Full episode transcript below
Geoff and Guy explore the mind (and wallet) controlling design decisions that influenced supermarket layouts, why online grocery shopping might be worth trying out, and the absolute pain in trying to find specific products - seriously, which aisle is the honey on?!
Listen in as we ponder how might grocery stores be better designed for the customer and whether this is always in the business's best interest.
Originally recorded on 07 Dec 2020.
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Episode Transcript
Geoff Wilson [00:00:05] Welcome to another episode of the Everyday Experiences Podcast, where we uncover potential design improvements in the world around us by exploring one frustrating experience at a time. I'm your host and Chief Observer, Geoff Wilson, based out of Auckland. And joining me today is Guy Thompson, a Kiwi based in Melbourne.
Guy Thompson [00:00:22] Thank you. It's nice to be here again. I am a Kiwi based in Australia. I'm surrounded by Australians. But don't hold that. Hold that against me. I'm still a Kiwi at heart.
Geoff Wilson [00:00:30] And if my accent hasn't given it away already, I'm an American that's living here and hopefully once I say 'garage' correctly, they'll actually accept me into the culture.
Guy Thompson [00:00:38] You are slowly being converted into a Kiwi. So you becoming a squishy little piece of fuzzy fruit over time.
Geoff Wilson [00:00:45] I am a permanent resident now, so, you know, they can't kick me out anymore. It's kind of nice to know.
Guy Thompson [00:00:50] Ahh, you're permanent. So you might, you might, like you're a little permanent Kiwi. You last on the shelf; you're shelf stable now. That's really good.
Geoff Wilson [00:00:57] Speaking of shelf stable gets us into what we want to talk about today, which is going to be grocery stores. Cause I've got this I've got this never ending quest to help the world realize that there's more to design than just digital interfaces. You know how many times I've talked to UX designers who they're just vying for jobs, but they're looking at websites and apps and that's it. And trying to remind people that user experiences are things all around us, for example, grocery stores, because there's a ton of things that annoy the hell out of me at the grocery stores that, yeah, maybe other people pick up or don't. But I'm trying to find what are the reasons why the business might actually want to care about those and why might designers want to use what we kind of cover in this kind of episode to pitch to their bosses to see if, you know, they can change these experiences? Because I'm not just going into a grocery store and that's the only thing I'm doing that day. I might have already used my car to get to the grocery store or a bus. I might be using a bathroom in the mall before after go to the grocery store. I might go home and use Netflix or whatever. All of these are different experiences. And one annoying aspect after another for each of these different designs of products and services can accumulate in this overall just annoying as hell, you know, day for me. And so I'm trying to nip it in the bud. Right. That's why I called you into this, because I think you've got the business minded sense that I want to bring into it. And you've got a lot of insights on just products and how things work and some marketing backgrounds. And so, yeah, today, grocery stores,
Guy Thompson [00:02:23] it's a really good point. I think we can collaborate to make your life easier, make sure you encounter less frustrations and absolutely delve into a few of those things, those experiences within a grocery store. Some are really well thought out and very sophisticated designs. And now those are things that have just been sort of placed there.
Geoff Wilson [00:02:40] So, Guy, when is the last time you went grocery shopping?
Guy Thompson [00:02:44] Literally yesterday, which was perfect, kind of painful and scary experience as it usually is.
Geoff Wilson [00:02:50] What was the most scary thing right off, because you've already intrigued me.
Guy Thompson [00:02:54] I think that the main difference was that I now have taken up the habit of driving to the supermarket was before I was just using public transport or buying it online. And now I feel like I'm more inclined to buy more because I've got the car. So that that's just a little thing that I'm thinking of these days,
Geoff Wilson [00:03:09] that that's actually already ring true to me because we used to live in the middle of the city in Auckland and case I could walk just two blocks down. And so I only got to buy what I could carry back literally in my arms because I had no other way. But yeah, now that we live, you know, more of a suburb, I am driving occasionally whenever I've got the car, you know, and that starts the experience right there. So maybe we'll jump right into it and go. So we're both driving to the supermarket now. And I know for me at least, I'm a little bit weird. And so I'm already I've
Guy Thompson [00:03:35] really you're quite a lot.
Geoff Wilson [00:03:37] We had realize that overthink things. You will very soon. So in a sense, the very first thing I'm overthinking already is what I put the car where how am I facing the boot of the car towards the entrance, or more specifically, am I going to impede myself when I'm leaving the store with a trolley in hand? I can I actually load up the boot or is the boot going to be like backed up against the concrete wall or a barrier in a parking garage and stuff? And that's my first decision point already, so I already just driving there, I'm already fatiguing myself, if you will, mentally. And yeah, you're going to make this a lot harder.
Guy Thompson [00:04:13] You're kind of thinking about all these things, about like it's almost like making this fast exit. You've got to get to your car and get home
Geoff Wilson [00:04:19] until after
Guy Thompson [00:04:20] I think about that in a similar way. But I don't put my groceries in the boot anymore. Generally, I've got other stuff in the back of my car, so I tend to put the bags behind the seats or on the back seat because I find if I'm driving around in the car, like everything that rolls around in the boot and everything just goes everywhere is if I can just slot them behind the seats, they they tend to stay in the bags a little bit. So I kind of trip them up to the point where sometimes I will put my grocery groceries on the passenger seat and I'll put the seat belt on the bag so it doesn't so it doesn't
Geoff Wilson [00:04:51] trigger the whole thing.
