eMend - Online Grocery Shopping Experience Improvement

Online Grocery Shopping Experience Improvement
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Graduate Certificate in
Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Enterprise
Online Supermarket Shopping Experience
eMEND Project Team:
Ronan O'Donoghue, Maureen Hennessy, Thomas Pereira,
Karen DeMelio, Kevin Carey, Suzanne Moncelet

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Content
1.
INTRODUCTION
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5

2.
THE CHALLENGE
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6

2.1.
The Expected Outcome
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6

3.
RESEARCH
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7

3.1.
What is Gamification?
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7

3.2.
Crowdsourcing
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10

4.
PROBLEM
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13

4.1.
Use Case
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13

5.
OPPORTUNITY
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15

5.1.
Crowdsourcing
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15

5.2.
Interface
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15

5.3.
Customer Motivation
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16

6.
SCOPE/SCALE OF PROBLEM
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17

6.1.
Grocery sales are a huge global business
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18

6.2.
Data changes
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19

6.3.
Survey outcome (see appendix)
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19

7.
SOLUTION
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20

7.1.
eMEND dictionary
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20

7.2.
Solution Description
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21

7.3.
Advantages for the Retailer
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22

7.3.
Advantages to the Customer
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25

7.5.
Potential ideas used on the eMEND online shopper area
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25

7.6.
Potential Implementations
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26

8.
Research Process
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27

8.1.
Human Computation
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27

8.2.
Representing data using Universal Concepts
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28

8.3.
Result
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30

8.4.
Examples of how eBay rates sellers
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30

9.
SUMMARY
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32

10.
APPENDICES
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34

10.1.
Survey Monkey Questions
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34

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Table of figures
Figure 1: The three ‘F’s’ of gamification
Figure 2: Gabe Zichermann– Status, Access, Power, Stuff
Figure 3: Toby Beresford - gamification
Figure 4: The Capthcha Model
Figure 5: The Picatcha Model
Figure 6: Analysis of Customer Behaviour
Figure 7: Size of annual grocery market
Figure 8: Breakdown of Grocery Sales by country
Figure 9: Average annual spend per head per country
Figure 10: A retail survey by Datamonior Financial Services Consumer Insight (2011)
Figure 11: Overview of Process
Figure 12: eMEND web presence for the Retailer
Figure 13: Customer experience.
Figure 14: Customer experience with dropdown menu
Figure 15: The customer is brought to a new page
Figure 16: Chinamobile Barcode scanner
Figure 17: Brainstorming
Figure 18: Poster

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1. INTRODUCTION
The eMEND team partnered with ChannelSight, to help create a solution for one of their problematic
challenges. ChannelSight is a young Irish cloud based technology start-up focused on providing a global
solution of automated insights for brands and their channel partners for a range of business challenges, then
driving the resulting actions where required across their various digital channels. The company is looking for a
novel way to determine if two products are identical given two different data sources, and correct it if possible
using human computation, gamification and crowdsourcing.
The eMEND team was unable to address that specific challenge given the time constraints; however the
challenge inspired another viable idea. The team developed a novel solution to poor data integrity for the online
grocery industry by using crowd sourcing and gamification concepts, called eMEND.
Our solution benefits the retailer by forging a better relationship between customer and brand, as well as having
loyal customers cleanse their data. This is a very narrow application of the concepts. The eMEND team believes
this product can be expanded to include mobile devices, product reviews and marketing feedback for new
products, among others. This report will give a brief survey of the concepts and a conceptual view of the
proposed solution.

