UI/UX design | website
Harvest Grocery:
convenient EcoGrocery Store
expertise
UX/UI Design
methods
Design Thinking,
Human-Centered Design
Tools
Figma, Miro,
Relume AI
duration
4 months
is a smart grocery platform designed to enhance and accelerate the shopping experience — both online and in-store. By combining smart in-store mapping, real-time product availability, and seamless pre-order & pickup, Harvest Grocery helps customers save time and avoid unnecessary walking through store aisles.
What is the project about?
Challenge:
Customers frequently spend extra time searching for items across multiple aisles, building their cart on the spot, and waiting in checkout lines — leading to a frustrating and time-consuming experience, especially during peak hours.Customers frequently spend extra time searching for items across multiple aisles, building their cart on the spot, and waiting in checkout lines — leading to a frustrating and time-consuming experience, especially during peak hours.
Solution:
Harvest Grocery offers a smart, user-centered solution that transforms how people plan and complete their grocery shopping.
The website enables users to:
01
Browse products by aisle number, making it
easy to locate items in advance.
02
Build a personalized shopping cart remotely, from the comfort of home and pre-order and pick up a fully prepared grocery basket with no waiting time.
03
Use real-time availability data
to avoid out-of-stock surprises.
to avoid out-of-stock surprises.
04
See a detailed map of the store and the location
of the rows at home and plan their route.
Design process: Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test
So, below I’ll try to briefly describe the key points of the application research and design process in steps.
User interviews
10 interviews were conducted, the questions were divided into the following main blocks. And here are the most interesting answers that were received.
Shopping without lines
Local & Organic
Store map
Brand feel
"I always plan my grocery shopping in advance. The only difficulty is that if it’s a new store, I spend a long time searching for the right product. What makes my shopping experience pleasant is knowing exactly where each product is located. It would help a lot to have clear pictures and signs showing where certain departments are."
"I shop several times a day, but sometimes it’s spontaneous. The biggest challenge is that vegetables aren’t always fresh, and I often have to spend 20 minutes picking through to find good ones. For me, shopping is sometimes stressful because I’m spending money, so I like to treat myself with something sweet and healthy. It would be easier if there was a way to search for products by their location in the store."
"I don’t shop very often, and when I do, I usually have a rough idea in my head of what I need. My main issue is when something is missing, or it’s only available in specific supermarkets. I really value cleanliness and fresh products, and I like when the store layout is logical so I can find everything intuitively. In Portugal once, I had trouble finding hummus, so clear signs would be very helpful."
Personas
2 personas were formed based on the research:
Competitors
I analyzed 4 major competitors in the Canadian market, and here are the conclusions I drew:
Farm Boy
Whole Foods
Goodness Me
Warry Watch
Pros
- Wide selection of organic and premium products.
- Strong brand recognition and trust among eco-conscious customers.
- Collaboration with local farmers and suppliers.
- Attractive store layouts and in-store experience.
- Availability of ready-to-eat meals and recipe ideas.
- Clear sustainability positioning in marketing.
Cons
- High prices, limiting accessibility for some customers.
- Online stores often lack intuitive navigation and fast search.
- Limited integration between online ordering and in-store navigation.
- Inconsistent availability of online pickup/delivery services.
- Insufficient product origin and certification details on websites.
- Smaller variety in certain categories, especially food court options.
My conclusions:
Through competitor analysis, I identified valuable strengths to draw inspiration from and gaps to address in my project. While competitors are successfully building strong brands with a wide organic product selection and engaging in-store experiences, their online platforms often lack seamless navigation, product transparency, and an optimized online checkout system to save time.
This opens up opportunities for my project to stand out by:
- Offering a more intuitive and efficient online shopping experience
- Providing transparent information about provenance and products.
- Seamlessly combining online ordering with in-store navigation and pickup.
- Making store navigation accessible to the consumer already on the website
- By focusing on these areas, my solution can provide a more accessible, reliable, and convenient organic shopping experience.
Ideation and finding solutions
Sitemap
A clear and scalable structure help both new and returning customers easily navigate the store and find what they need. Consistent design patterns and task-focused flows improve usability, streamline shopping, and reduce effort.
High-fidelity prototype
UI design
To enhance the browsing experience, I designed an animated category cloud. The list of categories appears dynamically on the screen, creating both a visual accent and a functional navigation element.
This animation enhances the eco-brand identity, invites interaction, and turns navigation into a visually enjoyable experience.
Typography
Girassol
100px | 70px | 40px
for titles (regular)
Monaco
26px | 20px | 18px | 10px
for text (regular)
... and little bit more visual
The layout was designed with responsive principles, ensuring seamless adaptation across devices — from desktop to tablet and mobile — so customers can enjoy an equally smooth shopping experience no matter how they access the store.
Branding
Results & Learnings
Key outcomes:
- → Created a seamless online-to-in-store shopping experience that integrates product search, real-time availability, and aisle location mapping.
- → Designed a clean, eco-inspired interface that enhances trust and supports brand positioning.
- → Reduced customer time spent searching for items in-store by providing clear map navigation and pre-order pickup options.
Opportunities for improvement
- → Introduce multi-language support for broader accessibility.
- → Implement advanced personalization to recommend products based on shopping history and preferences.
- → Integrate a loyalty program within the online experience to encourage repeat purchases.