Guy Thompson [00:04:52] Maybe that's that's maybe a comment on my my driving around town versus slightly so capability the bag to get groceries inside it.
Geoff Wilson [00:05:01] I totally get you on that. Now, we're already digressed into cars, but I think it's fine. I've actually got little hooks in the side of our boot. And so we actually with our shopping bags, we can actually basically hook it to that so that we can have sticks on both sides. It hooks up, stays there that we don't really have to worry too much about it slipping and sliding all over the place.
Guy Thompson [00:05:17] It's a good point. If I check in my car, see if it's actually got there, it may do because I've seen those four other things as well. I wasn't quite sure what they are, so maybe I've actually got that in my car to know. So then I'm going to see
Geoff Wilson [00:05:27] things that we didn't even intend to notice today.
Guy Thompson [00:05:29] They go do do check. And inside the boot of your car, if there may be hooks there and now, you know, they're actually for your shopping bags.
Geoff Wilson [00:05:35] And if you're not from New Zealand and Australia and you keep hearing us say boot, that is the trunk. Yes, obviously I sound American. So I got to relate this to the international audience that, yes, the trunk or the boot, as I'm proud of myself, that three years in I'm still getting to change my language. It's a it's an it's an achievement.
Guy Thompson [00:05:51] I think you're adopting the country where you're living, which is good. Yeah.
Geoff Wilson [00:05:55] So anyway, OK, so we parked the car, we walk inside now we're up to the next decision. And this is going to be a running theme. I think today is around decisions and decision paralysis to be to be specific. And I'll bring up that a little bit later. So, yeah, the first thing we've walked up now and almost guaranteed you're going to choose a kind of trolley, a shopping cart or a basket before you walk in. And even right there. Yeah, it's this mental game of how much do you think you're going in to get now? Maybe you've got a shopping list. So maybe, you know, you've got a whole heap of stuff you're trying to plan for the entire week. Maybe you're for yourself. You're just trying to get a few meals. What's that like for you?
Guy Thompson [00:06:31] Every supermarket, especially very, very large ones designed and intended for you to buy as many products as possible, pop in your car and drive home. Right. And I do notice that for some kind of bargain, sort of cheaper supermarkets, they only have one kind of trolley and it's gigantic. Everyone gets the same thing and you don't even have the option to get a basket. So if you go there, you have to get a trolley. And that predicates that you might buy more stuff to fill up the trolley. If it's easy to pick up a just a basket, then you might just end up buying less stuff. And I only personally shop with a basket now because I can get like two bags of groceries out of it. That's all I need.
Geoff Wilson [00:07:08] And if I in there a little bit exactly like you
Guy Thompson [00:07:11] and then you'd balance balanced out and you've got all the stuff. If I'm getting a trolley, I know I'm going to buy too much stuff. I will come out with like five bags and a half of the stuff. I'm not going to use it. So it's just kind of that discipline of like, how much do you need? This is like what's the likelihood that you going to buy more if you've got a bigger trolley tifo?
Geoff Wilson [00:07:27] So, yeah. So we've got we've got a basket or trolley now depending on how much you're going for. Now, one of the I guess the first things is the first sections you see I've actually started noticing it. It's not just produce, but it's also sometimes some sweets to maybe tantalize you from the beginning. And I've read about that. Allegedly they put some sweets and stuff kind of near the produce area where cakes and stuff like that. So you might not buy it then, but it might entice you that by the time you get to the kind of confectionery aisle that you're kind of primed, if you will, to see that. But aside from that, produce is the first thing you see. My assumption is that what it makes you feel really healthy. So is that kind of what it is like? Oh, if I load up with fruit and veg, then I'm going to feel less guilty about buying some chocolate and Cokes and stuff later on. Is that how it works? Do you have any idea?
Guy Thompson [00:08:14] From what I've read, I would I would love if it's if it's that suggestion that you're trying to make our day happier. But from what I've read, it's around the idea that the visual examples of all the produce, the smells, the aromas of not only the produce, but also the bakery section, that's often quite well, it's around stimulating your senses. So it's your sense of smell, your sense of the aromas that come into your mouth. So you almost like tasting the food that you can see
Geoff Wilson [00:08:41] because the smell of cardboard just doesn't really do it
Guy Thompson [00:08:43] for you. It's not the same. Right. But you think as well, like we've probably spent all day and a generic office environment or working from home, and then you suddenly come into this environment, all the stimulation, if you if your senses are more stimulated, apparently you are going to be more likely to make Riklis buying decisions throughout the rest of your journey. But if. You walk into the supermarket and there's no kind of fruits and vegetables and things, dear, it does feel very dry and very stale and it isn't as a stimulating experience as you as you would like it to be. But that's also like a behavioral thing, that that's what they that's what you're expecting in the supermarket now. And if it's not, it feels really weird if you walk into any kind of mini mart or I know when I've been overseas and places like China, the first time I was going over there, there was no fresh produce and the supermarket and it just freaked me out because I was like everything was just dried goods and packets. And I was like, the supermarket didn't feel fresh.
