PROJECT OVERVIEW
CLIENT
Abdullah Al Othaim Markets
MY ROLE
Design Lead, via Plexable
SCOPE
Onboarding, home, categories, search, cart, checkout, payment, wallet, orders, lists and ratings
VALIDATION
Google Play lists the shipped Android app above 500,000 installs.
TIMELINE
Business requirements in January 2019, launch in early 2020, new features through 2020
TEAM
Delivered through Plexable with the Abdullah Al Othaim Markets team
The context
Abdullah Al Othaim Markets wanted their supermarket on a phone, with delivery in Riyadh and a promise attached to it: you select, we deliver.
A full supermarket is a lot to browse on a small screen, and the app had to feel at home in Arabic or English from the very first screen.
My responsibility
I set the three UX principles the app was judged against, then designed the screens behind them, from onboarding through to rating a finished order.
Each screen was drawn twice, once per language, and tuned to the conventions of each platform. I designed it for iOS and Android, and Plexable's developers built both apps.
No screen counted as finished until it worked in both reading directions, on both platforms. Holding that line was my job.
Speedi red stayed on the brand and the offers. Green carried every action, add to cart and checkout included, so a button never read as a warning.
CONSTRAINTS & TRADE-OFFS
Two languages and two platforms multiply everything. The Arabic app could not read as a translation of the English one.
Delivery reached only part of the country, so some shoppers would open the app and find nothing they could buy.
● RESEARCH & CONTEXT
What spoils a grocery order
Three failures spoil an online grocery order, and the January 2019 requirements named all of them.
An item goes missing. The delivery lands at the wrong hour. Or the shopper lives somewhere Speedi does not reach yet.
● PRODUCT DECISIONS
Where the hard choices landed
I put the missing-item choice in the cart rather than at checkout, so the shopper decides while the product is still in front of them.
Shoppers outside the delivery area got a vote instead of a dead end. A city with enough votes is a reason to expand, not a lost visit.
● PRODUCT ARCHITECTURE
One shop, two reading directions
The app runs as one shop with a wallet, an order history and saved lists attached: home, categories, search, product, cart, checkout, payment, orders and ratings.
Address and coverage sit ahead of the cart. A shopper drops a pin on the map and learns straight away whether Speedi reaches it.
● PROCESS & EVIDENCE
What survives is the artwork itself: four versions of each screen, one per language in each platform's own conventions.
Nothing was left for the build to invent. No coverage, an empty cart, an out of stock item, an expired card and a failed payment were all drawn first.
OUTCOMES
Live in the stores since 2020
Speedi reached the App Store and Google Play in early 2020. The Android listing has since passed 500,000 installs.
The service is still running today, and the app kept gaining features for a year after it shipped.
60+
Screens
Designed for each platform, in Arabic and English.
500K+
Installs
On Google Play alone, according to the store listing.
2
Platforms
iOS and Android, both carrying both languages.
WHAT I’D IMPROVE
What I would change
The missing-item choice offers call me or do not buy it. A substitute option would cover the ground between them.
A shopper who votes for their city hears nothing until Speedi arrives. Some sense of progress would hold them better.
WHAT I LEARNED
What it taught me
Showing work on a fixed rhythm turns client feedback into the next piece of scope rather than into rework.
Shoppers do not feel the same way about every item in a basket, so one blanket rule for substitutions would not have worked.
More work
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