Experience compelling map: an auxiliary tool for user experience design in physical retail

The growth of online shopping is a recognized phenomenon and its strength has become even more evident during the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite the ease and speed of digital retail, one cannot lose sight of the physical store, responsible for ensuring the vitality of urban centers and promoting a more humane shopping experience. Current market and consumer movements call for a “Phygital” reality, an expression designed to represent the intersection of physical (offline) and digital (online) commercial environments.Design is about people. According to Lowdermilk (2018), you cannot create products for users without going to them. User-Centered Design (UCD) emerged from Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and essentially consists of a design methodology based on people's true needs and interests, developing products and services that are easy to understand and use. Deep knowledge of the public is the reason for the success of brands commonly associated with good commercial performance, after all, everything is created with the intention to be bought and thus become part of people's daily lives.An intrinsic relationship is found between Cognitive Ergonomics and User-Centered Design. Cognitive Ergonomics comes from Cognitive Psychology and its studies are linked to memory, concentration, attention, reasoning and decision-making processes. User Experience (UX), one of the focuses derived from User-Centered Design, addresses the entire experience that the user has with a product or service, including physical and emotional reactions (LOWDERMILK, 2018).Cognitive and behavioral methods, such as the focus group, have their original foundation in the disciplines of psychology and are strong allies of User-Centered Design and UX. These user assessment methods or techniques provide information about individuals' perceptions, cognitive processes and potential responses. The information obtained is perceived through sensory systems, which influence the way the user interacts with the task, his decision making and also satisfaction. Through these methods, users are placed at the center of the entire process of designing experiences (WICKENS, 1992).For Stanton (2006), no single method can, by itself, collect all the information necessary to conduct an effective research and, therefore, to achieve factual results, it is advisable to use a combination of methods. In the case of research involving retail, such methods can be personalized and related to the brand, its target audience and commercialized products. To facilitate users' understanding and ensure greater participation during a focus group session, for instance, a design thinking tool can be incorporated: the Experience Compelling Map. In this tool, accessed by Tonin during a “Design Thinking for Better Business” workshop held at The New School-PARSONS in 2018 and conducted by Melissa Rancourt, volunteers are invited to share insights from a structured exercise that sequentially maps the experience into five moments: 1-attraction, 2-entry, 3-engagement, 4-exit, 5-extension.In order to illustrate the benefits of using the tool as a support to the user experience design process in physical stores, the present study presents an experiment in which the Experience Compelling Map is used during focus group sessions involving 25 volunteers equally divided between the 5 different generations they belong: Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y and Generation Z. Based on the results obtained through the experiment, it is possible to propose guidelines to improve the consumer experience in physical retail. The guidelines presented are divided into 14 categories and are a synthesis of the insights collected from users, showing that the tool can not only be a great ally when applying cognitive-behavioral methods, but is also capable of significantly contribute to user experience design.