Geoff Wilson [00:09:39] I realized something when I was thinking about this and trying to consciously think about the different sections you walk through. And I realized produce is probably the most fragile thing you're buying that day, the most delicate thing. But that's the way your basket first. And so what that's going to be is everything you're going to buy. After that, you're going to have to shuffle all that stuff out of the way because a lot of it's loose items, right? Apples are rolling around, potatoes rolling around, tomatoes are rolling around. And all of those things will be crushed by everything else. The Cokes, the ice creams, the bars of whatever else you're going to buy later on. So speaking of this, I want to get a grip that came to mind as we're talking about produce here, bananas. I still know it's socially acceptable for bananas because I don't want six bananas. And what is it called? A bushel? What are the what are they calling it? Is it a question about a bunch of a bunch of bananas? Yeah. Yeah. So I don't want six, but am I allowed to manhandle it and rip off to that. I want because I definitely see a variety of this socially. I still don't know what's acceptable. I'm the one sitting there kind of looking around my shoulder going is anybody looking at me, trying to
Guy Thompson [00:10:37] rip them to pieces? And I notice now that a lot more bananas wrapped in a piece of tape. So you've kind of light that's your whole bunch to to take to get that this five or six in the spots. You're buying this. That's all you've got. However, having said that, like bananas, I think are actually pretty well priced for the nutrition label you're getting versus like you said, you might have a few more, but of course, they go off quickly, so you've got to make banana bread. So that's just that's just the balance there,
Geoff Wilson [00:11:01] given how bananas and avocados just go from, like, unripe, unripe. Right. You know, you missed it. Every cross-breed, avocados and bananas together. Can we make some kind of temporal wormhole of fruit that doesn't go right, just blinks out of existence. So the second it's ripe is just gone.
Guy Thompson [00:11:17] And it's it's a good point. Both bananas and avocados, I believe, are a specific kind of fruit or vegetable that are kind of like a microcosm of life, that everything is going well and then suddenly everything's going terribly.
Geoff Wilson [00:11:32] So we're back into the rest of the story. We're finally leaving the produce section because we've spent quite a long time in there.
Guy Thompson [00:11:37] You've picked up a whole bunch of stuff you're going to squash, right?
Geoff Wilson [00:11:40] Actually, there's one more thing about produce that I can't help myself to go back to, but nobody really ever teaches you or your parents, my teacher, your partners, my teacher, your friends, my teacher. Somebody might teach you about how to choose the right watermelon or the right avocado. Like, how do you know when it's ripe? How do you know what to squeeze or not? So there's already this decision fatigue that I get because I'm not a cook, definitely not good at it. And I'm trying to figure out which one is the worst one for me. But there's nothing really that guides you when you're buying produce either. So you can try to do your research. And sometimes I've been caught in the store sitting on my phone trying to research how should an onion feel again? What should I be looking like? Can I buy it if it's cracked or not? I would love some help with that.
Guy Thompson [00:12:18] I have personally noticed that between the different kinds of supermarkets you can shop from really kind of bargain-basement all the way up to premium. I feel like somewhere in the middle you start to get a little bit of a helping hand around. How you how do you tell that in avocados? Right. How do you tell that these different kinds of fruits or vegetables are good to have at this point and they're often quite small, kind of printed little cards, or it's beside the price and they're kind of in there, but they are quite small. They're not shouting out at you. But if you kind of look in there, you will see some stuff that's in proximity to the to the the fruits and vegetables. And part of it is that they don't want you touching all of the stuff all the time to try and work out if it's right. There's ways to look at that avocado visually.
Geoff Wilson [00:12:58] What grubby hands with that light?
Guy Thompson [00:13:00] Yeah. Without grabbing the avocado, you've got ways to work out if it's actually actually ripe or not. Yeah.
Geoff Wilson [00:13:06] So now we're finally leaving the produce section. And I realized also it doesn't matter how many how long you've been shopping at your one store for. I've been going mine now for a year. I still don't know what aisles do next. We're walking along and I notice there's now a little peek. We do. So you've got your trolley, you're walking past the next time you're rounding the corner of produce and now you're trying to see what is on this aisle, what's this thing next to me? And chances are, at least for me, I'm kind of glancing up to those boards that are hanging from the ceiling. Sometimes they're halfway down, sometimes they're a little closer. But I'm doing a little peek before I fully commit to actually turning my cart. So I'm like, do I want to turn to I want to turn cereal? Yes, I do want to turn. And it's that last minute decision kind of whipping around. Any of those things are not easy to see, I don't think. And I'm also making guesses of like, yeah, well I wanted honey, is honey going to be in the jam or. I don't really know,
Guy Thompson [00:13:56] I, I tend to shop much more through muscle memory, so I often miss a lot of things. Because I'm just in the light as quick as I can and I'll just be blasting through like this, I'm just got my one basket right. I'm not I'm not I'm not, like, walking along slowly with my trolley. I'm like dodging people and like zipping through and trying to be like, I can't even grab corn wheat. It's like I couldn't even get to it. So I don't I don't have that this week. Like, it's just on there for SPAD. But I do know what you mean. Once you get to them, I suppose you could call it the meat of the supermarket where you've got this kind of always mess of all rows in the middle, the
Geoff Wilson [00:14:30] meat where there's no meat.
