Reimagining Spain's leading supermarket app to deliver a faster, more intuitive shopping experience that reduces friction and increases customer satisfaction.
Mercadona is Spain's largest supermarket chain, serving millions of customers daily. While their physical stores are beloved, their mobile app experience was falling behind user expectations, with confusing navigation, a cluttered interface, and a checkout process that led to high cart abandonment rates.
The goal was to redesign the mobile shopping experience to make it faster, clearer, and more delightful—without losing the brand identity that customers trust.
Through user interviews with 15 regular Mercadona shoppers and competitive analysis of leading grocery apps, I identified three core issues:
Users struggled to find specific products quickly. The search lacked filters, and results were often irrelevant or incomplete.
Category structures didn't match users' mental models. Many gave up and switched to competitor apps for weekly shopping.
The checkout flow had 7 steps with redundant information requests, leading to a 42% cart abandonment rate.
"I love shopping at Mercadona in person, but the app is so frustrating that I end up using other apps for online orders, even if I prefer Mercadona's products."
Based on these insights, I created two primary personas to guide the design process: Busy Parent Maria, who needs to complete weekly shopping quickly between tasks, and Tech-Savvy Miguel, who expects a modern, seamless digital experience comparable to other e-commerce apps.
Conducted card sorting sessions with 20 users to restructure product categories based on their mental models. Simplified the navigation from 8 top-level categories to 5 intuitive ones.
Designed an intelligent search with autocomplete, recent searches, and smart filters. Added quick-access to favorite products and previous orders for repeat purchases.
Reduced checkout from 7 steps to 3 by consolidating forms, adding one-click payment options, and implementing smart address suggestions.
Created a cohesive design system maintaining Mercadona's brand colors while introducing modern UI patterns, improved hierarchy, and better use of whitespace.
Conducted 3 rounds of usability testing with 25 participants, iterating on feedback to refine interactions, copy, and visual design.
While this was a conceptual redesign without access to production data, usability testing with the prototype showed significant improvements:
"This is exactly what the Mercadona app should be! I could actually see myself using this for my weekly shopping."
Card sorting revealed how differently users categorize groceries versus how businesses organize their inventory. Designing for the user's perspective, not internal logistics, was crucial.
The best improvements came from removing steps and simplifying flows, not adding new features. Sometimes less really is more.
Multiple testing rounds helped catch assumptions early. What seemed intuitive to me wasn't always clear to users—iteration was essential.
Users responded positively when the redesign felt modern yet familiar. Maintaining brand colors and core visual identity while modernizing patterns was the right balance.
If I were to continue this project, I would focus on: