Creating a Human-Centered Retail Space

This client is one of the largest retail food chains in the country. We worked extensively with their design center to evaluate customer experience, specifically for the flagship store and one of their retail brands that was undergoing revitalization.

To lead this project, we brought in a globally acclaimed designer and innovator. What better person to lead it than one who lives by the motto, “design is about people, not things”? And rightly so. His recommendations covered several areas, including floor plan layouts, the customer journey and brand positioning.

Along with our team, he studied the Philippine market, specifically the client’s target segment. Efforts were directed toward the class C socio-economic, ensuring their needs were considered in the design. Research included on-site observations, one-on-one interviews, video analyses. An interesting finding: housing for this particular market segment is mostly cramped. Being accustomed to tight spaces, many class C customers felt less at ease in wide-open spaces.
For the design of the retail brand, we worked with a full-size cardboard model of a store to evaluate the flow of customers, visibility of display shelves and openness of the retail aisles. These had implications for the stores’ floor plans.

Additionally, we helped to strengthen the positioning of the client’s retail brand. Workshops were conducted and homework assigned for the internal team to solidify the company’s place in the market. Competing restaurants were offering a less industrial-like atmosphere. So for the flagship outlet we recommended creating a more casual, café-like environment, adding a more human touch.

Another factor we considered: readability of menu items displayed on monitors mounted high behind the service counter. As customers stand in line to order, readability from afar is crucial. The existing typeface and size were difficult to make out from a distance. We designed and carried out a quantitative study addressing typeface size and the perception of menu items. We created several variations of the menu design, investigated legibility of the type, and the effect of background color on the appeal of the food photography. Readability from a distance does help to speed up queues.

Overall, the most meaningful contribution we made to the initiative was to bring more human-centered design considerations into the retail outlets’ floor plans.