Value-Centric Behaviour Change with Data Visualisation : Case study for visualising data on grocery consumption to bring about value-centric purchasing patterns for retail supermarket consumers

Abstract: Dietary choices are a leading global cause of mortality and environmental degradation that threaten the attainability of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement [1]. It thus becomes important to find ways to reduce its environmental impact and facilitate healthy consumption patterns. Humans use values as guiding standards, in making judgements [4] which in turn contribute to product choices in the grocery shopping process. The focus of this thesis is to help consumers of large retail supermarkets to make informed choices, aligned with their personal goals, to develop a value-centric purchasing habit with the ultimate aim of lowering the impact on the environment and the negative effects on the health of the consumers. By using the design thinking process along with the behaviour change wheel framework it was possible to empathize with and understand the target user group to identify design features for the mobile application suggested by this thesis. To achieve value centric purchasing habits, the most promising observation was to provide all the necessary information at the grocery planning phase. This would enable informed-choice-making, in line with the personal goals of the consumers while making grocery lists. It is assumed in this thesis that consumers purchase the same brand and product added to their shopping list. Along with the information on products, visualisations of the target shopping patterns against their actual shopping patterns are presented to the user. This would in turn help consumers make the right decision by providing an overview of how their product choices influence in reaching their target goals. Based on commonly used and easily understandable visualisation methods, a radar chart and line chart depicting their past purchase patterns and goals were evaluated against each other with usability tests. The visualisations and interactions were supplemented with clear legends to ensure that the consumers perceived what was intended. Use of animations on these visualisations was suggested to increase the understanding and effectiveness in the communication of its data. While both these methods had their own strengths and weaknesses the radar chart was better received and was thus suggested for use in the development of the application.