ROLE
Product Designer,
Solo
SKILL
UX design, Visual Design, Strategy, Research
TIME
Dec 21
OVERVIEW
The increase of digital usage across consumers to purchase food has resulted in an opportunity space for sweetgreens to leverage and grow their business. Optimize sweetgreen's mobile ordering to increase mobile ordering conversions and better elevate the sweetgreens brand story. I was the solo designer for this class project at University of Michigan from research discovery, to concept-ing, to design/prototyping of solution.
THE INTRODUCTION
sweetgreens is rooted in delivering healthy food conveniently and accessibly. they strive to serve healthy, seasonal foods and curated experiences at scale.
despite its physical space takes reign, their digital presence has also grown drastically. according to sweetgreens, "nearly 50% of orders in the last year came through its mobile app, which has more than a million users". sweetgreens saw an opportunity to continue adapting to the growing use of digital for online ordering.
RESEARCH
sweetgreens wants to elevate their customer's digital experience.
There is an opportunity but what is the problem? My main goal was to understand what frictions customers face with online ordering, particularly at sweetgreens.
Other goals I dug deep into were:
This was done through user interview sessions with a mix of both regular sweetgreens customers and occasional sweetgreens visitors so I knew the reccuring problem across frequent visitors and what is lacking in the sweetgreens experience for less frequent visitors. Both offered insights to what aspects of online ordering they enjoy and others they don't.
I also wanted to understand the flows of sweetgreen’s current app experience through an interaction mapping to get a basis of the app's flow and correlate them to user's feedback on its interaction. Additional review of feedback of the sweetgreens app on the Apple Store allowed for more customer testimonial. Lastly, competitive analysis, gave greater insights into how I can set sweetgreens app apart from other salad/fast-casual chains and what sweetgreens may be lacking.
All of these insights were all synthesized through affinity diagramming.
ANALYSIS
INGREDIENTS
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When modifying an order, customers have to restart an order when changes are made or when they reach the max number of modifications.
When people know food is good for them, they are encouraged to eat it over unhealthy foods. This lends way for making eating healthy more fun to encourage people more to each healthy.
When users are notified of order completion, users would go pick up their order in person only to realize their order is not ready. This is a challenging insight because we can’t digitally increase speed of workers in person, but only add awareness of time.
Sweetgreens on Broadway
15 min
until arrival
With the research insights and outlined audit above, I created a journey map to identify the key stage of customers ordering process to intervene based on the frustrations identified in the research. In the initial stage of exploration (what should I order?), we can provide a more informed experience for customers to make a decision and empower them to choose healthy options by ordering from sweetgreens. The final stage of order confirmation can reveal greater clarity to customers on their order.
IDEATION
I began the ideation process by generating different ideas. Prioritization of key features centers on the greatest pain points customers faced. The key high level categories identified were providing greater customization, increasing content, and elevating sweetgreens brand through digital to address the issue of being misled, under informed, and underwhelmed throughout the mobile ordering experience while pushing for a more informed, personal, and exciting experience for sweetgreens customers.
The user flow organizes the structure of the mobile app and where our brainstormed ideas should go.
Most feedback from the low fidelity were minor and included clarification of icons meaning, shorten the time and number of pages from landing on home screen to order confirmation, making quantity change even more visible.
As a well established chain, there was nothing to change in terms of branding but to make sure the digital designs are consistent with their established branding. The style guide, therefore, reflects the brand.
INTRODUCING
A streamlined and elevated online mobile ordering experience that informs, personalizes, and excites sweetgreens customers.
PREFERENCE FILTERS
QUANTITY CHANGE
INGREDIENTS LIST
NUTRITIONAL BENEFITS
NEXT STEPS
the success of this revamped sweetgreens ordering experience would be measured by the following:
I would also consider the following:
As the solo designer for this project during a class at University of Michigan, taking charge of the direction of my own design process and decisions was challenging, but rewarding. It taught me how to take an ambiguous problem and identify approaches that deepens my understanding the problem and narrow down to the best solutions to help address them.
