Project Overview
Mapply, a smart map, and a shopping management app that provides easy navigation and AR assistance for shoppers at the Westfield Century City Mall in Los Angeles, California.
Project Details
Time Frame:
Fall 2022, 12 Weeks
Team:
Emma Doyle, Esmé Ison, Yuka Seike, and myself
Tools:
Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop
My Role
I assisted in UX research, design thinking and was a service in wireframing the first stages of Mapply's User Interface.
I was also head of Mapply's interface prototyping. To which I constructed easy flowing transitions and animations for each component.
Problem
The Century City Mall holds a wide amount of clothing stores and eateries available. To which this brings thousands of people visiting this mall every month. However, many people have complained about navigation, parking and accessibility issues within this shopping center. This causes many people to feel skeptical about ordering food or merchandise due to the inconvenience. To overcome this, we have decided to create a "smart map and navigation app" that assists people in ordering food at the Century City Mall.
Insights
We learned that mall visitors picking up food need to park quickly and safely because they are on a tight schedule. However, we observed that the parking at the mall can be confusing as it is easy to get lost within the mall's many parking levels. Moreover, navigating throughout the mall can be tricky as the food court is located relatively far away from the parking garage.
Solution
We created Mapply, which essentially combines both smart maps and shopping pickup, curbside, or delivery apps into 1 easy to use platform. With API integrations and in-app browsers, users never have to leave the app to navigate to and from, or place online orders through their favorite apps like Postmates, Grubhub, Uber eats, and more.
Observations from Real Users
Interviewee:
Francis Laura Palacio, 20 years old, Sephora Employee
Date:
October 10, 2022
Info:
Francis avoids Century City mall as a general visitor because of the parking. It has some of the closest food to her (Chick-fil-A, Panda Express) but she’ll drive to another farther location to avoid the parking there.
“[Chick-fil-A at the mall] is so close to me and most of the restaurants at the mall are the closest locations…but the whole parking thing turns me off so much that I’d rather drive farther and go to actual locations than an actual food court. The lines are long and I get overstimulated there…I don’t think it’s worth it."
We realized something needed to be done about the ease of navigation throughout the Century City Mall along with making the parking experience less stressful.
Low Fidelity Prototypes
Sign in / Sign up
Homepage
Restaurant Select
Delivery Method
Menu
Item Menu
Cart
Payment
Countdown Timer
Road Navigation
Arrival Instructions
Completion
The Result: Mapply
The start of a brand new way to order online and be aided with direction.
Pick up your food
Intelligently,
Easily,
Quickly,
Mapply.
With Mapply, the user can find themselves happily benefiting from the program's navigation system, where they can be directed throughout the mall with ease. Food orders will be hot and ready the moment the user walks in the door.
With API integrations and in-app browsers, users never have to leave the app to navigate to and from, or place online orders through their favorite apps like Postmates, Grubhub, UberEats, and more.
Mapply utilizes AR navigation to help guide users to their desired location quickly and by foot. The path is lit up and accompanied by brief written instructions.
Using Mapply benefits the customer and the mall. After purchases, the app provides exclusive points and discounts that bring people back to the mall to explore different sites. The app has a tab that keeps track of all rewards and expiration dates.
Future Implications:
With the help of investors, Mapply, can be expanded to provide services for not just the Westfield Mall, but to other malls, arenas, and social grounds around the world.
