Trader Joe's Mobile App Concept
Trader Joe’s is an American grocery store chain famous for their private label products, friendly and retro atmosphere, and focus on organic and natural ingredients.
We wanted to know: what could a Trader Joe’s app look like? As the co-lead for this project at Design Innovation, I led my team through the design process throughout the semester, yielding a prototype for a fun, experiential mobile application.
Role
UX Co-Lead
Tools
Figma, FigJam, Adobe FireFly
Team
Adaeze (Co-Lead)
Calista, Esther, Julia, Kaitlyn (UX Designers)
Timeline
January 2024 - May 2024
01 Establishing Purpose
Why do brands have apps?
If you look at Trader Joe's competitors, Whole Foods, Target, Aldi, Meijer (your average regional grocery store), the apps all serve a similar purpose: online ordering.
So it's easy to think: "Simple, let's a design a Trader Joe's app for ordering groceries."
But we wanted to stay true to Trader Joe's identity and mission: which after secondary research + an audit of their website yielded the following insights:
Knowing what sets Trader Joe's apart, we wanted to lean into these differences and design an app that would enhance customer engagement and brand loyalty.
02 Inspiration
What kind of app would this be?
If online ordering was out the window
Here's an agency's services designed as a restaurant menu. It's fun, it's quirky, it repackages something normal and standard like service offerings into something that's enjoyable to interact with.
MSCHF is the king of interactive experiences. Their whole brand is centered around coming up with new, non-traditional ways to sell art and experience. It's exactly the kind of energy I wanted this project to embody.
03 User Interviews
How do fans perceive Trader Joe's?
Through 12 interviews asking questions about personal and online experience with Trader Joe's, we found some valuable insights about fans' perceptions that could translate in our app design. Here are some commonalities we found amongst our interview insights:
04 Insights + How Might We
The mobile app as an extension of the in-store experience
Trader Joe's Branding
Customers prefer Trader Joe’s for its quirky personality: a sense of local community and a handcrafted feel.
In-Store Experience
Although customers may have products in mind, they enjoy the treasure hunt of discovering new products.
Despite Trader Joe’s lack of practicality, customers still appreciate Trader Joe’s for its specialized products.
How might we create a mobile app that aids the in-store shopping experience while incorporating unique interactive elements that resonate with the TJ brand?
05 Information Architecture
Combining practicality with fun
We wanted to be sure to include the website's practical functions such as the shopping list, product directory, and recipes to aid the user when shopping on the go. The challenge was in figuring out where to place the interactive elements so that it was not too awkward and blended in well.
We ultimately went with a more interactive Home page that pushed both new products in an engaging way through the Fearless Flyer, as well as our games/quizzes in an adjacent tab.
My favorite feature is the Hidden Monkey, which can live anywhere throughout the app!
06 App Overview
Our Trader Joe's App
After a round of a low-fidelity wireframes and a round of mid-fidelity screens, these were the high-fidelity screens we came up with. I personally took ownership of and designed the Play page, the Crossword, and the Paint by Number.
07 Play
Gamifying the Trader Joe's experience
After a round of a low-fidelity wireframes and a round of mid-fidelity screens, these were the high-fidelity screens we came up with. I personally took ownership of and designed the Play page, the Crossword, and the Paint by Number.
Takeaways
Emphasizing the "experience" in user experience
Sometimes I think I forget that it can be rewarding to step out of UI patterns and hierarchies and do something a little more out of the box. Simply focusing on the user can yield some great design, ones that truly feel like more of an experience than the mundane task of tapping through an app. This project was a great opportunity to practice this, and I had so much fun doing it with a great team.
In the future, I would love to return to this project and go a little further with it, maybe designing some MSCHF level experiences for some of the Trader Joe's private label products!
Thanks for visiting, come again soon!
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