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2. THE CHALLENGE
The initial challenge provided by ChannelSight is as follows:
Leverage gaming mechanics to enable non-technical crowd sourced resources to easily and accurately map
products between manufacturers and their channel partners.
A difficulty has been identified with correct matching of thousands of products between manufacturers
catalogues and retailers catalogues several times per day that were not already mapped by a system and have
been referred to a human for manual mapping. The cost of fixing these errors either in-house or by the use of
Mechanical Turk is expensive and time consuming. Taking a wider view, loss of sales due to incomplete or
incorrect online data is significant and contributes poor user experience.
2.1. The Expected Outcome
The stated outcome in the initial document is to develop a system which leverages game mechanics and simple
visual game play to correctly syndicate out via crowd sourcing networks like Amazon Mechanical Turk product
matching tasks which have not already been automatically mapped by a system using manufactures part
number, bar code (EAN/UPC). However, in our initial meeting with one of the founders, a creative blue-sky
approach in the area of data quality was encouraged.

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3. RESEARCH
3.1. What is Gamification?
Gamification is the process of using game mechanics and game thinking in non-gaming businesses to engage
users and to solve problems.
According to Gabe Zichermann, a leader in the field, key concepts in gamification are the use of motivating
factors such as status, access, power and stuff
3.1.1. Why Gamification
The Entertainment Software Association (www.theesa.com/facts/gamer_data.php) has reported that more than
200 million hours are spent each day playing computer and video games in the U.S. Indeed, by age 21, the
average American has spent more than 10,000 hours playing such games —equivalent to five years of working a
full-time job 40 hours per week.
Figure
1:

The
three
‘F’s’
of

gamification

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Status
Access
Power
Stuff
Figure
2:
Gabe
Zichermann
–
Status,
Access,
Power,
Stuff

Least expensive Most Meaningful

“By 2014… more than 70% of Global 2000 organizations will have at least one gamified application,
driving 50% of all innovation” - Gartner
The use of gamification in the corporate world has grown significantly in recent years. Gamification guru, Gabe
Zichermann has established a billion euro business with Gamification at its core. Ford use it as part of their
employee motivation program, Deloitte use it as part of their Leadership Academy. It has universal application;
such diverse organizations as Wharton University Legal Department and the NFL have used it successfully. It is
also widely used to motivate operatives in call centres, sales people.
The use of points, badges and leaderboard schemes is how the user is motivated. Toby Beresford, is a digital
and social architect www.tobyberesford.com He has developed a model to represent the cyclical pattern of
development:
Figure
3:
Toby
Beresford
-‐
gamification

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Figure
4:
The
Captcha
Model

3.1.2. Games with a Purpose (GWAP)
A refinement of gamification theory can be seen in many of today’s online activities. Many tasks are trivial for
humans but continue to challenge even the most sophisticated computer programs. Traditional computational
approaches to solving such problems focus on improving artificial intelligence algorithms. A different approach
is advocated: the constructive channelling of human brainpower through computer games. Toward this goal, we
present general design principles for the development and evaluation of a class of games we call “games with a
purpose,” or GWAPs, in which people, as a side effect of playing, perform tasks computers are unable to
perform. A common example of this is CAPTCHA. Users who must enter a distorted phrase or word are
unknowingly helping to correct scanned books.
Figure
5:
The
Picatcha
Model

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3.2. Crowdsourcing
Wikipedia defines Crowdsourcing as a process that involves outsourcing tasks to a distributed group of people.
Jeff Howe first coined it in blog post to his June 2006 Wired magazine article:
"Simply defined, crowdsourcing represents the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed
by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open
call. This can take the form Crowdsourcing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia of peer-production (when the
job is performed collaboratively), but is also often undertaken by sole individuals. The crucial prerequisite is
the use of the open call format and the large network of potential labourers."
3.2.1. Types of Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing systems are used to accomplish a variety of tasks. For example, the crowd may be invited to
develop a new technology, carry out a design task (also known as community-based design or distributed
participatory design), refine or carry out the steps of an algorithm (see human-based computation), or help
capture, systematize, or analyse large amounts of data (see also citizen science). Some of these web-based
crowdsourcing efforts include crowdvoting, wisdom of the crowd, crowdfunding, microwork, creative
crowdsourcing and inducement prize contests.
3.2.2. Advantages
• Solutions are owned by the entity that broadcast the problem in the first place - the crowdsourcer.
• Crowdsourcing may produce solutions from amateurs or volunteers working in their spare time, or from
experts or small businesses which were unknown to the initiating organisation.
• Those who use crowdsourcing services, also known as crowdsourcer, are motivated by the benefits of
crowdsourcing, which are that they can gather large numbers of solutions or information and that it is
relatively inexpensive to obtain this work. Users are motivated to contribute to crowdsourcer tasks by
both intrinsic motivations, such as social contact and passing the time, and by extrinsic motivations,
such as financial gain.
• Anyone possessing basic literacy can find something to do on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. It is
crowdsourcing for the masses.
• The most efficient networks are those that link to the broadest range of information, knowledge and
experience – diversity of intellectual background.

