<first>I<first>n big city life, with fast pace and little time, eating well can be a challenge. Practical food options are often unhealthy. On the other hand, healthy meals have long prep times and are often not as tasty as people would like. Many people end up eating poorly when seeking the easiest route for everyday meals.

Liv Up was born with the purpose of connecting people to good food, simplifying access to healthy options. At one end are farmers, ingredients, chefs and meals. At the other, customers. The digital product served as a bridge, facilitating the purchase process. Our challenge was to create a practical experience to discover the menu, select the items and indicate how to receive them at home.

Understanding the context

Liv Up has a particularity: the sale takes place exclusively through digital media. With the initial objective of being a direct-to-consumer company, the entire purchase process is carried out through the mobile app or website – without a physical visualization of packages as in a traditional market. Therefore, the experience of browsing, viewing and choosing items is guided by the digital interface and information architecture defined by the product team.

A second important point is the fact that customers have large carts – an average of 20 items per transaction. Liv Up is seen as a weekly or monthly purchase, with products to be stored in the freezer for consumption over time. The interface of digital channels, in turn, must fulfill different roles: facilitating the search for recurring SKUs and, at the same time, allowing the discovery of new items, especially with the expansion of the menu.

Liv Up’s structure also influences product development. The company uses a decentralized model with autonomous and multidisciplinary teams called Squads. Each team works at a specific stage of the customer journey – acquisition, purchase, engagement – and is responsible for prioritizing specific initiatives. This brings agility to the execution, since each group is responsible for its own objectives.

{{video-solo}}

Exploring solutions

Product Design work at Liv Up is based on observations, hypotheses, tests and metrics for validation. For example, one of the main challenges for the Purchase Squad was the reorganization of the app’s menu to expand the product catalog. With the increase in the number of SKUs, the definition of new categories, without compromising the usability of navigation, was necessary..

From methods such as interviews and card sorting, we listed the preliminary lessons learned:

Categorization by “shelves”

The main form of classification, following the pattern of a physical market – ex: grocery, beverages, frozen meals, vegetables. The main challenge would be to understand the hierarchical relationship between the items.

Moment of consumption and type of setting

An alternative search, using occasions like “breakfast,” “dinner,” “bakery.” In this model, items from different shelves, such as bread (bakery) and bananas (grocery), would appear side by side.

Ambiguity about classifications

Unlike shelves, whose understanding was more universal, a term like “grocery store” could generate greater divergence among customers.

With these observations, we described the hypothesis that a multilateral navigation – shelves, moments, settings – could accommodate different mental models of search. This approach has been validated by multiple methods – such as A/B testing, category access metrics and add-to-cart index – bringing new learnings, both positive and negative. For example, “breakfast” proved to be a relevant classification type. On the other hand, navigation tabs did not necessarily stimulate the discovery of new categories.

Continuous discovery

A fundamental vision for the strategic approach of Design was to work in an integrated manner with other disciplines. We seek to gather insights on customers on a recurring basis and allow the group to rely on this material to make product decisions. To this end, we intentionally involved different areas in carrying out research, with the aim of disseminating a process centered on users.

How to make the research a cyclical process, integrated to the dynamics of execution and validation of Squads?

For a continuous discovery model, we defined three main metrics: the number of interactions with users per week, the effort to recruit participants, and the involvement of other disciplines, in addition to Design. These criteria facilitated the implementation of the process, as they were clear and objective. They also allowed us to level the execution across all Squads. The main method used at first was in-depth interviews.

The automation of activities was fundamental for greater agility. We created a system to track the conversion bottleneck of interviews – that is, how many invitations were sent, accepted and, ultimately, how many people participated. This allowed us to refine messages and means of contact so as not to overwhelm the customer base. We also designed templates to facilitate the recording of notes and bring consistency in the synthesis.

In the interviews, we sought to invite PMs, developers and data analysts for support (shadowing) and also to take notes of the conversations. In addition to support in execution, the idea was to acculturate other disciplines about the importance of research by approaching customers. Continued practice would allow areas other than Design to conduct discovery activities – which would be another positive effect on our vision.

Some examples of practical insights gleaned from the exercise were: replacement of carousels with list alternatives to stimulate discovery; for pictures of items, use a perspective closer to actual portion size; and limited relevance of product evaluation functionality regarding execution effort.

The Liv Up app consolidated the company's vision of simplifying access to healthy food, through a mobile-first experience. The close contact with customers was fundamental for validations and tests during the refinement of the digital product.

Consistency and quality

In order to design a top-notch online shopping experience, we created a process to maintain consistency and harmony in the design. At Liv Up, we defend that quality execution is as important as building a strategic argument for the product. The idea was to allow designers from multiple Squads to converge in the creation of interfaces, using an organized, pre-defined system as a reference.

How to approach the Design System as a living element, continually refined by practical applications?

Due to the lean structure of our team, we opted for a distributed model – also called “federated.” In this format, the responsibility for building the Design System is shared among the members of the product teams, not centered on a single independent designer. The designers themselves, as members of the Squads, set the standards. And this happens in the real, practical and often unpredictable context of everyday life.

We started with the definition of six structural properties of our system: Design principles, colors, typographic family, shapes, icons and taxonomy. We assign each topic according to the background, skills and preferences of each designer. We believed that from these basic elements, further and more detailed discussions would be less difficult. This approach also helped us to take lean steps and build commitment in the group.

To keep the system up to date and relevant, we established biweekly critique sessions. This horizontal alignment space was crucial in a decentralized model of Squads. As each team is responsible for its own objectives, the distance from the “whole” view ends up being a natural effect. During the meetings, the group was able to review patterns, identify execution inconsistencies and discuss opportunities.

<heading-light>Download the Liv Up app:<heading-light> iOS , Android‍

‍

‍