Aisle
A personal and flexible grocery shopping app that allows you to find the items you are looking for faster than ever.
Timeline April to June 2025
Role UX Designer
Tool Figma, Illustrator
Context
Grocery runs feel like a chore.
Grocery Shopping is a necessary task of the modern society. Everyone frequents the grocery store at different intervals - for a special festivity, to try out a new recipe you just found on TikTok, grab snacks for work, or do a weekly top up on produce. Throughout these trips lies a lot of wasted hours finding products. Coupled with the frustration of going to different stores to find missing items. Eventually some give up and order takeout, and then regret it for days.
Problem Space
Food for thought?
Many shoppers have limited time to grocery shop, which often leads to health concerns and financial strain from relying on low-quality, expensive takeout food.
Challenge
To create a shopping companion app that helps you find the products you need and shop efficiently, saving you both time and energy.
Process
Research
Secondary Research showed that approximately 60% of global adults prefer buying groceries from a physical establishment. This number rose to 72% when we only look at adults in Canada. Even though there are many competitors in the grocery delivery space, no one has created a product that supports in-person shopping.
Upon conducting user interviews, and distilling the information into User Personas, I observed the following themes.
Users want to spend most of their free time with close friends and family members.
Have access to good quality home-cooked food, and healthy ingredients.
Be efficient while shopping for groceries.
Find the best deals.
Design Principles
Efficiency
Aisle streamlines the grocery shopping experience by reducing time spent searching for products. With store maps, real-time stock updates, and trip planning, users can shop with purpose and avoid unnecessary frustration.
Simple and Intuitive
Shopping should be intuitive, not overwhelming. Aisle prioritizes clean, easy-to-navigate interfaces with clear product locations, straightforward lists, and seamless store comparisons - so users can focus on getting what they need without distractions.
Personalized Assistance and Exploration
From curated recipes to smart shopping lists, Aisle adapts to users' preferences and habits. It anticipates needs, suggests relevant items, and provides helpful insights, making grocery shopping not just faster, but smarter.
Final Product
Aisle is an app that helps you locate products across nearby grocery stores and plan your trip in advance. With store maps, real-time stock updates, and curated recipes, Aisle guides you while you are shopping, making each visit efficient and stress-free.
Hundreds of Stores. Millions of Products. One App.
The Aisle homepage was created for exploration. Opening with a prominent search bar to get right into the action, coupled with a carousel of the latest deals and offers. Followed by your top visited nearby stores to allow you to start shopping in just one click, as well as recipes that will change you plan your meals and allow you to try something new, every day.
Aisle also displays live stock of all the nearby stores, and a powerful search platform that allows you to look for products across all of them, empowering you to take pick the right store (or two) for your shopping trip.
Dedicated storefronts makes shopping feel like exploring
Products that you love, and the products you will love. All displayed in an easy to use, and exploration first UI. Divided into scrollable menus of recommended and popular products, along with categories inspired by real-life ‘aisles’ to mimic the exploration of a big box store right on your smartphone. Moreover, click on any product to read more about it, as well as explore its ingredients and nutritional information to make the smart choice.
Search goes a step above, so you don’t have to
When searching for a product that's out of stock at your selected store, Aisle automatically suggests another store that has the item.
Additionally, it checks if everything already in your cart is available at the suggested store and offers to switch stores, ensuring you don’t have to make multiple stops.
If not then it can plan a stop at another store as well, creating the most optimal shopping trip possible.
Learns as you shop
Aisle tracks your most bought products and organizes them by aisles. The more you shop, the faster you will shop next time. It’s like your own personal store.
No surprises. Stick to your budget before you even step into a store.
View your cart, add and remove stuff to make sure you spend what you planned. No last minute surprises at the checkout counter.
Completely changes how you navigate, with in-store maps
An in-store map view that is triggered whenever the user taps ‘Start Shopping’ allows users to navigate through the store and collect the items in their carts. The map automatically finds the fastest way and guides you to all the products you need. The map is also available in 3D for further detail, along with the option of adding products while shopping.
Earn points to redeem on your next trip
Earn Aisle points every time you shop using the app, and these points can be redeemed for special offers and discounts vouchers for your favourite stores. This allows the users to feel valued and create a loyalty towards our service.
There for you when you come back home
Explore recipes, and use the groceries you just used to create healthy and lip-smacking creations of yours. Create and save shopping lists, share them with your family, and earn gift vouchers in exchange for your Aisle points. The account page is a robust one stop shop to get all information about the app, and build out your collections.
Turn off the lights
Dark mode allows accessibility for many users who might struggle looking at a light screen.
Retrospective
Takeaway and Learning
Takeaway
Returning back to the usability participants resulted in positive impressions of the app. They specifically talked about how this will help them navigate grocery shopping in a unique way.
Learning
We have opportunities for small and gradual solutions everywhere around us. I truly believe that technology can empower humans to achieve a potential unknown if we question the everyday norm.
Next Steps
Further test the app to create an all encompassing database that can launch in small cities and gradually upscale.
Develop a smarter AI-powered system to create smarter alternatives and supply more information around shopping recommendations such as recipes and lists.
The Complete Process
See the research, branding, brainstorming, and the user testing process that led to the final product.