THE REAL DEAL

• Foster Mother: WIC helped with affordability for high calorie formula but had difficulties finding a grocery store that had the specific brand and size of formula in stock.
• Father of 3: Was conscious about nutrition and the app allowed him to find the right brand and size of a WIC eligible product. However, at checkout he would be denied by the cashier because the items he wanted to purchase, regardless of the WIC label on the shelf, weren’t eligible. After checkout, a receipt would be given with the remaining balance on the card but not within the app.
• Mother in Pregnancy: When using the app, she could see product photos but sometimes they don’t always appear. Products weren’t sorted in a way that made sense and would make her feel overwhelmed. Whenever she goes grocery shopping, she likes to use the app to create a shopping list and find eligible items.
• Mother with a Baby: The experience of WIC wasn’t very memorable. There weren’t any pain points that stuck out to her or barriers she could recall. During her time using WIC, she was able to ship grocery items to her doorstep which felt convenient and easy for her limited schedule.

GETTING THE BALL ROLLING

• When deciding what visual approach to take I compared the original app with my competitive research. I took inspiration from competitors like Stop & Shop and WholeFoods and observed how they navigate customers, display nutritional facts, and showcased food pick-up or delivery. In addition, I wanted the redesign to be visually consumable and maintained a simple approach to focus on functionality.
• When adding features, I looked at common complaints from the WIC interviews. Most of the participants had difficulties finding items or ensuring that the item was eligible and fits within their budget. Adding features like a balance information, dietary filters, different store locations, and using AR to locate products in real-time were concepts I had to minimize frustration points that participants had expressed with the original app.

WHAT NOW?

I ended up with a prototype that was showcased to a small focus group in order to gather additional feedback. Most in the group enjoyed the additional features; saying that the struggle of finding in-store products was something that they could relate to and seeing your remaining balance had appeal.

However, there were still some components that needed to be ironed-out. When considering nutritional information, the group found it confusing and didn’t know if the icons were meant to say if the product did or didn’t include the ingredient represented. Overall, the feedback for the icons was that it felt visually out of place since the rest of the app was more clean-looking.

In the future, I hope to be able to publish and rework many of the flaws within the WIC Shopper app. I think, if given the chance, a smoother and newly designed WIC Shopper app could remove some health or financial stress WIC families may have. Which, hopefully, would allow them to spend a bit more quality time with their loved ones instead!