Field Research...Part 1

I stowed away to the front of Whole Foods a couple times, parking myself at a bar table and taking notes. 

See for yourself

Here, I recorded instances where the check-out counter is a real ergonomic issue- particularly at the end of the process when a customer/cashier is bagging the groceries.

This is what I noted, when I, myself, went through the check-out line.

-Moving groceries is a time suck- it's what contributes to the wait.

-The checkout of purchases can be broken down into 6 steps.

1) Groceries are taken out of the cart & loaded onto the belt

2) Groceries travel down the belt to the scanner

3) Groceries are scanned/weighed/etc

4) Groceries rolled down a corral to the bagging area

5) Groceries are bagged.

6) Bags are put back into the cart.

This highlights areas of redundancy; places that add time & energy to a customer's wait & a cashier's job. 

I can easily see technology pushing us forward past the steps of putting our groceries on the conveyor belt & it rolling down towards the bagging area, presenting a more efficient situation, like this:

Essentially, if the checkout process is simply the point at which the store bills you for your purchases and records inventory data, then it should require nothing more than that. A simple swish over a scanner, a tap of a credit card, and off you go!

The Psychology of Queing....

The NYT published this interesting article, "Why Waiting in Line is Torture", and it touches on the psychology of queuing, which is one fundamental aspect of my project.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/why-waiting-in-line-is-torture.html?smid=pl-share

It's a really good read, and I highly recommend it for its insightful commentary about people's perceptions of time,  how unoccupied time is longer than occupied time (hence, those trashy magazines and snacks welcoming everyone towards the checkout lane), how uncertainty heightens the stress of waiting in line, etc. 

Some quick & dirty sketches....

FastCo's Whole Foods Visual Merchandising article

http://www.fastcompany.com/1779611/priming-whole-foods-derren-brown

This FastCompany article couldn't have found me at a better time....A time when I am dissecting the WF visual brand, trying to understand how they have crafted the customer experience via visual merchandising.

(This isn't a particularly  upbeat article, as the author, slams Whole Foods for using a series of "tricks" to alter customers' perceptions of what they are buying, and the brands they choose. While the article's analysis is interesting, I'm somehow skeptical of his subject of choice, since it feels like he took cheap shots at a widely popular store, just for the sake of buzz and publicity.)

The author points out WF's inspiration in authentic "old time simplicity" stems from outdoor European marketplaces. I can see how. When I lived in Germany, they were everywhere. Each city has a central outdoor marketplace, but one can find fresh fruit & vegetables more easily from daily street vendors selling around a busy corner. 

Here's a deeper look into the European daily marketplace that inspires Whole Foods

The experience that Whole Foods draws from is one that is a personal learning experience for their customers. As an once Whole Foods cashier, I remember that it  was important for us to talk to our "guests" & build a rapport, a relationship, in order to get to know our customers and provide the best service possible. But it really is that chance for Whole Foods to make a lasting impression on customers, just as they are leaving the store. 

Cashiers are the face of the company to customers. And they are also the "experts" to which customers ask their questions and direct their concerns about their purchase, about their "food". Cashiers are equivalent to the farmer's market seller, the expert of food, with whom customers develop a relationship with. No matter how many customers, I still remember specific purchases that were habitually made by the same customers. I got to know them, personally. 

More importantly, the authenticity that Whole Foods eludes to, though criticized in Lindstroms' article, is authentic. They re-create a sense of that farmer's market, and authenticity in their customer service. And it remains that way, as so aptly put by Roger Dooley, because "...brands are only as strong as the products and services they represent". 

Brainstorm take aways

Speaking of Brainstorms...

In response to a few posts back on brainstorming sessions, I found this interesting post on how to kill a brainstorm & waste everyone's time. As this post notes, "These are not IDEO's strict rules for sparking good ideas...these are absolute no-no's." 

We always talk about quick checkout lanes...

...But at the Finnish K-citymarket, the supermarket is installing a slow-checkout lane for the elderly and disabled called "Elä hättäile".

Check it out here at springwise.com

I like this inclusive thinking of the customer experience. Kudos K-citymarket.

http://www.springwise.com/retail/at-finnish-grocery-stores-slow-checkout-lane-elderly-disabled/

Microsoft's Envisioning Lab: The Future of Productivity

This is really cool- and I love the concepts behind the video. Check it out!

I wonder what inspiration could be applied in a checkout lane...

Just doing a little youtube "research"

...and found this funny sketch...

  

 

 

Critiqued & Exhausted (second critique)

Workstation Studio: Fall 2011 from Stephanie Moulliet on Vimeo.

 

Riff-ed. I mean, RFID...

This isn't news, but there is a very interesting article from Wired about printable RFID tags, and what that potentially means for supermarkets.

No more obnoxious scanner beeps, anyone?

Speaking of RFID in retail, check out this concept video from IBM...

So, aside from what that means to the "cashier" (foreshadowing a door-to-door salesman demise?)
I don't think stores will go the complete human-less route without compensating for it somewhere else.

Because as much as we all love self-automated activities, we still all crave a little human contact in some way or form. Facebook is a perfect example. One word: Social currency.

