Indigo Store of the Future
Capstone Project 2017-2018
Indigo Books & Music is Canada’s largest bookstore chain with over 200 locations across Canada. They were one of the first retail companies to leverage in-store digital technologies back in 2002, with their innovative and iconic in-store kiosks, featuring highly responsive capacitive touch-screen and sleek iMac keyboard. As its current generation of in-store kiosks reach end of life, Indigo sought help to design a next generation retail experience that merges digital and physical experiences in-store. The scope of the project was framed as exploratory in nature.
The resulting design solution was a set of experimental and forward thinking technologies packaged into an in-store technological ecosystem, with the the purpose of enhancing the customer experience for Indigo customers.
I, along with my team, placed third in the University of Toronto 2018 Industrial Engineering Capstone Showcase for our work on this project. While these concepts will not be seen in stores as-is in the future, the Indigo Digital Team will draw concepts from our project to inspire real, future in-store experiences.
One central Discovery Board at each store aims to strengthen the sense of community within each store. Multiple customers can use the Discovery Board simultaneously, which displays information such as a store map, the store’s staff picks, local best sellers, upcoming events, and even has interactive experiences such as “quizzes” to help customers find appropriate gifts and games positioned lower on the screen for children to play on.
Design Themes
The team sought to focus on the following themes in the beginning phase of our design process:
Search for and receive information
Provide item info, price, and availability
Place order
Display promotional information
Wayfinding
Socialization, community, events
Discovery
Personalization
Channel Integration
Testing & Validation
We used cognitive walkthroughs and interaction theatre to validate our designs. In both of these activities, subjects were walked through several simulated scenarios to see which interactions they would struggle with, and which ones they performed well in.
Survey Analysis
To inform and validate our designs, we sent out a survey to 147 respondents about their Indigo shopping habits. The survey was designed to give us insights into the core groups of customers who shop at Indigo. k-means clustering yielded the following customer groups:
Loyal Customers
Predominantly female
Avid readers
Heavily prefer buying books in-store
Spends more time at Indigo than other groups
Highest awareness of in-store events
Familiar with store layouts
Book Opportunity
Male and female
Avid Readers
Prefer buying books online
Very low loyalty to Indigo
Casual Customers
Predominantly male
Tech savvy
Don’t read as much
Buys books online and in-store
Not loyal to Indigo
Rely on in-store wayfinding
Gift Opportunity
Predominantly female
Use retailer specific mobile apps (e.g. Starbucks Rewards app)
Don’t read as much
Prefers buying books in store
Slight awareness of in-store events
Don’t like human interaction when shopping
According to the Indigo and surveyed customers, one of the greatest challenges a customer faces while browsing in-store is locating the a specific piece of merchandise. Searching on in-store kiosks can confirm stock number in the store and state which department the merchandise is located in, but no guidance is offered in finding the actual department and specific table or shelf. We modernized the interface of the kiosks and developed a wayfinding method for locating items in stores. Users searching for merchandise will have the option to locate the item on a map, along with step-by-step directions with a coloured arrow showing the optimal path on the map. At the same time, an LED light above the table or shelf will light corresponding with the colour of the arrow on the map. Multiple customers can use this system simultaneously, as each search query will use a different colour.
Final Designs
In order to excel, our project could not simply be a one dimension design solution. Rather than settle for a simple mobile app redesign that many student groups opt to do, we sought to form the end-to-end customer experience via the in-store technological ecosystem. We created an implementation roadmap which started with short-term early wins to quickly improve the customer experience, such as increased signage in stores to promote better wayfinding, and increased awareness of in-store promotional events. Then, we developed medium-term solutions (pictured throughout this page) which were technologies based on current technologies (screen-based, use QR codes to communicate to phones). Finally, we developed long-term solutions to be implemented in 5-7 years, which involve wireless technologies to elevate the in-store technological ecosystem for an IoT era. Solutions included NFC-tap to transfer information to customer phones, smart baskets that help guide customers towards merchandise related to basket contents, and beacons to push tailored merchandise recommendations to customers.
Unbeknownst to many, Indigo has a massive catalogue of online-only merchandise. These online exclusives must compete with other online retailers such as Amazon, who are often the first destination for online shoppers. By bringing online merchandise in-store via Virtual Product Displays, Indigo can leverage its competitive advantage over the likes of Amazon by appealing to brick-and-mortar customers. Customers can also order these products on the spot and have it shipped home.
My Role
As the Designer of the group, I developed sketches, low and high-fidelity mock-ups of all of our design solutions. I also created high-fidelity working prototypes that were used for user testing, and high-fidelity renders as “marketing material” for the Capstone Showcase. I was a critical voice in pushing towards turning our solution from a simple one-dimensional re-design to a multi-dimensional re-imagination.
Software Used:
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Xd
Balsamiq