A calendar extension that allows you to treat yourself, guilt-free.
Cydney Vicentina
Nitya Devireddy
Aaron Lee
Janie Xue
Jackie Zhang
I acted as a UX designer, pushing for our team to make a major design concept pivot.
For the final prototype, I focused on the visual polish, interactive UI, and motion design.
We’ve all been there—buying snacks on impulse after a long, stressful week. But even retail therapy has been affected by the pandemic.
People are rushing to finish grocery shopping which is hurting revenue for our imagined client, Whole Foods.
This design was created for an Interaction Design Studio class at Carnegie Mellon University.
The team had 2 months to create a responsive design that tackled a problem within the grocery store industry.
1. Most customers create mental/physical lists to keep them on track
2. Customers want to spend less time in-store due to safety concerns
3. Impulse buys are associated with feelings of guilt, due to the extra calories or spending
In the middle of a pandemic, going to the store can be the only excuse people have to leave the house.
We needed a solution that was pandemic-friendly and took the guilt out of browsing for snacks.
Early on, we started mapping how solving this problem would create value for our client and their customers.
Easy peasy. Well, not quite.
People found new and exciting snacks but put them back on the shelf.
This was our first solution: a mobile site that opened when a customer scanned a QR code in store.
But, no one could guess the purpose of our website.
Not only that, but the idea was just so plain.
This design was easy.
This design was comfortable.
.jpg)
.jpg)
From the uninspired response we received, we completely pivoted and scrapped this QR code idea.
So, ideate we did. I know it ain't pretty. But, bear with me for a second.
We constrained ourselves in different ways, derived from touch points in our CJM as well as potential goals and formats for our client.
After more pilot testing, we landed on an extension for your Google Calendar that would be:
Trademark pending.
By seamlessly integrating into Google Calendar, our plugin taps into user’s needs of
social interaction and “treating yourself”.
.gif)
By reframing snacks, Whole Foods can show people that grocery shopping doesn’t have to be monotonous or necessity-driven anymore.
Now, people can buy snacks from the comfort of their home.
For customers who still want to shop in person, they can - by using the Google Calendar mobile app and our checklist.
Pilot users really loved the flexibility and were grateful that onboarding was a piece of cake.
On top of this, Whole Foods now offered another level of delight to social events.
In our research, almost every user could think of occasions in their calendar where this extension would have been immediately useful.
We argue that there will be a significant financial and brand boost as a direct result of this untapped market opportunity.
