Outside any supermarket stand lines of trolleys of different sizes – some are small for the consumer in a hurry, some are huge and intended for a family’s weekly shop. Others can be attached to a wheelchair or have toy racing cars inbuilt to make a child’s supermarket experience a fun affair. The variety of trolleys is an indicator that supermarkets study the diversity of their consumer base and take their needs seriously. Yet the way we shop has essentially not changed since such stores opened. Goods must be selected from shelves, put in trolleys and wheeled to the checkout where we unload and repack them once again.
This is no problem if you are able-bodied with good sight, but what if you have arthritis or limited mobility? Bending and stretching to select items and manoeuvring them in and out of trolleys can be a painful experience. If your vision is limited, it is difficult to know exactly what you are buying. “What I want is an ‘intelligent’ assistant that will help me make my choices”, said one visually impaired expert user who advised the design team.
Kinneir Dufort and The Appliance Studio worked to do just that in the form of a high-tech but user-friendly device. They went on to radically redesign the retail environment in which it will be used to eliminate the pain of shopping, yet retain its pleasurable social aspects.
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Interfaces, virtual assistant, shopping, retail environments, supermarkets.
Design a mainstream product, service, environment, print, on-line or other communication which deliberately includes the needs and aspirations of currently excluded groups of people.
Packaging, communication, transport, retail environments, ‘smart wearables’.
