A redesign of the current Sobey’s grocery store self-checkout system To enhance the experience of using a self-checkout system.

 

Problem Statement: Grocery store self-checkout systems are notoriously frustrating to users, and have a history of confusing users with their various interfaces. The goal of this was to redesign a current system to enhance the current-state process flow for the user, and to speed up the process of using this kind of system.

Skills and Tools: Task Analysis using Task Architect, user research, usability testing, paper prototyping, InVision

 

Process and Validation

Requirements
Though our scope for this project was limited, we focused the beginning of the process until the checkout stage. The highest level functions that we outlined were searching, adding, and removing items using the interface rather than a bar code scanner or item ID. From user interviews, it was determined that process of manually looking up an item was the most tedious part of the process, besides interacting with the interface itself.

Task Analysis
Following a hierarchical task analysis structure, we broke down the task of checking out, including adding items to the cart, removing items if necessary, and the payment process.

Usability Testing
From the determined hierarchical task analysis, I designed a low-fidelity prototype for the processing of items, to be used in the usability testing.
We planned and executed formative usability testing with 4 participants of varying ages who all had experience in previously interacting with self-checkout systems or regularly use self-checkout systems. The feedback was brought back to the team and evaluated for severity, feasibility of resolution, and time and effort required to resolve. We used this criteria to order to inform our design decisions. After which I created higher fidelity screens incorporating the new design decisions received through the usability sessions

The two scenarios that this prototype is designed for include the following:
1. User searches and finds Granny Smith apples to add to their cart
2. User removes an item from their cart