WIC SHOPPER APP REDESIGN
2021
This project is in no way affiliated with the WIC Company.
In my Information Architecture II class in Junior Year, we were assigned to redesign some portion of customer’s experience with the Women, Infant, & Children program; WIC is government funding to support mothers of children up to 5 years old.
I decided to rethink the way their app was designed, and to improve the functionality of pairing a mobile device with the shopping experience. The final product allows users to create and edit a consistent grocery list with all their favorite WIC sanctioned items, as well as other helpful features such as store maps, in app payment, and purchase history.
initial research & interviews
First of all, initial research was conducted in order to familiarize myself with the company, the customers, and what WIC has to offer. I then conducted interviews with two people who are currently members of WIC. Then, I developed questions based on what I researched on the Internet, and from teacher interviews. The interviews gave me a personal view into how people use the program, and what the strengths and weaknesses were.
“the portion sizes are good. the cereal could have more brands on it because i only liked one kind on wic, but other than that i like everything. i forgot to mention if you breastfeed you get fish too.”
WHAT WORKS WELL
WIC helps mothers with their children until they are the age of five years old.
There are an acceptable amount of brand options to choose from.
The process of signing up is easy and can be done over the phone.
New mothers get support for 6 months automatically before renewing is required.
Using the card at checkout is pretty similar to using other cards
in stores.
After using the WIC card, the balance left is listed on your receipt from the cashier.
Mothers can qualify for a large variety of different products to give them help in
all areas.
There are a very large amount of WIC offices spanning across the country, with 31 in MA alone.
On the WIC app, there are lots of recipes to help mothers come up with meal ideas.
“the only bad thing that i’ve experienced is they push you non-stop to breastfeed, and if there’s someone who can’t or doesn’t want too, i just don’t think they should push this much for a mother to do it.”
WHAT ISN’T WORKING
Multiple members of WIC have felt shamed by workers for personal decisions they were making about their babies.
Some members of WIC oppose things that people’s doctors have said about
their babies.
WIC does not have it’s own website, and instead, users have to go through government websites for each state.
WIC sections of government websites have confusing layouts, and are not
user friendly.
Though they appear to have a newly updated brand, they do not display it on their online website presence.
In the past, there have been reports of fairness in cultural variations with WIC packages.
concept development
In order to have a smoother WIC shopping trip, a lot can be done in terms of planning ahead. The WIC app could offer many solutions and provide helpful features to make WIC shopping life easier and more efficient. They could make it possible for users to create their own systems, and make it easy to use and transport on their app. A happy path was then determined to see the ideal steps a customer would take when perusing the app.
There were three different shape/color combos used to signify types of actions that could be taken:
Green Circle: Action done passively, often off the app.
Purple Square: Action done in the app itself.
Red Triangle: Action taken directly pertaining to shopping.
wireframing
To get visual ideas out, wireframe sketches were completed both by hand and on the computer in order to get a better understanding of how to physically help the customers have a simple shopping experience.
final interface & user experience
The WIC Shopper App is intended to be a simple way to make customers WIC shopping trip go that much smoother. It opens up to a simple menu with quick actions. The list feature is most prominent, and allows customers to tap to select and unselect the items they would like to include on their list for the week. If they have an item in mind that they have not previously bought, they can search for the item.
When the WIC shopper is actually in the store, they can select the Shopping Mode in the green button at the bottom of the screen. This allows them to see a map of their chosen store, and to also see a checklist of their items with locations of each one. When they are at the checkout, the customer can choose to use their physical WIC card, or slide the bar to open their smartphone WIC card.
The digital WIC card opens up and the user is able to tap their phone to the register to pay with their WIC card. After that is complete, they are taken to the Receipts page, where their most recent trip is momentarily highlighted. They can check their past receipts to see the price of the trip and the items they bought.