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3.2.3. Disadvantages
• The contributor of the solution is, in some cases, compensated either monetarily, with prizes, or with
recognition. In other cases, the only rewards may be kudos or intellectual satisfaction.
• No way of knowing if the ‘crowd’ is qualified/intelligent etc.
3.2.4. Motivation
Many scholars of crowdsourcing suggest that there are both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations that cause people
to contribute to crowdsourced tasks, and that these factors influence different types of contributors. For
example, students and people employed full-time rate Human Capital Advancement as less important than part-
time workers do, while women rate Social Contact as more important than men do.
Intrinsic motivations are broken down into two categories, enjoyment-based and community-based motivations.
Enjoyment-based motivations refer to motivations related to the fun and enjoyment that the contributor
experiences through their participation. These motivations include: skill variety, task identity, task autonomy,
direct feedback from the job, and pastime. Community-based motivations refer to motivations related to
community participation, and include community identification and social contact.
Extrinsic motivations are broken down into three categories, immediate payoffs, delayed payoffs, and social
motivations. Immediate payoffs, through monetary payment, are the immediately received compensations given
to those who complete tasks. Delayed payoffs are benefits that can be used to generate future advantages, such
as training skills and being noticed by potential employers. Social motivations are the rewards of behaving pro-
socially, such as altruistic motivations. Chandler and Kapelner found that US users of the Amazon Mechanical
Turk were more likely to complete a task when told they were going to “help researchers identify tumour cells,”
than when they were not told the purpose of their task. However, of those who completed the task, quality of
output did not depend on the framing of the task.
Another form of social motivation is prestige or status. The International Children's Digital Library recruits
volunteers to translate and review books. Because all translators receive public acknowledgment for their
contribution, Kaufman and Schulz cite this as a reputation-based strategy to motivate individuals who want to
be associated with institutions that have prestige. The Amazon Mechanical Turk uses reputation as a motivator
in a different sense, as a form of quality control. Crowdworkers who frequently complete tasks in ways judged
to be inadequate can be denied access to future tasks, providing motivation to produce high-quality work.
It may sound easy to trust people’s desire to help, but it can only work if participants actually think the problem
being solved is interesting and important.

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3.2.5. Concerns
Targeted, malicious work efforts. Since crowdworkers completing microtasks are paid per task, there is often a
financial incentive to complete tasks quickly rather than well. Verifying responses is time consuming, and so
requesters often depend on having multiple workers complete the same task to correct errors. However, having
each task completed multiple times increases time and monetary costs.
Crowdworkers are a non-random sample of the population. Many researchers use crowdsourcing in order to
quickly and cheaply conduct studies with larger sample sizes than would be otherwise achievable. However, due
to low worker pay, participant pools are skewed towards poor users in developing countries.
There is an increased likelihood that a crowdsourced project will fail due to lack of monetary motivation or too
few participants. Crowdsourcing markets are not a first-in-first-out queue. Tasks that are not completed quickly
may be forgotten, buried by filters and search procedures so that workers do not see them. This results in a long
tail power law distribution of completion times. Additionally, low-paying research studies online have higher
rates of attrition, with participants not completing the study once started. Even when tasks are completed,
crowdsourcing doesn't always produce quality results. When Facebook began its localization program in 2008,
it encountered criticism for the low quality of its crowdsourced translations.
One of the problems of crowdsourcing products is the lack of interaction between the crowd and the client.
Usually there is little information about the final desired product and there is often very limited interaction with
the final client. This can decrease the quality of product, as client interaction is a vital part of the design process.
It is usually expected from a crowdsourced project to be unbiased by incorporating a large population of
participants with a diverse background. However, most of the crowdsourcing works are done by people who are
paid or directly benefit from the outcome (e.g. most of open source projects working on Linux).
The research phase provided us with an understanding of how the concepts of gamification and crowdsourcing
have been enabled by technology. This helped distil our ideas of potential problems in data quality can be
tacked using these approaches.

