual Cues
Business requirements are upfront to the user before checking out during the process to help build trust, comfort, and security.
Results
Top Findings
The team conducted a usability test on the prototype with eight participants to determine design inconsistencies and usability problem areas within the user interface and content areas.
Tasks had a 100% completion rate.
Labels were clear to users.
85% overall user satisfaction rating.
Users found navigating to be comfortable, logical, and straightforward.
Before checking out, it was easier to spot the minimum order requirements.
Full-Width Screen Samples Created In Figma
Recommendations
Looking into our clients’ business future as it grows, there were opportunities to add value with possibilities to expand the design with these features, such as shopping for ingredients by recipes and shopping at more than one store.
Also, we recommended having clean URLs throughout the website as these would have better SEO rankings and be more accessible for users.
Takeaways
Client
Working alongside Oja Express owners was very helpful for understanding their business model, importantly, to empathize with their customers. They were very receptive to the design team’s ideas and suggestions and were very supportive. However, they weren’t able to gather analytic support to give us quantitative data to support or dismiss our initial assumptions. Running small workshops to discuss features, customer journeys, and future business plans adequately exposed significant unknowns and helped do better research while keeping the team aligned.
Lessons Learned
I learned the importance of understanding user and customer needs through research in shopping habits and empathy. The biggest takeaway from this project was that if we hadn’t conducted a field test on the mobile website, we wouldn’t have discovered the actual pain points users were having. For example, hard-to-find items, labels for items in different languages, and importantly the cart drop-off issue. This pivot point led to a website redesign that addressed these issues to make for a smoother online shopping experience for a culturally diverse user base.
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