Guy Thompson [00:14:32] Yeah. There'll be some that you clearly recognize. And in some way you're like, oh, I'm not quite sure if that thing's. And then occasionally you say stuff and it's completely confusing as to why they've decided to not put that thing beside the thing that you associate with those other items, like because, you know, the toothpaste and the toothbrush is the same, like they go together even though one of them is made out of ingredients and one's just made out of plastic. Right. So they still go to because you use them at the same time. But there'll be other things in the supermarket, the light out and kind of list logical ways. But they try to do the best to put the things together that you would be buying.
Geoff Wilson [00:15:10] That's my challenge to anybody that uses honey, that it's honey, whether it's in tea or just on chicken or whatever, because that way we put chicken on our honey and our chicken back in the States, at least for KFC, it makes everything great. Product placement for free. Come on, get sponsorship from KFC. I would love that. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm going to I have just
Guy Thompson [00:15:27] I am going to have to stop you there. Are you are you telling me that you put honey on your KFC when you buy?
Geoff Wilson [00:15:34] Hell, yes, I do.
Guy Thompson [00:15:36] Whilst a mind blowing because I
Geoff Wilson [00:15:39] am sidetracked, but I think it's worth it because we're going to educate people in this podcast, especially given New Zealand's the honey like capital of the world. KFC at least used to give you prepackage little honey packets with all of your chicken. So that's how you learn. And, yeah,
Guy Thompson [00:15:53] an American like
Geoff Wilson [00:15:54] like you buy your bucket of KFC and it's going to come with packets of honey. It comes with it. You don't even ask me.
Guy Thompson [00:16:00] Yeah, I really want to know if this is if this is a state by state thing with certain states and I'll have to play.
Geoff Wilson [00:16:06] I haven't been to Kentucky and I haven't gone KFC from Kentucky.
Guy Thompson [00:16:10] I'm going to say that downtown Delaware does not usually give you honey with your chicken. But, you know, it's it's different everywhere. I'm fascinated to learn
Geoff Wilson [00:16:17] more well from people from Dover, Delaware. Go out and go get some KFC tonight and see and then please
Guy Thompson [00:16:23] let us know. And if you can get your Sichuan sauce as well with you, with your chicken nuggets, you know what if it goes well together.
Geoff Wilson [00:16:31] So anyway, trying to find honey, to me, that's like one of the ultimate challenges. And I realize now, as somebody who buys honey somewhat routinely here, because we put in our teas and stuff, we we just never know where it is. I've never learned it. So I've started writing down on my shopping list exactly what aisle it is so that every time I go there again, I don't have to hunt for it again. I just can find honey. And to me, that's one of the first big really design improvements out there is how can you help the consumer actually find the thing they want? That is, supposing that the store wants to help you find the thing you want.
Guy Thompson [00:17:01] But I can identify there's a small problem with this Franky's you have to be able to categorize what the food is. Right? So what is honey sugar? But is it a condiment or is it a health food?
Geoff Wilson [00:17:16] Part of you thinks jam in that kind of section because I spend it on stuff. Like I said. No, that's right. I'm not chicken. Yeah.
Guy Thompson [00:17:23] So so we've got your peanut butter and jelly like this. It's Coneheads spread smile. Right. It's this spreads. OK, cool. But is that
Geoff Wilson [00:17:31] weird. Actually, yes, I, I can never recall.
Guy Thompson [00:17:34] Usually not now. Yeah. Like it's more in this sort of health. And part of the reason that I think it's been moved to a health food area is because the price per gram is astronomical. And so you want to be able to put it near other foods that are priced higher as well. You will probably still find your bottle kind of squeezy spreadable, you know, five dollar honey that will be along with all the other condiments, sorry, all the other spreads and jams and and all that kind of bargain's stuff. And that Roe, that sort of breakfast I'll. But your health food, honey, that's like twenty five dollars a
Geoff Wilson [00:18:08] bottle
Guy Thompson [00:18:09] that will be in the different section. So that's kind of where you, you sort of end up finding it in two places because you've got two kinds, one that's a spread and one that's like you're paying twenty five bucks for your bottles to be in a fancy section.
Geoff Wilson [00:18:20] Now that I'm thinking about it, I guess the more times I'm aimlessly wandering looking for honey, I'm going to start passing by Hershey bars and Cokes and other things like that. And I might start getting tempted, huh?
Guy Thompson [00:18:31] Yeah. Now I've got to I've got to understand on this that that
Geoff Wilson [00:18:35] that I blow my brains a
Guy Thompson [00:18:36] little bit of research. And you think back to in your mind when you're shopping for Hanukkah, what position in the aisle do you usually find somebody in middle in the
Geoff Wilson [00:18:46] middle, somewhere deep in the middle hidden where I will walk past it five or six times and then I will find it.
Guy Thompson [00:18:52] Why do you think that is?
Geoff Wilson [00:18:53] I guess I'm just trying to get me to see as many things as possible. Again, the decision fatigue. They're just trying to get me to notice all of this other stuff and maybe you just wear me down until I start buying random things I wasn't intending to buy.