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4. PROBLEM
Our initial challenge was wide to enable us to use our creativity, but too wide to execute in the short project
window. We have narrowed it down to an interesting real-world problem that relates to the challenge of data
matching that several of us have experienced first hand. A negative online grocery shopping experience creates
friction which can result in an ‘abandoned cart’ with the impact of lost sales and potential of lost customer.
4.1. Scenario
Problem: Online supermarket shopping can be frustrating when products are missing or data is
incorrect/incomplete.
Sally decided to shop online at her favoured store
for the first time when she received a voucher for
free delivery. She hoped this would save her time
and hassle. After getting through the registration
process, she began to shop for her favourite items.
She found her favourite cereal, eggs and bread.
When she did a search for coarse wheat flour, she
found that only some of the products that are
offered in the store were displayed. Her favoured
brand/type was missing!
Sally was annoyed. She had spent valuable time
setting up her account and filling her basket and now she would have to visit the store anyway. “Why have an
online store if it doesn't have the items I know I want? What about products that I don't often buy? How will I
know if other items such as price are incorrect? I could always send them an email or ring them, but why should
I do their work for them when they don't seem to care about quality.”
When products that the shopper knows are on the shelves don't show up online, the shopper loses trust with the
online shopping experience. She asks, what else am I missing? This experience is replicated with poor product
search results, incomplete and incorrect product information.
The grocery industry is heavily dependent upon customer loyalty. A poor customer experience on line can
adversely affect a customer's impression of the overall store brand. More importantly, the online sales channel is
growing and presents an opportunity for the store brand to increase (or at least hold on to) market share.
According to the current BoA/Merrill Lynch industry report, online sales are rising and becoming a key driver
of customer loyalty.

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Executives agree that the online customer base will
widen with the Internet-savvy generation.
Younger generations are the first to adopt new
technologies, but it is the Boomer’s (50+) adoption that
is driving the real growth of technology.
Boomer’s have always embraced science and
technology and are using today's internet-linked
products to enrich their lives by staying connected,
socialising, shopping and entertaining themselves.
While they are slower to adopt the new technologies,
once they are mainstream, Boomers buy in. (Nielsen
wire, August 2012)
Figure
5:

Analysis
of
Customer
Behaviour

Online Shoppers
Busy young professionals who value the opportunity to save time and mothers seeking to avoid busy
supermarkets are the main target group in online groceries. As one mother puts it, "Online grocery shopping is
convenient and it saves time. I do not need to carry heavy bags, I can avoid long lines and spend more time with
the kids."
The elderly, disabled or those who find getting out of the house to be a hardship. One of the most time-
consuming tasks associated with caring for elderly parents is doing their shopping. “Some elderly and disabled
people can fare well by themselves in their homes but don't drive or can't maneuver well enough. Online
shopping allows them to maintain an independent lifestyle."
Many online delivery companies have found that improvements that make it easier for the disabled to use their
sites can also appeal to nondisabled customers, for example, voice recognition software.

