Hi, you've been infiltrated by a non-mystery shopper wishing to exploit your no doubt well honed opinions. I'm a student of Interior Architecture who's been given an assignment - design a grocery store for a specific sub-demographic of the Millennial Generation (anyone born roughly 1980 onward). Well you can't do that kind of thing without talking to the right people can you? This thread is going to be very active for the next four or five weeks - I'll be changing, revising, and adding to this post as time goes on, information and plans change, and as graphics like a current floor plan and renderings of areas become available. So if you decide to help out, keep an eye on this thing, because static it ain't.
My group: Moving in, Moving up. You have been working in your profession for a little while now, you're comfortable and starting to advance in it, you probably (but not necessarily) have a serious relationship, but are not yet a parent.
According to the data we were given (you are all welcome to contribute and contradict, just try to keep perspective when you do, this is a generalization), this is the group with the most time and money (relatively) and that feels the most freedom to use both. With their careers, and therefore income, maturing, and their corresponding lifestyle established, they are both prepared and actively interested in further enrichment, and food/cooking is on their radar as one way to do it. Not yet having to account for children, they are focused on quality time and interaction. They are ripe for an immersive shopping experience that will encourage them to try various new things via introduction and empowerment.
My goal: To create a shopping experience that is in and of itself immersive, interesting/fun, interactive, and if possible even incorporating elements of discovery and adventure. While those coming in with traditional shopping lists must be accommodated and the store will not inhibit efficient grocery sweeps, the store will inherently encourage more adventurous, fluid and intuitive shopping (research also shows Millennials as being more compulsive and 'in the moment' in their shopping).
My current idea works on three layers: topography, geography, and cuisine, respectively. Cuisine is inherently geographic. Geography does divide foodstuffs in a logical manner but as an overarching system would be too intimidating and inaccessible to customers. However, as sub-dividers within the topography it is much more feasible and can be made intuitive.
BASICS:
Things are arranged a bit differently, according to topography rather than the classic categories. So, there is a 'Trees and bushes' section, a fields section, a water section, etc. The Trees and Bushes will have fruits, canned fruits, fruit juice, olives and olive oil, blueberries and blueberry pies, but not vegetables, which fall into the fields category. Prepared hybrid foods are arranged in-between relevant sections. A few touches designed to keep this easy to adapt to are described below.
THE EXPERIENCE (that I am currently designing towards)
A customer enters the store and finds himself or herself (henceforth to be chauvinistically referred to as himself
) in the 'trees and bushes' section. Divided into fresh, refrigerated and frozen (canned alts and offshoots of fresh will be store on shelves under the fresh), the contents of each of those sections will be grouped according to geography. Pictographic signs would both add to design aesthetic and further speed up the process of finding what you need, benefiting all shoppers but especially paving the way for those who just want to fill their grocery list and run, dodging the cuisine 'system'. Each of these sections will come with some information about the cultures that used the contained products (each a small chunk, a customer would potentially have collected a wide range of information by the time they left the store), and a selection of the key linking element, recipe cards. Scattered throughout the store in the most relevant places, recipe cards are all cuisine focused, each featuring one dish that is distinct to some culture or region (american included). An appealing picture, a small bit of additional info, and a list of ingredients and instructions cooking book style, would be on the front. On the back. a small simple map of the store with numbered circles corresponding to each of the ingredients would show how and where to acquire them. A key feature of these cards would be that they are always placed by one of their ingredients, with the exception of the 'center', the spices section, and the starting wall, which I will get to later. These cards will also be available for download as pdf and apps (this is purely hypothetical, I'm not a software engineer ) from the store's website, allowing customers to choose what they will shop for beforehand. Along a short wall perpendicular to the front, two large mounted maps of the story and samples of entire selection of recipe cards will be found. Those immediately or routinely driven by this feature can go straight to this wall and browse for their collective shopping list.
In the center of the store is the bakery, meat and deli section, along with coffee and most of all, prepared food stalls. Here customers can buy many or all of the recipes featured on the cards in either raw form, or in small precooked sections to taste and try at leisure (tables are also here). The corresponding recipe cards would be there, as well as the cooks or employees familiar with the dishes for the customers to talk to about what they want, how to serve it, or whatever else makes them curious. As such this becomes a sort of a hub, where the currently featured selection of recipes (recipes per cuisine would alternate on a regular basis, I'd guess either bi-weekly or monthly) are on display, where people can check up on the cards they've collected thus far, and generally where the various strands of the 'net' of cuisine recipes that connects the store comes together. Ideally, the store should be able to define a customers' shopping for them, but in an empowered fashion, equipping them to explore and try a variety of things while learned more about them, where they come from, etc. Regular changes will preserve this sensation for loyal customers who come often. Both the hub and the wine section will be geared towards savoring and considering, ideal for both enterprising individuals and couples looking to explore ways to change their routine. The wine section will probably also be connected to the cuisine system, mostly be having signs informing which wines would best accompany which of the featured recipes.
