Best Buy Co-Op
My Role
UX Design（Sketching, Interaction Design, Prototyping)
User Research(Competitive Analysis, User Interviews, Journey Mapping)
Meeting with Bestbuy’s researchers
Team Member
Jiaqi Wang,
Ayushi Sharma
Project Background
Like many retail companies, Best Buy was ramping up for the holiday season—particularly for Black Friday. Traditionally, Black Friday was a very exciting event for in-store shoppers: You arrive at a special time, to find that perfect deal, sometimes even camping outside the store to ensure you get it. As online shopping for Black Friday deals has become more prevalent, however, much of that excitement has been taken away.
Looking at Black Friday 2021, Best Buy is expecting to see more people returning to their physical locations to find the latest deals in the wake of increased vaccinations. That being said, COVID is still a risk for the customers. So the problem space given to us by Best Buy was:
Solution
After 3 iterations of user feedback, the final solution is a ticket system that allows Best Buy to limit the number of customers in-store at given times. The ticket system focused on smooth onboarding, various time slots to protect all customers, and multiple ways to save the ticket.
Discovering special time slots.
The onboarding process helps customers understand special time slots before choosing time, providing them with everything they need to know about this ticket system.
Dedicated time slots for Vulnerable shoppers are available at certain times.
"Doorbuster” - a traditional Best Buy Black Friday event will be explained to customers during the onboarding process.
Certain time slots for vaccinated customers only are provided.
Getting Ticket.
Users can choose the time they want to go to Best Buy. After the appointment is booked, a reminder will be sent via the user’s preferred way. Users can also return to their profile page to view the appointment details.
The default store location is the closest Best Buy store to the customers. They can also click on the store's location to change the store.
Customers can select time slots according to a preferred period.
Customers can choose to upload their vaccination proof if selected "vaccinated only" slots, saving time for checking in.
Tackling the Problem
At the start of any project, I try to come up with research questions that can guide my design process. The question I wanted to get answers to at the end of the research process is -
😰 What are the safety issues our customers worry about when shopping in-store on Black Friday during Covid?
Research Methodology
In an attempt to understand the concerns of shopping in-store during Covid, our team pored over articles, interviews, and forums to evaluate the safety issues and to learn about the unique challenges experienced by customers. Our research mainly focused on general in-store shopping observations, experience in Best Buy stores, and the frustrations of shopping during Covid. Here is our overall research process:
Based on all the formative and evaluative research conducted, we found 3 major insights about the problem space.
Research Insights
Turning Insights Into Design Ideas
We came up with 2 designs that could be easily implemented with existing and available technologies, and quickly to meet the needs of customers as quickly as possible. The designs were also app-based, making them accessible to most of the customers.
Design 1: A ticket System
We envision a ticket system that allows Best Buy to limit the number of customers in-store at a given time. This also helps Best Buy with creating a more Covid-safe shopping environment.
Design 2: AR Navigation System
An AR Navigation function that can make finding items easier for customers, reducing their time spent in-store. We incorporated a simpler way to check out items by scanning barcodes instead of waiting in lines, further reducing the time spent in-store.
We conducted expert evaluation and peer review sessions to evaluate our designs. A set of standard questions were asked to evaluate interest in the designs. We ended up choosing the design with the highest scores – Ticket System.
ITERATIVE DESIGN
Interactive Prototype
Evaluation
To evaluate this prototype, we conducted a remote un-moderated task-based usability study with 26 participants spanning senior citizens, first-time Best Buy customers, and frequent Best Buy customers. This was followed by a qualitative survey that asked participants to describe their thought process while performing the tasks.
We gathered a mostly positive response to the prototype. Participants were able to perform the benchmark tasks with ease, and the survey allowed us to obtain qualitative data about users' thoughts while using the app. Here are a few highlights from the results:
Reflection
What I learned (and still am learning)
Always keep accessibility in mind while designing. We thought a lot about how to protect every customer on Black Friday, especially for the vulnerable. Instead of only designing for the majority, we should always try to design for every customer.
If I had more time...
Consider more different cases - If customers chose to pick up items in-store on Black Friday, should we recommend them to grab a ticket or not?
Think more about how this could actually be implemented. I want to think more about whether people should still be able to enter the store directly, and if so, how to control the number of people in the store? And whether the number of tickets per time slot should be adjusted due to different traffic.