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5. OPPORTUNITY
And although just 1% of global consumers surveyed already buy their groceries online, 42% said they would do
so if they could be assured of a high level of security and a high quality of food.
Approach:
How are we going to do this? The question we asked ourselves is how can we leverage existing resources with
an innovative approach to resolve these issues? With an exiting loyalty scheme most on-line supermarkets have
a readily accessible target audience, which could be used with the correct motivators to participate in cleaning
the data.
5.1. Crowdsourcing
Our audience (crowd) are grocery shoppers, individuals who are likely to experience product category errors
when engaged with e-commerce. This increases customer friction and abandoned shopping carts. The benefit is
that such users already exist; therefore cutting sourcing costs for the supermarket companies, as they do not
need to go find willing candidates.
5.2. Interface
Gamification allows the shoppers to interact with the company’s online grocery ordering system. Interfaces
mainly provide two elements:
• Input - shoppers can add data to provide more information to the system regarding the product
categorisation.
• Output - after the customer has given some input, the system will analyse it and then provide some
output (updates).
Based on this information, it is suggested that a gamification system be hosted on the supermarket’s online
shopping portal. This will allow shoppers to repair data mismatching by clicking on the “eMEND” button when
they are searching for products. When ‘eMEND’ is clicked on, it will bring them to a new screen where they can
input suggestions for that particular product category.
The categories assigned to each product are treated as ‘tags’ by the site's search engine, therefore the next time
that product is searched, the tag words given by the shoppers will be assigned to that product and facilitate
future searches for its description/category. Such a product mapping process will ensure online shoppers product

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interactions are more accurate and less time consuming, helping to improve the company’s revenue. Essentially,
we are improving the relevancy of product search results.
Figure
6:
Search
for
porridge
5.3. Customer Motivation
An incentive program will be used to encourage shoppers to complete the above process. Every task completed
and verified by the system will compensate them by giving them rewards which they value, as mentioned in the
gamification chapter this does not always have to be in the form of monetary reward or even rewards which are
tangible.
This will be dealt with further when we outline the solution in chapter 7.

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6. SCOPE/SCALE OF PROBLEM
Grocery e-commerce is the fastest growing area of the retail industry, averaging annual global growth of 27%
per annum for the past ten years, and expected to grow by 17% per annum for the next 5 years, according to
Merrill Lynch.
However, this strong trend masks the fact that to date online sales remain a small fraction of the overall grocery
business. The countries with the highest proportion of Internet sales are UK, Japan, USA, and France. Even in
the highest of these, the UK, the online market accounts for just 4% of the grocery trade. There remains huge
potential for growth in this areas, as well as loyalty switching.
General online retail sales have risen to 8% of all sales in the UK, suggesting some particular issues and
challenges for grocery retailers.
Retailers believe that online sales can be a driver of loyalty. Sainsbury’s claim that when an existing customer
shops online as well as in-store, total sales to that customer double on average.
Figure
7:
Size
of
annual
grocery
market

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6.1. Grocery Sales are a Huge Global Business
Country Total Annual Sales Average Annual per Capita
(€ Billion) (€ Billion)
UK 195 21,000
USA 2680 27,900
China 1788 1,690
Brazil 570 5,070
Russia 482 4,990
Germany 420 18,740
France 397 18,750
Italy 376 16,000
Spain 205 14,000
Poland 126 6,340
Netherlands 80 16,800
Belgium 60 18,100
Figure
8:
Breakdown
of
Grocery
Sales
by
Country

Any development, which increases the proportion of online sales, is likely to be very beneficial for retailers. In
the UK, Waitrose has seen its online business grow by almost 30% per annum in recent years.
Figure
9:
Average
annual
spend
per
head
per
country

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Figure
10:
A
retail
survey
by
Datamonior
Financial
Services
Consumer
Insight
(2011)
listed
the
following
reasons
given

by
customers
for
never
shopping
online:

