Namma Bazaar Header

Concept Note

Commercial Street is one of the oldest and busiest shopping areas of Bangalore. It is filled with branded stores that might be the center of attraction, but in fact overshadows the old established services and businesses in the hidden streets of Ibrahim Saheb, Veera Pillai, and others parallel to it. These streets are shoppers' heaven filled with a range of shops from textiles, accessories, wedding goods, etc to small businesses that sell big brand rejects, handicrafts, antiques, and locally made items, as well as services such as tailoring, printing and dyeing. However, most of these are overlooked as they are not easily discoverable online. To visitors new to the area, it can seem like a maze and it is easy to get swept up in the chaos and madness of the streets.

 

Namma Bazaar aims at bringing to light the range of businesses that these hidden streets have to offer. This service will assist the customers to navigate through these bustling streets and help them find what they are searching for. While navigating, customers are encouraged to roam and explore the area more intuitively rather than single mindedly being guided to one store. This design intervention accounts for installing Inclusive and accessible signages at every junctions with the provision of an app to help navigate the market and engage with vendors closely.

Primary Research

During a week long visit of the site, the team interviewed vendors and visitors alike, visiting many kinds of stores and observing how wares are made as well as the interaction and body language of each stakeholder while in conversation. A list of findings and pain points was curated to identify areas of intervention.

Research Image

Top Findings and Pain points from Customers

No destination in mind, customers just go into stores that catches their eye

Smaller shops are discovered through word of mouth

Prefer to shop here for the cheaper rates & bargaining

Reluctant to use the help of digital tools to navigate around the streets

Not having a proper landmark/signage to navigate around

Lack of parking space

They usually can't find the shops they want to revisit or to suggest to someone

Problem in figuring out where is the exit and navigating through streets

Not sure where to look for a certain product ( jewelry, clothing, footwear, etc.)

Top Findings from Vendors

Very few street vendors wish for a permanent store

Post pandemic sales has not been doing well as online shopping gains popularity

Customers don't enter the shops very often opting to window shop instead

Thelas keep moving and New shops immerging

the thelas and the temporary stalls are not allowed in the main commercial street

They make full use of the street and wall space for signs and advertising

How Might We?

Help customers find where they are and easily navigate the streets and shops

Not compromise the 'exploring' culture / experience of the market area

Bring more exposure to the market's culture and history

In order to solve these problems, a thorough mapping process was carried out all over commercial street and its adjacent areas. We made clusters and categories for different products and color coded them to help them navigate to the whole market easily without compromising on the exploring culture of the of the locality

Objectives

  • Analog Maps for junctions
  • Emphasizes on road names
  • QR for Digital Map
  • Digital Map
    • Filters
    • Must Visits
    • Bookmark
    • History
    • Moving Carts
Frame 1 Frame 2

Shop Survey Result

Heat maps created based on categories of shops found around the area, which are used in the signboards and navigation application.

Base Map

Analogous Solution - Junction Signboards

The Namma Bazaar initiative will assist the customers to navigate through the bustling streets and help them find what they are searching for. Customers are encouraged to roam around and explore more of the market rather than guiding them to one store. The major landmarks are recorded and use to help create directions that are easily navigable

Since many stores and vendors are not permanent fixtures, their general areas of interest was recorded as clusters and analyzed to find hotspot. The trends were then mapped as hot spots and made available through the signages. The signs are also linked to the accompanying application allowing customers to navigate further.

Namma Bazaar provides an inclusive and accessible map through overhead and streetside signages at the junctions of the roads as well as a digital app with navigation and more features.

Sign Breakdowns
Jewellers Street Signboard Jumma Masjid Overhead Lakshman Mudaliar St Narayan Pillai Signboard Lubbay Masjid Preview

Digital Solution - Namma Bazaar App

The Namma Bazaar app is designed to be an on-ground tool that helps users navigate the shopping areas with ease as well as find information for what they are looking for. It can recommend hot spots and help navigate to essential areas at any given time while keeping the market exploration spirit alive. It also allows users to save a pin for a shop that may not be easily found online so they can return back to the same area next time. This would be handy for users who do bulk shopping for events, families and look for good for cheap on a regular basis.

This application has gone through a few iteration and live user testing at commercial street helping us consolidate all our ideas, finalize our user interface and features.

We went back to commercial street to test the prototypes with users to gather data on how they interacted with the prototype, observed their body language and response time to each new screen.

App Cluster
App Screen 1 App Screen 2 App Screen 3 App Screen 4

Key Learnings

The task we asked each user to complete was find festive wear shops and begin the navigation, noting behavioral patterns and thoughts the users had while navigating the prototype. The key learnings were as follows:

Users could easily began navigation, however, complained about the complexity of the heatmaps

Search and navigation affordances felt unclear, since conventional learning wasn't naturally applied to the layout

Discovery worked well but gaps were found in the decision making from lack of clear signals such as reviews and ratings

Final Showcase

The Namma Bazaar app is designed to be an on-ground tool that helps users navigate the shopping areas with ease as well as find information for what they are looking for. It can recommend hot spots and help navigate to essential areas at any given time while keeping the market exploration spirit alive. It also allows users to save a pin for a shop that may not be easily found online so they can return back to the same area next time. This would be handy for users who do bulk shopping for events, families and look for good for cheap on a regular basis.

This application has gone through a few iteration and live user testing at commercial street helping us consolidate all our ideas, finalize our user interface and features.

App Breakdown

Reflective Note

This project was a part of a studio class in collaboration with the Bangalore Hubba Fest going on at the time. I was a part seven students team working on this project in a span of 10 days. It was a highly collaborative process where my responsibilities includes leading the shop surveys with vendors, mapping the streets for heatmaps, researching and creating the signages as well as conducting the user acceptance testing on the field and interviewing users. The short timespan meant we had to disseminate responsibilities as well as ensure the work was cohesive. The on field explorations taught me was a great experience to observe customers walking around the space and interacting with them as well as learning the day-to-day lives of shopkeeper, suppliers and street vendors on how they run their business.

Final Presentation