Tensuke Market
Tensuke Market is a local Japanese grocery store located in the Chicago suburbs. It has been operating for over 20 years and sells a wide variety of Japanese products. In this conceptual project, the owner of Tensuke requested redesigning its existing website to include an online E-commerce experience in order to capture the increase in demand for online grocery shopping.
Timeline
Two Week Sprint
Tools
Figma, Miro, Optimal Workshop, Google Workspace
Methods
My Role
Solo Conceptual Project
UX Architect
Heuristics Evaluation, Competitive & Comparative Analysis, Contextual Inquiry, Card Sorting, User Interviews, Affinity Mapping, Wireframing, Prototyping, Usability Testing
Sneak Peek at My Design
Tensuke’s website now has an additional E-commerce platform that allows users to find and shop products efficiently and feel confident about purchasing foreign products.
Beginning the Research
Visiting the Store
In the initial research, I wanted to know how the store currently sells products and how they fit in the local community. So, I visited the physical store and conducted a contextual inquiry observing customers and products at Tensuke.
I found that the majority of the customers were Japanese people speaking Japanese with the store staff, while there were English speaking customers as well. However, the product labels were not properly translated from its Japanese product name.
Empathizing with the Users
Initially, stakeholders from Tensuke informed me that their target users are someone who values saving money and seeking delivery discounts, while avoiding complicated descriptions and product details.
However, taking primary research insights into consideration, I also focused on both Japanese speaking users and non-Japanese speaking users in the secondary research, and researched on how foreign products affected users’ shopping behaviors.
I interviewed 3 non-Japanese people and 1 Japanese person who shop at a local Japanese grocery store.
Synthesizing research insights uncovered a primary persona: David
Meet David
Values
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Finding the best deal
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Save on shipping
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Quick shopping experience
Pain Points
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Paying shipping and other fees
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Not understanding Japanese labels
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Spending valuable time shopping at a store far from his home
Problem Statement
David needs an efficient online shopping experience so that he can quickly understand foreign product offers and save time for his work and personal life
Understanding the Market
I conducted a competitive and comparative analysis of 5 direct and 3 indirect competitors and found that the majority of the competitors had a long checkout process where users needed to navigate through multiple pages to complete their purchase. Many of the homepages were also cluttered with information that was not relevant to each other.
Direct Competitors
Indirect Competitors
Organizing Products
I conducted a card sorting exercise to determine how products can be best categorized. Eight non-Japanese and three Japanese people participated, and they were each asked how well they know about Japanese food.
Participants who rated themselves higher on Japanese food knowledge showed a clearer trend suggesting that proper localization is essential for recognizing products. However, some cultural specific items like Miso and Wasabi were not categorized in specific trends. Considering how competitors categorize these items by itself, I decided to categorize them on its own as well.
David's Flow
I created a user flow that highlights David's happy path from discovery to checkout of Japanese products
Kicking Off Design Iterations
Based on HMW statements and Crazy Eights, I came up with three key solutions to solve user problem and created a mid-fidelity prototype
Efficient Shopping Experience
Allow users to add products from a list of product without having to go into a product detail page
Localized Product Detail
Provide enough pictures and product details with English translation
Efficient Checkout
Single page checkout process for faster checkout
Testing Solutions
I conducted two usability tests to make sure my design was usable
Users wanted the cart icon at the top to reflect how many items they have added in the cart. Users also wanted the navigation bar to be bigger.
In the product detail page, users were confused what they needed to do, since there were no CTA buttons other than “add to cart”.
Refining the Design
After these findings, I added a CTA button for “checkout” in the product detail page
I made the height of navigation to be taller and made the cart icon to show how many items were added in the cart.
Next Steps
Since this prototype only reflects the core problem the users were facing, it’s important to lay out what are the next priorities for Tensuke to add to their E-commerce platform.
My secondary research has revealed that users value same-day shipping when it comes to local store shopping experience. Japanese people also value feeling nostalgic when they go to a Japanese grocery store.
Based on the research, adding following features will further support user needs and pain points:
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Same day local delivery service with tracking feature
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Adding more visual elements that reminds people of Japan
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Offer more ways and solutions for users to save money, for instance synching paper point cards with digital point cards.
Learnings
I spent more hours than necessary trying to perfect my prototype to function like an actual site from the get-go, when the scope was only to build out a prototype based on user flow. After reflecting upon this experience, I learned to plan my time and resources wisely and be mindful of the project scope with my future projects.