Prefer to get goods the same day 34%
Prefer to browse in-store 31%
Concerned about fraud 31%
Don't like the idea 18%
Not always available for delivery 17%
Concerned about security of mail 17%
No online payment tools 8%
6.2. Data Changes
A typical supermarket will carry between 15,000 and 60,000 items or SKUs (stock keeping units).
Bearing in mind price changes, product specification changes, new packaging, special offers etc., the scope for
data errors on the supermarket website is enormous. Data errors and omissions frustrate the customer and are
likely to reduce the level of sales and return business.
By enrolling the shopper in the process of fixing incorrect data and missing items, the supermarket gains both
with increased potential sales and a more empowered and loyal customer base.
6.3. Survey Outcome (see appendix)
From our small poll of friends and colleagues we discovered the following:
• Roughly half of those polled shop online for groceries and 30% do so at least once per month.
• The total spent online on groceries is not high. 75% of respondents spend less than 25% of their total
grocery bill online.
• They are generally content about the experience, with over 71% rating it as good or better.
• However, 51% have found errors on theses websites, with 64% reporting an error at least once in every
three visits.
• An impressive 74% would be willing to participate in cleaning up the data, for some reward. Vouchers
would be preferred by 68% of those polled.

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7. SOLUTION
The team following exhaustive brainstorming narrowed down the potential options to a workable application
that sits in the online grocery store. An overview of the process can be seen below.
Figure
11:
Overview
of
Process

7.1. We developed eMEND – (the working title of the solution we have formulated)
eMEND means by dictionary definition
1. to edit or change (a text). 2. to free from faults or errors; correct.
Related forms e·mend·a·ble, adjective non·e·mend·a·ble, adjective un·e·mend·a·ble, adjective un·e·mend·ed,
adjective

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7.2. Solution Description
The online shoppers are the crowd source. They identify problems with the data on the supermarket's website.
Ø There may be wrong data, missing data, incorrect categorisation, no photograph, etc.
Ø The shopper clicks on a button on the site which offers a drop down menu of error types.
Ø Choosing the error type brings her to a separate page, which allows corrections to be suggested.
Ø If this error is identified by three or more shoppers, the data is corrected (automatically or manually)
and returned to the retailer for correction on their website.
The method of encouraging and rewarding the shopper is based on gamification. They will receive bonus points
for every correction accepted, and all who propose changes will be recognised. Every correction accepted will
accumulate and after a certain number, the shopper will be upgraded to a higher level of corrector. Increasing
levels of status will reward participants with ever increasing benefits. The highest status can then be achieved
called Priority Club. Once at this level, the shopper can be asked to take part in product reviews and
suggestions. The participant may be offered express delivery of the shopping basket and to nominate a local
club or charity to be included in a draw for funds or sponsorship. Priority Club members would receive a
shopping bag which is available only to this group.
A monthly leader board of data correctors could be posted by the supermarket to encourage the participation of
shoppers. Additionally, we would make use of social media tools to encourage community.
Example of how Gamefication is applied is as follows:
1 Bonus points as an initial hook
2 Ranking - badges, shopping cart colours, level up indicator
3 Double points on peak changeover times
4 Priority club - product reviews, suggestions, express delivery, nominate favourite club/ charity for raffle prize,
partner rewards, nice shopping bag only available to Level 1s, trolley coin for all contributors.

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Figure
12:
eMEND
web
presence
for
the
Retailer

7.3. Advantages for the Retailer
• Crowdsourced Gamification
• Security and Data Compilation
• Data Cleansing - mistakes kill confidence for the end user, the more accurate the content the more
confidence end users will have in making a purchase
• Tapping into the potential of the Online Market
• Improved Customer Loyalty and Confidence
• Utilising clubcard and loyal members to maximise
• Improving Customer Profiling and Preferences
• Increased Sales

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Figure
13:
When
the
reward
card
member
searches
for
an
item
within
the
online
shopping
website,
the
option
to
make

eMENDments
is
offered
along
with
the
advantages
to
the
contributor.