Guy Thompson [00:19:04] Exact them wonder. Like getting you to walk through the aisle into the center of it helps you to kind of not only orient yourself around like that's where the honey is. That's where the pasta sauces that's with the pasta is. It's in the middle of the aisle. So if you check where you rice your pasta sauce, it's in the middle. There'll be other products around that select that taco shells and the stuff. But the cool products are generally in the middle of the aisle.
Geoff Wilson [00:19:29] Yeah. And then so do you trying to find honey. So we kind of figure out where that's laid out, but then going back to the kind of the size and stuff, it definitely seems like they're not as helpful. And again, I guess we figured it out. Now it's kind of this they want you to explore. They might put it in small print. So you have to, like, kind of squint or walk up closer to it to kind of find out what's going to be there. So I've always wondered from a shopper's perspective, yeah. Would it be better if at the end of an aisle kind of like angled angled thing so you don't have to actually turn and look perpendicular to you? You could just see it. But now I'm starting to think the store again, as you mentioned, this design experience to get me to do things, I'm assuming they don't want to make it easy for me to just find the things I want. So I don't so I can't just skip aisles is easy.
Guy Thompson [00:20:10] Yeah, this is an interesting comparison. I think this is something we can talk about. And another episode we were looking at the difference between a hardware store versus a supermarket when someone's coming to a hardware store. I think they were looking for something very specific and they don't always tell day and not already annoyed because the halfway through the DIY project. So the list of the items and then I'll have written on the side of the aisle so you can see the whole row of like forty aisles and you can read stuff off them. And the signs are a bigger. Generally find in a supermarket the sign is like inside, yeah, about 10 or 15 feet inside it, and then the little signs that are on the thing are quite small and that kind of thing. So you kind of let you go. Exactly. You look down and you're like, is does that say rice or pasta? And I'm going to go, I have to go check it out. Right. Because I'm pretty sure it's there. And then there's these other things that you actually need which are never on the side. So I would hazard a guess that honey will never be written on the sign, even though they found they defined it. It's not on the side. So you've got to you've got to take a punt and go. Maybe it's in health food, maybe it's in jams and spritz. I don't know. I mean, I have to go down by the house to find out.
Geoff Wilson [00:21:14] And I really like the hardware one and then we'll get it later. But yeah, you're never going. Like, I need to go buy a rake. The kitchen's.
Guy Thompson [00:21:21] Yeah, exactly. It's not like you're going to make an impulse purchase for like a microwave.
Geoff Wilson [00:21:25] Hi honey. I spent ten thousand dollars today on paints and replacing all of our sinks and counters today because man I just walked down that aisle and I couldn't help myself.
Guy Thompson [00:21:33] Yeah. Like I accidentally bought a marble bathtub today. Not going to happen, but, you know, I bought some honey to put on the seat. That's different.
Geoff Wilson [00:21:41] I'm glad that sticking if we say it three times, you will remember it.
Guy Thompson [00:21:44] Try it. It sounds like it's sticking.
Geoff Wilson [00:21:46] Yes. Let's see now. I guess, you know, let's say we found honey. Now it comes down to price, I think, you know, so you've kind of narrowed down what you're looking at. And now it's also it's another decision, fatigue point you're trying to decide is the one on special cheaper than the one that's in bulkier versus this other brand that looks quite the same. And sometimes I've noticed on the little stickers they put actually like the price per hundred grams per 100 milliliters or whatever it might be. But more often than not, I'm finding myself sitting there with my calculator trying to sit there and do some basic fractions, which sadly was never forget it. My my fourth grade self still yells at me for not learning that properly. I don't know what else I was doing daydreaming about all of this. I guess the coming the future. A little nerdy, Jeff, in the fourth grade dreaming of supermarkets anyway. Yeah. So just stickers on that. I've, I've been having a lot of trouble and recently and I think that's what makes my when I go shopping, why it always ends up taking me about an hour is because I'm doing things like this. I'm trying to get a good deal, but I can't tell which one is the how do I save money as I'm trying to save money while I shop. But it's really hard for me to actually compare product by product. And again, it's not just decisions now I'm seeing I'm understanding more and more why this is probably a crafted thing.
Guy Thompson [00:23:02] Again, I'm kind of on both sides of this because I have worked for many years with a lot of producers of products and I want to make sure they can sell as much as they can and get a really high margin, all this great stuff. And but also I'm a consumer products as well. So when there's these little tricks I've done, they kind of frustrate me. So one of the tricks that I see often, especially in supermarkets, is that the products that are sold there will often have very unusual sizes included as a way to create diffusion like that. You if you want to be able to do the math and you head it, how how much something is per gram if if the container comes in two hundred and fifty grams, 500 grams or a kilogram. For those of us familiar with the metric system, let's stick with it. It's really easy. But if you're getting a twelve and a half pounds and then a seventeen and and a quarter ounce, like by diffusing this sizing and then also getting super weird pricing as well, like this, this one's four point seventy two and this one's three point eighty nine. And it's really hard to do that math in your head. So generally standing in the supermarket, you're kind of comparing these two things. You can't do the math on the fly and
Geoff Wilson [00:24:13] you're frustrated by one of them.
