- So, here's how I solved the challenge.
First, I decided to do this exercise while I was shopping
for my own groceries.
This helped me to disquise what I was doing
and blend in more with the enviroment.
I walked around for a few minutes before I settled
on my first person to observe.
She seemed busy and intent on getting her groceries.
Here's what I recorded.
I'll call this individual, "Participant A."
Participant A is a middle-aged female,
probaby around her late 30s to early 40s.
Dresses in the office professional clothing,
but was wearing sneakers.
Probably works long days,
and may have stopped in on her way home from work.
She worked with motivation,
immediately grabbed a larger shopping cart,
and moved to the first aisle.
She grabs most items of food off the shelf quickly
without too much thought.
She is using a shopping list and checks items off she goes.
She’s grabbing a lot of kid’s food, mac and cheese,
colorful cereal, things like that.
So maybe she's a mother,
and maybe she's also working on a limited time restraint.
She seems to know where everything is located,
except once in a while she makes a short backtrack
and pauses to scan the shelves, maybe looking for a product.
She also reads through the nutrition lables
of multiple packaged products, and at certain times
compares two different brands before deciding on one.
Maybe she's health-conscious or working with a food allergy.
I also noticed that that the vegetables are located
close to the exit.
Participant A left these for her last stop
and grabbed some right before heading to the checkout.
When she got to the checkout lanes,
she used a few coupons that she had in her bag.
And I'm assuming that these are maybe what she stopped
to check every once in a while, while shopping.
I would also think that maybe she was shopping on
some sort of budget.
All in all, her shopping experience seemed
fluid and well planned.
Next, I observed another participant whom I’ll call,
“Participant B.”
Participant B is a male, roughly aged 18 to 25.
He was wearing jeans with a rip in the knee,
a T-shirt and flip-flops.
When he entered the grabbed a small basket
and paused to look around at the store.
He picked up a few groceries and
grabbed things in no particular order.
Shuffles between different aisles with
no visible shopping list,
often going back to an aisle he’s already been in.
He seems relaxed while shopping,
casual, wandering, and looking about,
picking things up and putting them back down,
maybe indecisive, maybe planning meals as he goes.
Once in a while, he stops to look at some snacks;
and purchased a lot of precooked foods.
He didn’t purchase any fruits or vegetables
and stopped by the bakery section to get some bread
before heading to the checkout.
Participating B chose the smaller lines
in the self-check-out kiosk.
So, what have we learned?
Remember, our charge was to investigate how the store layout
effects how people shop, and what they buy.
Participated A, worked methodically through the store.
She had a shopping list with her
and seemed to be very familiar with the store layout,
and placement of products in the store.
She didn’t seem to veer off her list at all
or her plan too much.
Participant B was much more random.
He wandered about the store picking up and putting down
products and didn’t really seem to have a particular plan.
He also purchased a lot of prepackaged food
from the special displays.
So, we can take these findings
and use them to dig a little deeper into this process.
I think interviews would be a good next step
in order to learn more about these behaviors.
In fact, in our next challenge, we’ll do just that.