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Native mobile app development for one of Australia's largest retailers.
BIG W is one of Australia's leading retailers, with a focus on family and value. They have a high-traffic website where the majority of users are using mobile devices.
To support the increasing desire for shopping on-the-go and staying connected to the BIG W brand, it was clear that BIG W required a mobile application to appeal to their large customer base.
The opportunity
To remain competitive in an increasingly mobile market and the rising surge of online shopping, BIG W required a native application that customers could use to purchase products on-the-go and stay connected to the BIG W brand and its services. With competitors such as Amazon, Target and Kmart having a strong mobile presence, the need for a mobile application has never been more apparent.
The solution
To respond to the urgent demand for a customer-facing mobile application, Upgrowth put forward a roadmap to the BIG W team prioritising features that were critical to the user experience for the initial launch, and features that could be deployed in future releases.
The outcome of this process was a clear launch scope focused on customer experience opportunities and a roadmap for subsequent releases. This allowed us to identify dependent systems and data required to support changes required in existing systems and infrastructure to ensure a smooth launch.
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Our Expertise.
Services
Solution design
UX/UI Design
Mobile app development (iOS and Android)
Research
Automated & User testing
Technologies
React Native
Expo
Adobe AEM
API Intergrations
Typescript
What we did.
Design System
To reach market readiness as soon as possible, it was clear that our design and development teams needed to be closely aligned to produce components and screens efficiently to respond to rapid change and user feedback. To accelerate the launch and ongoing delivery of the mobile app, Upgrowth defined and delivered a refined design system.
The design system introduced design tokens, component-based design, signposting, annotation for accessibility and other non-visual experience requirements. Our process for design system change included a tight feedback loop with user testing and a lightweight developer handover process. The basis of this process is informing the BIG W and Woolworths Group way of working going forward.
Problem / Solution Fit
Upgrowth ran 8 rounds of user testing sessions with initial concepts and designs to gain feedback on crucial parts of the customer experience and validate customer messaging.
User testing continued through design and delivery up until an internal launch with a trial group of staff. BIG W staff are well informed and one of the target user groups and were able to provide constructive real world feedback.
Before launch, we conducted a larger pilot release across Woolworths Group, testing with 2,000+ users to ensure that our product could support a large customer base. This helped provide broader feedback, internal advocacy and clarity around any potential scaling risks for this new customer channel.
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Product / Market Fit
From our user testing, we identified some key areas of improvement and product enhancements, such as a single-step checkout and integrations with native payment providers such as Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Throughout our development cycle, we have continuously iterated upon our existing designs and tested new features with real-world customers. Being that both mobile and web channels are closely related, we’ve been able to action feedback across both customer channels.
Within the first month of launch, the BIG W App had reached the #1 position for shopping apps on the App Store.
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