Guy Thompson [00:24:14] Yeah, you kind of just grab the one that's around about the right size. So I feel like the supermarket generally will try to give you as much information as possible as a consumer. But I do notice sometimes that that price per 100 grams is missing or it's quoted as a price per kilogram. Not quite sure why those decisions are made.
Geoff Wilson [00:24:33] Sometimes it's going back to this theme of decisions. I finally want to bring up Hick's law. So something we talk about and design a lot, whether regardless what kind of interface or experience you're designing, because, again, it doesn't have to be digital. But Hick's law is the time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of the choices there. So basically, the more choices available, the more time it's going to take, the longer you're going to spend at the grocery store overall, when you've got, you know, entire walthall pickles and ketchup and mayo and honey and cereals and everything else, that's what makes your trip even longer than anything. But I guess that illusion of choice feels really good, at least for a customer that now have these Mayos. They are different varieties. Some of these are chappellet aioli versus seafood, Mayos versus whatever else. So there is some variety or at least on the label, it looks like there is. But then a lot of them, too, are the exact same ones. And you end up staring at it and you don't really know which one to buy. So you just and that's what takes me so long.
Guy Thompson [00:25:30] Yeah, there's an interesting balancing act there that I think is really important for the supermarket. I want to make sure they've got a wide range available at a lot of different price points, so some nice bargain prices, really good deal. This is the really premium ones as well. But you can't have such an overwhelming array that if you had an entire aisle and the entire thing was just my own ornaments, you'd just be freaking out. Right. That's got to be about the right size. And you notice that if you go to a smaller supermarket and the mayor that you usually buy isn't there, you've kind of suddenly you just get annoyed because they've got the only three types of mayo and the one I want isn't here. So there's this balancing act between restrictive amount of choices versus overkill where you've got too many. So as a little bit of a tangent, I just wanted to quickly add this thing. And earlier during the year, I noticed that one of the supermarkets that I was near added in a shopping time that was like quinella from like seven to light in the morning that was designed so so older people could come in without getting overwhelmed. The people would panic buying, toilet paper, whatever was happening at the time. And I also noticed that maybe from 10 to 11 and the middle of the day was also quite hour for people who were sensitive to very loud noises and very
Geoff Wilson [00:26:41] they turn on the lights are just like the brightness of the
Guy Thompson [00:26:43] lights turning down the lights. So if you suffer from photosensitivity or autism or any other kind of factors that they were just trying to make an environment that was more welcoming. So no announcements over the speakerphone, no music playing. So they were kind of specifically make those changes to accommodate those kinds of shoppers at that time. But generally, you're looking for your lowest common denominator. It's it's busy professionals as young families that want to get in and out as fast as they can. So the environment has been, Jenene, so you can move them through quickly when they want to shop quickly. But when you can slow them down by using slow music and making them go all over the supermarket, they need, you know, the dairies in that corner. The milk's all the way at the back, the meat. So here, the exurbia, you've got to cover the whole area of the supermarket. And that that means you're going to have these endcap aisles where, you know, like, you know, say some stuff on the end, going to see a couple of specials. And yet more than likely going to pick up a couple of things that you didn't intend to purchase when you went in there so that that the entire experience is really designed to to help you to craft your impulses and pick up a few things that you didn't actually need.
Geoff Wilson [00:27:51] And granted, when I'm working from home, know at least one or two days a week, you know, that might be the most exercise. Again, as I go to the grocery store, I've got to walk aisle by aisle. Sadly, that's I'm not like that's sometimes like. Yeah, it
Guy Thompson [00:28:03] is like and and this is the thing that's really important to comment on. Like, it is an enjoyable experience. It's stimulating. You're seeing products you haven't seen before. You get to see what specials are on. Going to a market is something that we as human beings have been doing obviously for thousands of years. So we're social creatures. We want to see what other people are buying. We want to see what's good. We're saying visual triggers about what those are. And we we're noticing what other people are buying. We're saying if someone pick something up, they've gotten their trolley or that to discussing a product, we're going to assume that might be good because they're making a choice and that helps us at the point of selection. So what you were mentioning before around, you know, being overwhelmed with the choices and the Mayo kind of category, this is a common thing everywhere. I'm not sure on the exact statistic, but I think it's around about 40 to 45 per cent of people will make a decision at that point of selection that they think, oh, this is the pasta I usually get. Oh, but this one's like a dollar or two dollars cheaper today. Maybe I can just try this one. So there's like a 60 per percent chance people will usually buy the one they always buy. There's a 40 percent chance that they might change. So if you can have a little warbler thingy, the little kind of stick is on the shelf that wobble or you've got like a large special symbol, you know, all these little visual triggers, that kind of trick you away from what you would normally buy, just breaking you out of the habit. And as soon as you get one of those habits broken because are you buying boysenberry today? Oh, look, this mango's or the bananas are individually buy two bananas today. As soon as they start to kind of, you know, destabilize your habitual shopping, you're more likely to sort of by and pick up other things, which I think is an interesting issue to talk about when we're potentially talking about online shopping later, because you're kind of on rails. There's so few it's it's a much more restricted experience when you're shopping online. And it's much harder to have impulse buying and and occasional purchases and things you can stumble across because there's not really the same level of discovery when you're shopping online, you're literally not walking down aisles. And that's where I think we're still probably almost a decade away from where we need to be in terms of having an online retail experience, being much more like the discovery experience of shopping in a store where you literally almost invicta reality kind of just wandering around the supermarket, wandering around a department store and seeing and experience and picking things up. That's what you miss online. You've kind of just got categories and photos of things. And honestly, that visual layout hasn't really changed since the 90s. Texture of product, press style, writing like that's like that's how you shop online, there's no really there's not really any other way to do it that's popular
Geoff Wilson [00:30:44] because if you made me like if you purposely made the navigation of online bad and you make me walk around, I'll buy it on the website, there's no way I'm going to buy anything there. There's no way I'm going to shop if I have to explore like that. But that also tends to be a problem, I guess, in my mind, because I am someone who doesn't plan out like exactly what I'm going to buy. I am an impulse shopper in that sense that I know. Hey, I need to buy in some type of protein. I need to buy some some basic veggies to make a salad. But other than that, I don't really have a huge targets because I don't think of meals. I'm not the main chef of the house, if you will. And so in that sense, if I were to shop online, I just don't even know what I don't need yet. And so it would limit me. I mean, I would stop buying a lot of impulse stuff. But at the same point, I worry that. And I guess the reason I don't use it is exactly that. I don't know what I want until I happen to see it. But then what do I end up buying? A lot of frozen meals and canned stuff that I can just bring to work, to have to lunch, things that my wife just shakes her head to be for buying. Like I'm still in my early twenties. That's right.