So there you have the current plan. I'm working with my instructors on the first floor plan, and eventually I am to design two areas of the store in detail and render them. So what's your reaction? Dream store? Nightmare? Or more likely, a mix of good and bad? There is no good or bad feedback, only feedback, as my architectural guidance guru said while levitating over the drafting table. You may have question, you may have objections, you may think certain parts don't sound like such a good idea. It's all good, so let me hear it!
My group: Moving in, Moving up. You have been working in your profession for a little while now, you're comfortable and starting to advance in it, you probably (but not necessarily) have a serious relationship, but are not yet a parent.
According to the data we were given (you are all welcome to contribute and contradict, just try to keep perspective when you do, this is a generalization), this is the group with the most time and money (relatively) and that feels the most freedom to use both. With their careers, and therefore income, maturing, and their corresponding lifestyle established, they are both prepared and actively interested in further enrichment, and food/cooking is on their radar as one way to do it. Not yet having to account for children, they are focused on quality time and interaction. They are ripe for an immersive shopping experience that will encourage them to try various new things via introduction and empowerment.
My goal: To create a shopping experience that is in and of itself immersive, interesting/fun, interactive, and if possible even incorporating elements of discovery and adventure. While those coming in with traditional shopping lists must be accommodated and the store will not inhibit efficient grocery sweeps, the store will inherently encourage more adventurous, fluid and intuitive shopping (research also shows Millennials as being more compulsive and 'in the moment' in their shopping).
My current idea works on three layers: topography, geography, and cuisine, respectively. Cuisine is inherently geographic. Geography does divide foodstuffs in a logical manner but as an overarching system would be too intimidating and inaccessible to customers. However, as sub-dividers within the topography it is much more feasible and can be made intuitive.
BASICS:
Things are arranged a bit differently, according to topography rather than the classic categories. So, there is a 'Trees and bushes' section, a fields section, a water section, etc. The Trees and Bushes will have fruits, canned fruits, fruit juice, olives and olive oil, blueberries and blueberry pies, but not vegetables, which fall into the fields category. Prepared hybrid foods are arranged in-between relevant sections. A few touches designed to keep this easy to adapt to are described below.
THE EXPERIENCE (that I am currently designing towards)
A customer enters the store and finds himself or herself (henceforth to be chauvinistically referred to as himself
) in the 'trees and bushes' section. Divided into fresh, refrigerated and frozen (canned alts and offshoots of fresh will be store on shelves under the fresh), the contents of each of those sections will be grouped according to geography. Pictographic signs would both add to design aesthetic and further speed up the process of finding what you need, benefiting all shoppers but especially paving the way for those who just want to fill their grocery list and run, dodging the cuisine 'system'. Each of these sections will come with some information about the cultures that used the contained products (each a small chunk, a customer would potentially have collected a wide range of information by the time they left the store), and a selection of the key linking element, recipe cards. Scattered throughout the store in the most relevant places, recipe cards are all cuisine focused, each featuring one dish that is distinct to some culture or region (american included). An appealing picture, a small bit of additional info, and a list of ingredients and instructions cooking book style, would be on the front. On the back. a small simple map of the store with numbered circles corresponding to each of the ingredients would show how and where to acquire them. A key feature of these cards would be that they are always placed by one of their ingredients, with the exception of the 'center', the spices section, and the starting wall, which I will get to later. These cards will also be available for download as pdf and apps (this is purely hypothetical, I'm not a software engineer ) from the store's website, allowing customers to choose what they will shop for beforehand. Along a short wall perpendicular to the front, two large mounted maps of the story and samples of entire selection of recipe cards will be found. Those immediately or routinely driven by this feature can go straight to this wall and browse for their collective shopping list.
In the center of the store is the bakery, meat and deli section, along with coffee and most of all, prepared food stalls. Here customers can buy many or all of the recipes featured on the cards in either raw form, or in small precooked sections to taste and try at leisure (tables are also here). The corresponding recipe cards would be there, as well as the cooks or employees familiar with the dishes for the customers to talk to about what they want, how to serve it, or whatever else makes them curious. As such this becomes a sort of a hub, where the currently featured selection of recipes (recipes per cuisine would alternate on a regular basis, I'd guess either bi-weekly or monthly) are on display, where people can check up on the cards they've collected thus far, and generally where the various strands of the 'net' of cuisine recipes that connects the store comes together. Ideally, the store should be able to define a customers' shopping for them, but in an empowered fashion, equipping them to explore and try a variety of things while learned more about them, where they come from, etc. Regular changes will preserve this sensation for loyal customers who come often. Both the hub and the wine section will be geared towards savoring and considering, ideal for both enterprising individuals and couples looking to explore ways to change their routine. The wine section will probably also be connected to the cuisine system, mostly be having signs informing which wines would best accompany which of the featured recipes.
So there you have the current plan. I'm working with my instructors on the first floor plan, and eventually I am to design two areas of the store in detail and render them. So what's your reaction? Dream store? Nightmare? Or more likely, a mix of good and bad? There is no good or bad feedback, only feedback, as my architectural guidance guru said while levitating over the drafting table. You may have question, you may have objections, you may think certain parts don't sound like such a good idea. It's all good, so let me hear it!