TRADER JOE’S APP
Trader Joe’s at your fingertips — tap, relax, and let the deliciousness come to you!
Inspiration
The idea for this project came from a casual moment when one of us noticed a friend wearing a Trader Joe’s jacket. It sparked a conversation about how much we love Trader Joe’s and its unique, community-oriented vibe. Unlike other grocery stores, Trader Joe’s offers so much more than groceries—it has podcasts, recipes, and newsletters that connect people to their brand on a deeper level. This realization got us thinking about how these resources, while valuable, are often overlooked because they’re only available on the website, which isn’t the most user-friendly or widely used.
Problem:
Trader Joe’s lacks a mobile app, which is something many of their competitors already have. Without an app, their valuable resources go unnoticed, and they miss an opportunity to provide a modern, streamlined experience that matches their welcoming and innovative brand. The lack of an app not only limits the accessibility of their content but also creates a gap in connecting with users in a way that feels natural and intuitive.
Proposed Solution:
We decided to create a mobile app for Trader Joe’s that combines their unique features and grocery shopping experience into one simple, user-friendly platform. Our app would:
Highlight Trader Joe’s resources—like their podcasts, recipes, and newsletters—in a way that’s engaging and easy for users to explore.
Stay true to Trader Joe’s brand identity by reflecting their welcoming, casual, and community-focused aesthetic.
Provide a seamless user experience, with intuitive navigation and features that make grocery shopping more efficient, accessible, and enjoyable.
We wanted this app to not only solve the problem of accessibility but also to embody everything we love about Trader Joe’s and make it easier for others to connect with their brand.
My Role:
User Researcher: Conducted surveys, analyzed feedback, and developed user personas and storyboards to guide design decisions.
UX Designer: Mapped the app’s user flow, ensuring an intuitive and seamless experience.
UI Designer: Created low- and high-fidelity prototypes in Figma, aligning with Trader Joe’s branding.
Conceptualization
Brainstorming & Ideation:
We started by doing a competitor analysis, looking at apps for grocery stores like Vons, Safeway, and Ralph’s, as well as apps for non-grocery brands like Urban Outfitters that we knew had great layouts and usability. This helped us identify what worked and what didn’t in similar apps, as well as features we thought would fit well with Trader Joe’s personality.
Competitor Analysis
One of the first things that stood out to us was how many unique resources Trader Joe’s offers—like podcasts, newsletters, and recipes—that set them apart from other grocery stores. We knew these features would need to be front and center in the app, alongside more traditional shopping functionalities.
While brainstorming, we got excited and jumped straight into creating the user flow. That’s when we realized we didn’t fully understand what people would want from the app. Why would they use it instead of just visiting the website or shopping in-store? This realization made us pause and go back to the drawing board.
User Research:
To better understand the users, we decided to conduct an online survey. We targeted college students since they were an accessible demographic for us and aligned with many of Trader Joe’s customers. In our survey, we asked about their grocery shopping habits.
Development
User Flow:
We first focused on mapping out the user flow to ensure the app was intuitive and met user needs. This included defining the major touch points, such as onboarding (creating an account or logging in), navigating the homepage, exploring categories (Products, Recipes, Entertainment, Podcasts), and completing checkout. This step helped us visualize the user journey from start to finish.
Lo-Fi Wireframing:
After finalizing the user flow, we created lo-fi wireframes for all the main pages. This allowed us to establish the layout and structure for each page and identify any additional subpages needed, like product details. Wireframing also helped us refine our ideas and ensure the app’s design aligned with our initial vision.
Homepage
Landing Page
Survey highlights grocery shopping pain points
From the survey, we identified three key pain points:
Time-Consuming Shopping: Grocery shopping is tedious and takes too long.
Accessibility Challenges: Many users, especially college students, don’t have cars, making grocery shopping inconvenient and exhausting.
Overconsumption & Waste: Users often overbuy due to impulsive decisions, leading to wasted money and food.
To bring these insights to life, we created user personas that represented our main user groups, like busy college students without cars and professionals trying to save time. We also storyboarded how these users might interact with the app, which helped us visualize their journey and design a user flow that addressed their needs.
Concept Development
Using what we learned from our research, we refined our main idea: a delivery system at the core of the app. This would allow users to shop for groceries and have them delivered straight to their door, saving time and solving accessibility issues.
Beyond the delivery feature, we wanted the app to highlight Trader Joe’s unique offerings, like their podcasts and recipes, in a way that felt seamless and intuitive. This meant integrating these resources into the app’s navigation and creating layouts that encouraged users to explore.
Products
Featured Pages:
Onboarding:
We designed a simple and intuitive onboarding process. Users could create an account by entering basic details (name, email, phone number) and selecting their favorite Trader Joe’s location. We made sure the app keeps users logged in for convenience.
Sign in
Listening Page:
One of the most unique features of our app was the podcast integration. We redesigned the listening experience to be more intuitive, inspired by Spotify’s layout. Users can view a catalog of episodes, click to read detailed descriptions, and play episodes with full playback controls.
We also added a persistent listening bar at the bottom of the screen, so users could control playback from anywhere in the app.
Discover
Password Reset
Interactive listening screens to spotlight the Trader Joe’s podcast
Products Page:
We created a clean, grid-based layout showing product images, titles, prices, and an “add to cart” button. Clicking a product opens a detailed page with descriptions, nutrition facts, and tags for different uses (e.g., "Game Night" or "Pasta Night").
Products Landing Page
Cart
Products Filter
Checkout
Selected Product
Order Confirmation
Recipes
Store Locator
Interactive listening screens to spotlight the Trader Joe’s podcast
Nutrition Facts
Checkout Process:
The checkout flow includes confirmation screens for address and payment, followed by a delivery tracking feature. We designed animations to show the progress of an order from being placed to arriving at the user’s door.
Driver Tracking
Outcome
Final Product
We developed a high-fidelity prototype of the Trader Joe’s app that seamlessly integrates grocery shopping with Trader Joe’s unique resources, such as podcasts, recipes, and articles. The final design reflects the brand’s community-focused identity while prioritizing accessibility, usability, and efficiency.
Reflection:
One of our biggest lessons came early on when we realized we didn’t fully understand what users would want from this app. Going back to research and creating personas and storyboards was essential in shaping our final design. We also learned how important it is to balance functionality with brand identity, especially for a brand as unique as Trader Joe’s.
Takeaways:
We learned how to collaborate effectively as a team, dividing tasks while staying aligned on the app’s vision.
This was our first time designing an app, and it taught us valuable skills in wireframing, prototyping, and adapting layouts for mobile screens.
Ultimately, we hope this app will make grocery shopping more accessible and enjoyable while helping users connect more deeply with Trader Joe’s.