Guy Thompson [00:31:41] I like you're not at university anymore. Like, why you
Geoff Wilson [00:31:44] you it it's
Guy Thompson [00:31:47] it's bad. Right. So so this is an interesting thing that I think is effective is that. We like the experience of going to market, it is stimulating, we get to see other people, we kind of wander around, we feel like we're accomplishing a task for our day. Right. So this is part of the journey process you go through. And one of the reasons that these little candy bars and treats are left at the end of your journey because you're predicated to want to reward yourself for like I've achieved my goal of surviving my trip to the market today. I have I have hunted and gathered food and sustenance for my family. Back hurts. I had the many times. And and so I'm allowed to buy and overpriced candy bar or basically a candy bar of some description that has no nutritional value at all. So this but we absolutely enjoy this process. And I think you and I are very similar and that we love the visual stimulation of going in all the different packages, the different designs. You'll notice when a brand you're familiar with has changed the packaging design. The sizing is different. The colors are different.
Geoff Wilson [00:32:46] I've noticed because I want find it
Guy Thompson [00:32:49] to be like, where is it? It's gone. Right. But I can tell from what you were saying earlier around the fact that you haven't seen you're kind of discovering each aisle as you go. Part of you doesn't want to remember where everything is, because if you did, you wouldn't get to discover and stumble upon things. So you want the experience to be kind of more random. You want it to be discovery. You want it to be this really fun journey that you do each time. Some people who absolutely hate it will kind of just be switched off and they'll just be like this one, all three. I'll sit in and out like they would just be. It's the last thing they want to do. And that's the thing that I noticed that was really interesting to me recently was as I started to shop online, I found this really interesting switch happened where I'm able to basically shop for the entire list of things I bought last time and just take a few things off it or at a couple of things on. And I could take my weekly shop down to five minutes flat. And I was astonished because that meant that I could save all of that time. So getting the food delivered for, I think twelve or fifteen dollars to a home suddenly became this amazing timesaver that I could get like six bags of groceries delivered, which would take me at least forty five minutes to an hour to shop for. So why would I waste that time every week where we
Geoff Wilson [00:34:03] could be making podcast at that time?
Guy Thompson [00:34:05] I could completely get it back. And and I saw this happening recently where I saw a young mother and she had had two kids and one's a toddler. He's running around and and the other one's in the baby seat and she's she's on the phone as well. And it just looked like an astonishingly horrible experience to have to go through to kind of be doing your shopping at the same time as managing your small humans. And I kind of thought to myself, why would you want to still come down to the supermarket and kind of go through that and get your children out of the house and stick them in the car and go down and buy all your groceries just to save like the 12 or 14 or 15 dollar delivery fate when you can buy enough stuff online to last you three or four weeks. And also you could just spend that time at the park. So I was just kind of like people. We get into these habits and we feel like we're getting a good deal. We feel like we can be really clever, we can choose the right things, but we're always going to buy more stuff than we need when we physically go there. And if you just shop online, you buy it. There's no extras,
Geoff Wilson [00:35:06] there's no extras, and you don't have screaming toddlers that are throwing a tantrum in the middle of the floor. So you just do it in your kitchen instead. But that's fine. You can close the doors and do that. And I guess at that point, we're kind of down to checkout's, so
Guy Thompson [00:35:22] in the end of the experience, you've got all the stuff you didn't need and now you could have typhus.
