Buymie is an online grocery delivery app that has gained popularity in recent years, but it suffers from several usability issues that prevent it from fully meeting user needs.
By creating a better solution that addresses these issues, the app has the potential to increase user satisfaction and drive revenue for the business. This design case study explores the opportunity to improve the user experience and user interface of Buymie, now Dunnes.
Preview of the redesigned app
Problem and User Research
For my problem research, I talked with a few people who order groceries online. I also relied on my own experience since I’m a frequent online grocery shopper.
Combining user research, personal experience, and publicly available research findings provided a more solid foundation for making informed decisions in the light of limited data.
Research findings from the mentioned paper
Scope
Based on my research and analysis, I identified several key issues with the current app, such as confusing navigation and poor layout, limited search functionality, poor checkout process, and inconsistent branding and design.
To address these issues and improve the user experience, I focused on redesigning the main screen for navigation, the search screen, the item card screen, and the shopping cart screen.
While there are certainly other areas of the app that could be improved, I chose to prioritize these screens as they provide core functionality and can serve as the foundation for other screen designs.
Design research
I researched other applications that presented content in any form, such as online cinemas, podcasts, music on demand, and other online shopping apps. Additionally, I looked at apps that work with food, such as nutritional assistants, fitness apps, and diet apps.
Navigation
Navigation relies on recognition. So people choose to use naviation when they know the exact path to the item. To make navigation easier, I focused on placing items where people expect to find them.
The first step was to group similar categories together. Such groups allow placing similar categories closer to each other.
Grouped rectangular cards are more flexible and take less space than squares
To design a good navigation system, it is important to place items where people expect to find them. In the current version of the app, items are often placed according to their “true” category, which may not align with users’ mental models. To address this, I conducted a card sorting exercise to group categories together in a way that reflects how people think about them.
To aid in the recognition process, I color-coded similar categories based on people’s associations with certain colors. For example, I used blue for dairy products and red for meat. This color-coding system helps users quickly identify the categories they are looking for.
Furthermore, I considered the fact that people often purchase the same products repeatedly, so I designed the navigation to allow users to easily find and access their previous orders.
Search
Searching provides a more flexible strategy for finding items, as it allows users to reach an item using any part of the name (e.g. brand, type of product) that they happen to remember.
When people get to the search screen, they are trying to find something. It is possible to use the empty state to “predict” what they are looking for and show shortcuts.
Empty search state predicts what a person wants to accomplish and provides quick ways to do it
People also rely on search when they want to find a category by its name. If the search provides such results, then people learn these patterns and the search becomes part of the navigation system itself.
Product card and shopping cart
For the product screen, I prioritized the information based on the research. The most important information, such as product photo, price, price per kg or liter, and nutritional information, was made more visible. To enhance the user experience, the product screen is presented as a modal sheet, allowing users to easily “peek” at the product information without being taken to another screen.
Similarly, for the shopping cart screen, I prioritized the information by placing the delivery address closer to the top so that it remains visible even when a user has a long list of groceries. This way, users can easily confirm their delivery address before checking out.
Conclusion
In summary, the app was redesigned to address several key issues, including confusing navigation and poor layout, limited search functionality, poor checkout process, and inconsistent branding and design.
Next steps include conducting usability testing with a small group of users to gather feedback and make any necessary adjustments before launching the updated app. Additionally, ongoing monitoring of user feedback and behavior will inform future updates to continue improving the app’s user experience.
It took me more than two months to understand how these 48 lines of code work. It’s a policy-based algorithm, which means that it does not try to predict future rewards and choose actions that would produce the highest rewards. Instead, REINFORCE learns to take an action based on the current state, aiming for an optimal policy. This policy is approximated using a neural network.
The policy learns to balance the pole (starts at 20 sec)
It’s been very fun to learn about neural nets and reinforcement learning algorithms. Code implemented along the way is available at ai-playground.
Mnemosyne fails to find executables in their installation locations on MacOS. Therefore, we need to specify these location in the configuration file first.
I finished reading On Writing Well by William Zinsser. I mentioned in my February notes why I wanted to read this book — people expect you to know how to write, but nobody teaches you how to write. Non-native speakers face greater challenges. Teachers say that the more adjectives and the longer sentences the better. Clichés and standard collocations are what get you an A. But this is not how good English writers write.
The book consists of two parts. The first part gives you tools to improve your writing. It is simple. Use only what’s necessary. Don’t add words to your writing to sound smart. Avoid adding new adverbs when choosing a precise verb would do the same job. Use adjectives only when their meaning is not part of the noun. Keep your writing simple. Write for yourself. Keep it short. Always rewrite. Express your real self because people want to hear the real you. Find precise words for what you want to say.
The second part of the book focuses more on writing different types of prose. It was not immediately beneficial for me now because I did not intend to write something as big as a memoir. But it was inspiring and encouraging. Sometimes I wanted to grab my laptop and write something personal.
I noticed on Goodreads that some reviewers say that Zinsser’s style lacks poetry and imagination. But this is missing the point. This book is not about fictional writing, where vivid descriptions are encouraged. It’s about expressing ideas clearly.
In my entire life, people taught me to do the opposite. Therefore, this approach to writing felt new and refreshing.
The book would likely be called “Lean writing” if it were written today.
I resurrected my blog. I took the idea for these regular posts from Tom MacWright. This is more interesting than posting content to different services like Letterboxd, Goodreads, Twitter, 500px, and so on.
I finished reading Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman, which I liked and wrote about.
I wanted to learn how to write better. Almost anyone in your life assumes that you know how to write. But nobody teaches you to write. If you are not a native speaker of English, you learn to do the opposite. Your teachers say that you need to use fancy words, idioms, and collocations to make your writing sound better. This is not how I want to write. I want to write like Paul Graham. My favorite thing about his essays is that I can imagine him talking. So I started reading On Writing Well by William Zinsser, which is a popular book on writing. It focuses on the simple and precise use of the English language for writing non-fiction.
I started the introduction course on reinforcement learning by David Silver. It is ten weeks long. I might finish it sooner, but I prefer spending time on better understanding ideas, so it might take longer. I also started reading Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction, which is a classic book on the subject, and David’s course is partly based on it.
Orville Wright’s first flight on December 17, 1903
The brothers were born in Ohio, a typical part of the United States. They did not have special education and had no investments. Yet, they were hardworking, austere, and detail-oriented. They had a supportive family, where curiosity and the “fix it” mindset were encouraged. They were ordinary people and they showed that ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things.
McCullough is an excellent writer. He turns history into an interesting story and gives sufficient detail without getting boring.
This book is not only interesting for its insights into the history of aviation and progress, but also because it provides advice on product development. Cheap prototypes and quick iterations — it’s all there.
I liked this book. It was fun to read about how Feynman saw the world. He did not care about what other people thought about him. He kept doing what he liked. Maybe this quality of a character is what it takes to do great things. However you define greatness. Or maybe it is the never ending curiosity. Or finding small things that make the world interesting and worth exploring.
