THE DUBAI MALL SHOPPER APP
When Dubai Mall approached us, they needed help with one of their biggest challenges helping their visitors ‘shoppers’ to the mall navigate over 1,200 retail outlets, including two anchor department stores, Galeries Lafayette and Bloomingdale’s, along with over 200 international dining experiences and a wide range of entertainment and leisure attractions for families to enjoy. We needed to find a way to give shoppers an easy to use solution that would enable them to search for places to shop at, eat at and explore all of the entertainment on offer in the mall. We set out as a team to create a solution which would give the shopper control in the palm of their hands, ‘The Shopper App’, where they could easily search and use in-built navigation of the mall via our custom-built mapping technologies.
THE TEAM
We built an in-house design team of like-minded creative thinkers, working closely with our developers to seamlessly create the ‘Shopper App’.
ROLE
Lead Product Designer
COMPOSITION
4 designers,
1 researcher,
2 BE engineers,
2 FE engineers
1 product manager
TIMEFRAMES
Jan 18 - Mar 19
THE CHALLENGE
Visitors ‘Shoppers’ to the mall had difficulty navigating and finding their way around 1200 shops and over 200 restaurants. We had to find an easy-to-use, end-to-end solution so they could search and navigate quickly to what they were looking for.
UNDERSTANDING THE SHOPPER
750k
The average number of visitors weekly to the mall in 2017
92%
The number of people surveyed who had difficulty in navigating around the mall
80M
The average number of visitors yearly to the mall in 2017
95%
The number of people surveyed who wanted be able to search easily for shops and restaurants
1200+
The average number of shops located in the mall
200+
The average number of restaurants located in the mall
SEARCH. SELECT. NAVIGATE
We asked ourselves what it was like to be a ‘shopper’ in Dubai? to walk in their shoes as they entered the mall for their shopping experience. We set out to find a way to help people search for places to shop and eat and use our custom built-in door mapping technology to navigate around the mall.
THE RESEARCH
Our research centred around the shoppers' physical experience in the mall in restaurants, shops, parking and mall entrances. Shoppers wanted to know how they could easily find what they wanted and plan their trip around the mall.
We conducted face-to-face interviews with shoppers across critical locations in the mall, asking them how easy it was to find shops and restaurants? To navigate around the mall? To find places to eat around them? We collated hours of first-hand accounts of their experiences, all of which helped us to bring together the ideas of what the 'Shopper App' needed for them. Our key takeaways were that 'shoppers' wanted access to information on where to eat and shop and easily find what they were looking for. All our research led to us implementing our custom-built in-door mapping technology, which we designed to run on 55-inch digital screens at key locations around the mall. Shoppers could use the screens to search for what they were looking for, and then through a QR code, they could download the 'Shopper App' to take their journey further around the mall without using the digital screens.
THE HYPOTHESIS
Give the ‘shopper’ an experience in the palm of their hands which helps them to be able to search seamlessly for shops and restaurants to improve their experience of navigating around the mall.
THE CONCEPT
Make in-door navigation and search seamless in an end-to-end digital experience.
We gathered our first-hand user research and online data and went to work thinking about how 'shoppers' would use the digital screens and download the app to take their experience on the move with them. The user's journey was integral to how we began to identify how they would interact with the digital screens and app, from scanning the QR code to creating their accounts and searching for places to eat or shop at.
THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
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The ‘shoppers’ offline experience was disconnected; trying to find shops and restaurants and navigating to them was complicated. Our end-to-end digital experience meant they were in control of their experience and could search in the palm of their hands on the go in the mall.
MAPPING THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
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THE USER FLOW
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THE DESIGN PROCESS
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We implemented four key phases: user research, design wireframing and prototyping, testing and implementation.
THE WIRE-FRAMING PROCESS
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THE DUBAI MALL SHOPPER APP
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THE DUBAI MALL SHOPPER APP
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THE DUBAI MALL SHOPPER APP
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THE RESULTS
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“Creating my account was so quick and finding places to eat at...”
-Anon User
“Couldn’t believe how easy it was to plan my trip around the mall...”
-Anon User
“Being able to search quickly for shops was so great and seeing their location...”
-Anon User