Geoff Wilson [00:35:27] Yeah. And if you if you carried a basket in or chose the basket at the very beginning and now you've realized that you try to fill up to the brim and
Guy Thompson [00:35:33] rip my arm off, like
Geoff Wilson [00:35:36] flex a little bit, trying to lift it up like, oh well I might as well get some, you know, something. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Now, you know, a lot of self checkout is starting to pop up more and more. And I know one of the first things is I do prefer self checkouts because once again, with decision fatigue, it's one chance I don't have to decide anything. I will just stand in the queue and when the next one opens up, I'll go there because there's nothing differentiating like one from another other than maybe some have cash or card only. But I only play with cards. So to me, any of the eight that are there, I can just walk up versus the classic way of looking at like the three different queues that are manned and trying to go, OK, well, that guy has an entire full cart, but it's just him versus there's three people that have like a few items each. Which one's going to take longer. So that decision is gone. Now, I can actually just go, you know what, I'm going straight to the self checkout. However, I still then do have to consider, I guess. Well, I bought a bottle of wine and some beer or I bought this really weird thing where I need rubbish bag tags. I need some other odd I need that the staff to help me. That could impact again how that self checkouts actually going to go. So maybe staying in queue and having one person take care of all of it for me is actually a better decision. So never mind. I thought there wasn't and there still is a decision. I've started to hate supermarkets, by the way.
Guy Thompson [00:36:53] I think it's a good view, like a little peek inside what your brain is like, that you are turning up to that point at the supermarket where there's this transition into like, OK, here, now we're going to pay for everything. And you've got, like, all these hamsters on the wheel and you hit and you're like working at, you know, that if you choose one of those queues and the other two queues move faster, that you're going to get annoyed at you and you could be thinking, what? What could I have detected? What thing could I have seen that would have made me choose the right queue and I would have gone through faster, whereas, you know, just
Geoff Wilson [00:37:20] like lanes of traffic, you're going to switch lanes potentially and then get mad that the other one starts going faster again. And yeah,
Guy Thompson [00:37:25] exactly. But the thing about that that I think is interesting is that if you have a full sized trolley and you're going through the self checkout, how do you, like, get the trolley in there beside the thing? And you taken up too much space. Now you've got four bags, like it's just painful. I just want to go through the the human mind kind of one. If I'm buying more than two bags with of stuff, it's just impossible.
Geoff Wilson [00:37:46] So what I've realized that of all this is that I probably should just start shopping online. I can get rid of all of this worry. I get searched for the exact product I need. I can just pick that. I don't have to worry about looking between 40 different types of Mayeux. I can just type in the one brand that I know now. I could find everything. I could plan other meals better. I can not have to go through any of this. But now the ultimate question for me, like many people, is what's going to actually change that behavior? Because tomorrow chances are I'm going to wake up and I'm going to say I need groceries and I'm probably just going to do the same thing I did.
Guy Thompson [00:38:16] You're just going to go to it... yeah.
Geoff Wilson [00:38:16] So, what is going to change that? I guess that's... we'll wait and see. Maybe somebody listening makes that new thing that makes me go... That just stops this behavior wholesale.
Guy Thompson [00:38:26] This was the nicest thing that I found about shopping online is it was so much easier to actually buy larger versions of things because I didn't have to carry it or pick it up or put it in my trolley to put it in my basket or put it in the bag. That thing would turn up and I could just put it into the cupboard at my house, and so that's the thing that I really liked about doing that, is you can shop online, fill up the the basics, and then your trip to the supermarket is more like 15, 20 minutes to just buy something you need for dinner tonight because you want to do something special. And so it takes the pressure of trying to work out all of those special meals you want to make at the same time as all the staples, the things I'm having for lunch, the things we're having for breakfast did it. And so at that point, you mentioned before about you kind of have this decision paralysis and you'd switch back to I go get some frozen stuff or some packaged stuff, the stuff that's easy because the entire experience is so overwhelming. So I find if you take the staples and put those through through on line and then you get to choose and pick out all the fun things that you can explore. I'm not really sure what yogurt I want, so I'll just kind of go and pick what's there.
Geoff Wilson [00:39:32] Maybe that's my challenge, is I'll try to at least do it once and maybe I'll get hooked. It might sometimes just be that I need that one kick to try that new thing. And after that, yeah, you might realize it's the best thing for you. And I think now we've fully gone to the supermarket. I, I'm actually not looking forward to it because I know now how much I'm being controlled and I don't really like that feeling of control. Don't don't keep me down, man! haha
Guy Thompson [00:39:59] Haha. Try it online and then compare back to going back to the supermarket and see what happens. It'll be an interesting comparison to try it differently and maybe even try going to a supermarket you never been before and see how different it'll be.
Geoff Wilson [00:40:10] And with that, folks, thank you for listening to this episode, and I hope that made you think of a few new things. If you'd like to continue this conversation or see examples of what we were talking about today, you can find and follow us on social media @EverydayExpPod or myself @geoffwilsonHCD. Please consider subscribing on your favourite podcasting app and leaving us a rating so we can keep this going. And just remember, you don't have to have a fancy job title to start noticing and improving the everyday experiences wherever you work. Thanks. And we'll be on the air again soon.
Post-credits
Geoff Wilson [00:41:08] Mitch Hedberg, one of my favourites said, "With a stoplight, green means go and yellow means slow down. But with a banana, it's quite the opposite. Yellow means go, green means whoa, slow down. And red means... where the heck did you get that banana?" hahaha. If only I could do his mannerisms this would be good...
