Shops Upon
Stratford
PROBLEM
Mothers are finding it difficult to shop at multiple locations, especially while taking care of their children during shopping.
SOLUTION
The Shops Upon Stratford is a one-stop shop solution for Stratfordians and visitors to find all their shopping needs, from purchasing daily necessities to browsing for the trendiest products. As the gateway to Stratford, Ontario, the mall is built over Ontario Street, providing an immersive experience as people drive through the area.
ROLES
Prototyping
Sketched and designed the mall and its floor plans first using pencil & paper, then with Illustrator, and finally with Google Sketchup, prior to building a physical model of the mall
User Testing
Upon every lo-fi and med-fi sketch, the concept was collaboratively pitched to peers for feedback on the experience that would be integrated into the overall concept
Video Editing
Compiled the Kickstarter video using Adobe Premiere for the Shops Upon Stratford concept to be presented at the end of the assignment period
ROLES
CONTEXT
The project took a deep dive into the area around the intersection of Ontario Street and C. H. Meier Boulevard in Stratford, a shopping district in the city. To note, both the Stratford Festival Marketplace (a local mall with 39 stores) and the city's Wal-Mart are within this area.
In looking at women's shopping trips for their families, the team identified an issue around the process of travelling between stores. In going between Wal-Mart and the mall, it took at least lengthy 6-minute walk to get to the other. This warranted the need to drive between the two locations, posing a problem especially to mothers who had to also tend to their children as they went shopping for them.
PERSONA
Kate is a loving mother of two children.
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Likes to go shopping for herself
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But after having her two children, she started to revolve her life around their needs
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Focus on prioritizing her life in order to fulfill her daily tasks efficiently
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As one of her children is still a baby, she has to constantly put her into the carseat every time she needs to travel to another store by car
SOLUTION: SHOPS UPON STRATFORD
With a focus to help mothers with their shopping, the idea of a centralized mall came about from the simple idea of building bridges to connect all of the stores in the area. As seen from the maps above, the stores are quite scattered, and we originally had the idea of designing a wholistic shopping experience by connecting all the stores into one giant shopping district. With further iterations, we decided to take all of the stores in the area and combine them into one single structure instead.
The shopping centre transformed into the Shops Upon Stratford when we realized the area was one that many visitors passed by when entering the city of Stratford. This gave us the idea to design the mall like a gate, as the area stood as a gateway to the city. The name of the mall was not only a play on the city's original name, Stratford-Upon-Avon, but it was also used to exemplify the mall's uniqueness in being located in Stratford. The plan was to bring a mix of commercial and local Stratford stores to the mall to cross promote the Stratfordian culture while appealing to both local and mainstream audiences.
A Kickstarter-style video was made to promote the design of Shops Upon Stratford.
However, the problem with distance was not resolved as people still needed to travel a fair distance to the four corners. To solve this issue, we then congregated the stores into a centralized mall (2) placed on top of Ontario Street, but found it too unnatural for the setting. Hence, it evolved into the third concept (3), a mall that surrounds Ontario Street, representing a gateway to the city, which was then made to a Med-Fi sketch (4).
In the sketch, the Arena was removed as it did not particularly pertain to the needs of the persona. A greater focus was placed on defining what it meant for the mall to be the gateway to Stratford.
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2
3
4
LO-FI + MED-FI VERSIONS
As mentioned above, the initial concept (1) was to connect the existing areas and create a centralized shopping district, rearranging some of the stores to create four quadrants with distinct themes, such as food (Food Basics, the food court) and utility (Canadian Tire, Dollarama, World Gym).
HI-FI VERSION
A physical model version of the mall was built using cardboard, styrofoam boards and plastic to have a better understanding of the structure. Each floor was made proportionately to each other to allow stacking so that the entire building could be seen.
The mall now had three floors, and each floor's plan was laid out clearly, with stores selected both from a commercial standpoint and from the local variety in Stratford based on user ratings online. The first floor was styled more traditionally to fit the old-fashioned rustic style of architecture in Stratford's downtown. The second floor was more modern in style, carrying several mainstream brands. A tramway surrounded this floor to allow for quick and easy travelling. The third floor was intended to be a gathering space and for visitors to see the Stratford landscape.
FEEDBACK FOR FUTURE ITERATIONS
Tests on each of our concept ideas were regularly made with our peers, and the most common feedback we received was the questioning of the need for a mall in today's landscape. Our research on malls from outside of Stratford suggested that mall goers were not simply shoppers hunting for a bargain or buying necessities. Mall goers also looked for an experience when entering the mall. This concept was what drove the concept of making Shops Upon Stratford a gateway to the city; a taster of the Stratford culture. We wanted to provide a form of entertainment in the mall that would also attract other audiences to visit the mall. This also benefitted our persona Kate, as we added features like a children's daycare, which would make Kate's shopping trips much easier to conduct.