And that's what interests me. 

How will companies continue to creatively infuse more connection to their shoppers, their customers, and still keep the experience personal?

How will supermarkets, that embrace this technology, will revolutionize customer service or customer contact without jeopardizing the integrity of that human-aspect.

Food for thought...

Yum.

Brainstorm Sesh

It's been a while since I've been in a good juicy brainstorm, let alone facilitating one. Experience tells me that my brain is ever so limited in it's own first person perspective & memory, so I enjoy collaborating with others. One brain vs. 5 brains...Bah! Five brains, of course!

At this stage, my project had a bit of research behind it, but the scope & objectives were pretty scattered. I narrowed the topic down to things that I found interesting or trending- like smart-phone married cashless-transactions & mass mingling (the love to connect). Then I wrote up some power questions & fed it to some people for their ideas & opinions. In exchange for cookies (yum)

I was really happy with the enthusiasm of the group and the momentum fueling some of the responses. It was a bit slow at first, but for a group who has never done a brainstorm before, I tip my hat to the breadth of the ideas and the open-mindedness in the discussion.

 

The next steps are to organize all these ideas, see what kind of golden nuggets of innovation can be further developed, and continue to the ideation/concepting phase. Woot! I won't take you through the process now- but recap on the results later after the chaos of the synthesis storm passes.

Takeaways for now: The Brainstorm

 Things I knew before, but was reiterated as important again...

- Know the material- 

I tried to understand my questions thoroughly & remember the research that prompted these questions. Good thing too, as I found myself needing to use research or real-like examples to resuscitate a slow moving discussion. 

Like, when I asked a question about what kind of behavioral information might supermarket customers be interested in learning about themselves, I spring-boarded the discussion with an example of NikePlus' successful use to offer runners a means of tracking, storing, and quantifying their running performance. So do your research and know your

-Lead & organize your questions in some kind of cohesive order-

This may seem counter-intuitive, as brainstorms generally are regarded as free-flowing wild discussions, but good brainstorms are moderated to stay on track. It helps when the questions are fed in an organized sequence, otherwise going back to a topic that may have already been discussed exhaustively could break the momentum.

-Juice up-

Okay, this is just to make sure everyone is "awake" & fresh enough to jump into blue-sky brainstorms. I scheduled my brainstorm in the morning, and I wish I had brought a pot of morning sunshine (coffee). Fortunately, the sugar rush of the cookies helped!!!

What was cool....

-Was having an eclectic group-

I had a mix of seniors & juniors, an exchange student, and a mix of people's personal history that made this brainstorm fruitful. 

Next time...

I think I'll expand outside the industrial design studios and venture to ask the architecture, digital, graphic, and fine arts kids. That would be so funtastic, no?

Maybe I'll video tape the whole thing too. And spend more time warming up with a game; and have a stash of a few games up my sleeve, as sometimes one kind doesn't always set fire to the imagination...

I'm a rat within the grain...

I read this, and had to continue Frank Chimero's post about design...

"Take things away until you cry. Accept most things, and reject most of your initial ideas. Print it out, chop it up, put it back together. When you’re aimlessly pushing things around on a computer screen, print it out and push it around in real space. Change contexts when you’re stuck. Draw wrong-handed and upside down and backwards. Find a good seat outside.

Design is just a language, it’s not a message. If you say “retro” too much you will get hives and maybe die."

Read more here: http://blog.frankchimero.com/post/979706728 


(Note: I haven't been keeping you posted on how the project has been developing...it simply happens all so fast. But I am at that point where I will be rejecting my initial ideas and chopping things up-crying- and putting it together again)

Decision time: Cashier vs. Self-Checkout

So, I had a conversation where I was asked whether I would consider the self-checkout machines for my project. They are designed to be time-efficient and easy to use (hey! no cashier needed!) and well, except for a few design tweaks, they would be a step towards a faster, more convenient check-out.

But they're so impersonal. And I can understand the common cynical view of these machines as nothing more than a convenience to the store, rather than the customer. (Although, I beg to differ on this when I'm checking out 5 items and the woman in front of me is stocking up on her Thanksgiving dinner menu in October)

More for the sake that these types of machines do not offer the kind of extraordinary customer service that Whole Foods prides themselves of, I'm just going to say, 'no' to the self-checkout machine.

Get set, Ready, Go!

This quarter is about the check-out lane.

As my experience as a Whole Foods team member of the front end (aka cashier) leaves me with certain memories that beg to ask for workstation re-designs, I find this topic both intriguing and really wholesome.

"Wholesome" What the hell does that mean?

Well, as a marketer and industrial designer (which likewise makes me a marketing skeptic), who already believes in eco-sustainable practices, I find myself challenged to re-design for the eco-organic food industry without my design coming off as one more bullshit "green washed" marketing ploy.

Like what most businesses should be, this re-design must be service and customer driven. So it should be wholesome and adding to an awesome shopping experience without any kind of over-reaching unnecessary green.

Which reminds me of this article I found from FastCompany...

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662807/the-future-of-design-blue-is-the-new-green

Food for thought.

So let the challenge begin.