for local grocery stores
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DateFebruary 2015
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Award receivedService Design Award
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TeamMaxime Bénéteau
Context
We participated and won an award in a national service design contest organized by La Poste, the equivalent of the United States Postal Service (USPS) in France. We had to conceive an innovative e-commerce service.
The challenge
The future of La Poste
Everyday, thousands of mailmen drive their truck throughout the country in order to deliver the mail. But as sending letters is becoming less and less common, La Poste needs to widen their range of services towards new fields.
Mapping the actors
Design process
Supporting our process with service design tools
We spent the first phase of the project defining the service, building use cases and laying down the experience.
Exploring use cases
Laying down the service blueprint
By using mailmen to deliver food from local grocery stores.
Defining the users
By using mailmen to deliver food from local convenience stores, like boulangerie, we wanted to allow elderly and disabled people to enjoy food products that were beyond their reach.
He orders his products from a comprehensive list of the goods available in his geographic area.
Upon receiving the order, the storekeeper prepares the goods to send, just as he would for any regular customer.
The mailman collects the goods that were prepared by the storekeepers and delivers them.
User scenario
Building a sensible and local service
To ensure that our service would have a positive impact on the local economy as well as on social equity, we built it with 3 main missions in mind:
Helping the merchants extend their clientele to customers who don't have the time or the means to get around.
Putting local grocery stores within seniors' and persons with reduced mobility's reach.
Bakery, butcher's, greengrocer, fishmonger's, dairy shop, delicatessen, wine merchant... are so many stores that can offer their goods.
Planning the mailmen's route
Aside from researching the customers, we asked ourselves how to optimize the driving route for the mailmen themselves, and how would the experience be interesting for them. An interesting point is that even though they already know the neighborhoods, they don't get to talk with the citizens anymore.
The application
Thanks to his zipcode, we know which products are available for a registered user
Easy navigation
We really wanted the user to be able to browse easily through the whole catalog, despite the wide offer. Which is why we used pictures to illustrate every single item. But sometimes, there is no available image for a rare product: an icon can then be used instead.
The product hierarchy is always visible on the left,
allowing for a quick tab-based navigation
Fast search
It should be very simple for a user to find the products he wants, which is why we used a dynamic search-bar and modal views.
The search-bar dynamically displays the products related to the search
We used a modal window to help the users choose from different varieties of the same product
Swift checkout
Choosing the address and time of delivery can be a pain for users that are not used to buying products online (older people for example). So we tried making it just as quick as simple.
The straightforward and minimal delivery interface allows for a simple ordering process. Even for the most inexperienced users, like older people.
Cross-platform app
Given the wide range of users, we had to ensure that everyone could have easy access anywhere, anytime.
Side to side, the customer app and the mailman app
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