Medical HCD eCommerce

With the Cannabis industry beginning to emerge with its legalization in Canada, many new initiatives arise as a result. Strainshoppe, as described by its stakeholder as the Travel Advisor for finding the right medical strain, managed to secure a $1 million LOI from a licensed grower who needed a platform to indirectly advertise. The first iteration, unfortunately, did not live up to the expectation. A start-up consisting of only developers, software engineers, and QA specialists, it was evident the platform was made without a designer and lacked clarity.

My Approach

When speaking to the stakeholders, the primary goal was to simply make it look nicer and enhance the current project. However, after looking over the project, branding was only part of the struggle. The overall experience needed to be revisited to bring clarity and interest in every step of the user journey. In regards to visual design, the approach was to tailor iconography and imagery for the medical user. Icons and images shy away from the typical plant and smoking stereotype (as this is intimidating for the medical user) and instead, we use symbolism and oils. 

In this HCD analysis, our goal is to understand the deeper motivations as to why. A common theme was the desire to be recognized an expert or to seek an expert. The affordance of a community platform helps bridge the gap between the medical cannabis user and the licensed grower.

The Result

Set to launch for the upcoming winter season in 2020, our stakeholder at Crisp Digital is very excited and has confirmed interest with another licensed grower. A significant improvement from its first iteration, this user-centered platform was built to scale for future growth. With its core functionality currently being ‘Product Sort’ and ‘Product Review,’ future iterations will provide users with more data and a “Matrix Architecture” experience – where the community and the rating system become more interactive.