The icon of Crazy Groceries is a Strawberry with a clock.

Crazy Groceries

Doing groceries is a repeating event we often do once or multiple times a week. Not everyone enjoys the task of doing groceries. This inspired me to design an experience that would make it more fun, provide insights and create opportunities to be more efficient.

Crazy Groceries takes the idea of keeping a simple grocery list a step further. It’s a game focused on improving efficiency. By monitoring the different steps in the process of both listing and doing groceries, Crazy Groceries provides the player with feedback to improve.

Crazy Groceries is just a design at this moment. Aside from discussing the interface design with several people, I never got to prototyping and testing it.

A shopping list interface, showing some groceries with a timer that is counting down.
A segment of a mind map showing a number of questions about time taken, steps used, order of getting groceries and more.
By mapping out the process of getting groceries, I was able to list a number of questions which could help improve the way we do groceries.

Gain Insights

A phone could be used during grocery shopping to measure the experience. For example, how many steps were taken and how much time has passed between checking off groceries of the list. This information could be used to compare shopping events and to provide feedback. The feedback is aimed at providing the shopper with insightful information on how to improve efficiency. This data is also used to set time limits. 

The first time the player would shop at a specific store, this event will be used to determine a baseline. The player is asked to do the groceries as he normally would and keep track of the items on the shopping list.

From Home to Store

The app has two modes. The shopping list suggests items and shops based on pattern recognition. When a player seems to add a specific product to the list on a regular basis, the app should recognise this pattern and add the product as a suggestion in the same regular order. Another feature would be used to suggest the store based on where the product was previously bought. 

The second mode is the shopping screen, in which time is tracked from the start of the event to when all the groceries have been checked of the list. Aside from the general time, the ‘check off’-time for each grocery is also tracked. Whenever an item is checked of the list, the player will receive feedback based on his performance (quicker or slower than expected) and reward him with the appropriate amount of experience points.

The list-mode of the app with a global timer, showing groceries with an amount.
When groceries are added, the app will add the most recent store at which the grocery was bought automatically. The time for listing the groceries will also be tracked, intended to eventually help increase the efficiency of the player.
The statistics of a shopping run, showing the total session time, groceries and current/best/previous times per grocery.
Both the listing and shopping experience are monitored to give the player insights in where they can improve their efficiency.

Progression and Feedback

The game uses Challenges, Achievements and Levels to reflect progression. Each Challenge and Achievement is aligned to the goals of Crazy Groceries, making sure the player improves his grocery shopping by completing them. The dashboard provides the player with a basic overview of progression. The Journal shows detailed reports of the shopping events, where each shopping event can be viewed in depth with more specific details per product.

The main screen, showing statistics on Level progression, Achievements, Challenges and navigation options to create a new list, or to navigate to the Journal, Achievements or Settings.
The main screen provides a dashboard with basic information on progression.
To add a new grocery, the player can provide a description, store, repetition, amount and category.
None of the information requested is required, except the description of the grocery.
A star-shaped badge which shows the completion of a Challenge at a Gold level, as the player completed the following Challenge: 'Obtain 20 different groceries within 5 minutes.'.
Challenges are aligned with the goal of increasing efficiency and adding a fun competitive element.