From Text Messages to Shopping Lists

Improving how households coordinate grocery shopping

Role

UX Researcher & Product Designer

Timeline

2 weeks

Platform

Mobile

Overview

Grocery shopping seems simple: make a list, go to the store, buy what's on it.

For households, however, the process can become surprisingly complicated. One person may be responsible for shopping while other household members add requests throughout the week through texts, notes, or verbal reminders.

I wanted to understand how households currently coordinate grocery shopping and whether there was an opportunity to make that process less fragmented.

Rather than starting by designing another grocery-list app, I began with the question:

How do households currently coordinate grocery shopping, and where does that process break down?

The Problem

When multiple people contribute to a grocery trip, the person doing the shopping often has to collect information from several places.

A typical process might look like:

Text message → mental note → grocery list → store → text someone about substitution → remember another item → checkout

This creates several opportunities for information to be lost or misunderstood.

The initial hypothesis was that household grocery shopping is less about creating a list and more about coordinating information between people.

Research

Goals

I wanted to understand:

  1. How households currently create grocery lists.

  2. Who is responsible for shopping.

  3. How other household members communicate requests.

  4. What happens when information changes.

  5. How shoppers handle unavailable products and substitutions.

  6. Where the process creates the most mental effort.

Participants

For the eventual portfolio version of this project, I would interview approximately 5–8 people who regularly grocery shop for themselves or their household.

Participants would ideally vary in:

  • Household size

  • Shopping frequency

  • Whether they shop alone or with others

  • Age and technology familiarity

Note: The findings below are a sample hypothesis for demonstrating the case-study structure. They should be replaced with findings from actual interviews before presenting this as completed research

Findings

The research revealed three recurring problems with household grocery shopping:

01 — Requests are scattered

Grocery requests often come through texts, conversations, notes, and memory, making them easy to miss or forget.

02 — Requests lack context

A request like "get cereal" doesn't tell the shopper which brand, size, or alternatives are acceptable.

03 — Plans change while shopping

Items may be unavailable, household members may add new requests, and shoppers often need to make decisions without being able to immediately contact everyone.

Key Insight

The problem isn't simply remembering what to buy. It's having enough information to confidently shop on behalf of other people.

Proposed Solutions

After identifying the main challenges household shoppers faced, I explored several possible ways to address them.

Shared Grocery List

The simplest approach was to create one shared list that everyone in the household could contribute to.

Each person could add items, mark them as purchased, and see updates in real time.

Request-based Shopping

A second approach was to do requests. Instead of adding an item to a list, household members submit a request.

The benefit here is everyone works from the same source of information instead of relying on texts or verbal requests.

In-Store Shopping Assistant

The third approach focused specifically on the moment when the shopper is inside the store.

Instead of simply displaying a list, the experience could help shoppers make decisions when something changes.

Chosen Direction

I chose to focus on the shared grocery list.

The research showed that requests were often scattered across texts, conversations, and notes. Bringing everyone into one shared list directly addresses this problem while keeping the experience simple. This would work best as a mobile app given the sheer number due to convenience and flexibility.

Ideation & Design

Having gotten the research out of the way, I focused largely on ideating and design for how the mobile app would function.

The main goals were to make it:

  • Quick to add items

  • Easy to understand

  • Simple to update

  • Clear about what has already been purchased

  • Useful while actively shopping

Usability Testing

I tested the prototype with people who regularly grocery shop for themselves or their households. Participants were given tasks such as adding milk and cereal to the list and others where they’re put in the position of the shopper who has to find the items they’ll purchase while marking them as complete.

I would look for:

  • Whether users understand how to add items

  • Whether they can quickly find items

  • Whether they understand what has already been purchased

  • Whether they notice updates from other household members

  • Where users hesitate or make mistakes

Reflection

The initial assumption was that grocery shopping was primarily a problem of remembering what to buy.

Research shifted the focus toward household coordination.

People were already using texts, conversations, notes, and memory to communicate what they needed. The opportunity wasn't necessarily to create a more complicated shopping assistant, but to provide a simple shared place where everyone could contribute.

The final solution therefore focused on doing one thing well:

Keeping the household on the same page about what needs to be bought.