Figure
14:
Areas
of
common
product
eMENDments
are
available
in
a
dropdown
menu

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Ø Once an area of eMENDment is selected –Product Unavailable Online – a new page is opened which
allows the customer to input data within the searched category – Sauce – and gives the customer the
opportunity to input the name of the product and weight or size of the product.
Ø If the customer has bought the product in the bricks and mortar store on a prior occasion it is highly
likely that they will have access to packaging of the product or know the weight/size particularly if
they buy the product on a regular basis.
Ø The screen also shows the Customer’s previous suggestions and awarded points and status.
Ø The Opt Out option is for interaction with social media such as Facebook or Twitter updates –
however by connecting with these social media they become part of a larger network of recognised
contributors and added status and benefits and promotions which may be offered by retailers.
Ø Potential of shopping though an iPhone/iPad/Android app for added convenience.
Ø Option of donating points to a local charity - a small act of altruism, which benefits the local
community. The charity can be nominated or suggested by Priority Club members through some
of the Social Media sites.
Figure
15:
The
customer
is
brought
to
a
new
page

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7.4. Advantages to the Online Grocery Customer
• Ease of payment
• Time saving - contributing products that they would purchase on a regular basis
• Social interaction with the supermarket increases trust
• Sense of empowerment
• Advantages such as free shipping or part of a priority club
• Security of being within the supermarket site
• Acknowledgement of success and contribution
• Option to return to regular online shopping easily – My Trolley or My Account
7.5. Potential Ideas for the eMEND Online Shopper Area
• Personalised recognition of customer - Hello Alice
• Star rating – non-financial reward and indicates status
• Sense of empowerment and contribution – ‘which you feel should be featured’
• Option of social media feedback and/or interaction
• Security of being within the supermarket website
• Option to contribute to the local community simply

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7.6. Potential Implementations
Initially our solution is focused on across the many categories within the online grocery purchase experience,
however in the future it could be applied to many other categories including but not limited to consumer
electronics, domestic appliances, office supplies, power tools, fashion, luxury, travel etc.
Once the page hooks have been installed and in place within the online retailers pages opportunities could
include aggregating this information, then presenting that back to the suppliers/manufacturers as either a
channel management, merchandising or competitive monitoring opportunity.
Once this opportunity has achieved scale then there would be the further opportunity to partner with entities
such as GFK, Nielsen, Gartner and Forrester Research. Data could be compiled in order to package and resell
tailored industry insight reports broken down by retailer, supplier, manufacturer, country, location, item, etc.
and demonstrate the consumer interactions with that item which may drive future product insights/changes.
Figure
16:
Chinamobile
Barcode
scanner

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8. Research Process
The team took a blue-sky approach to the challenge of matching data describing two items using human
computation, given the remit of a creative solution. We split the task into two parts.
1) Understanding the concepts around human computation and
2) Brainstorming innovative ways of representing data using universal concepts.
8.1. Human Computation
Von Ahn, a pioneer in the field, defines human computation as the idea of using human effort to perform tasks
that computers cannot yet perform, usually in an enjoyable manner.
An early representation of this concept is the Mechanical Turk: a crowdsourcing Internet marketplace that
enables computer programmers (known as Requesters) to co-ordinate the use of human intelligence to perform
tasks that computers are currently unable to do.
Ø en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Mechanical_Turk
Ø https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome
Crowd sourcing is a term coined by Jeff Howe in 2006. It differs from human computing in that it utilises the
public to complete the task, not paid workers. Howe defines crowd-sourcing as the act of taking a job
traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined,
generally large group of people in the form of an open call. When set up correctly, this can form beneficial
relationships between individuals, groups and beneficiary. The team felt strongly that this was a tool that we'd
like to use in in our project.
It is important to note that the game FACTory, which uses humans to confirm or correct facts inferred by a
computer by analysing text, may be a model to resolve a part of the challenge faced by ChannelSight.
A key related concept is gamification. Using the concepts of gamification to motivate or interest the act of
human computing is an emerging trend. Examples of this method are found below:
• Foldit
• Captcha
• Tag a Tune
• Squgl
• Flip it
• Links

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Further information can be found in an excellent survey article is available: Human Computation: A Survey
and Taxonomy of a Growing Field, A. Quinn, B. Bederson, 2011.
8.2. Representing Data using Universal Concepts
We started with the assumption that the concepts should be understandable to the widest range of individuals
worldwide regardless of education, language, etc. Therefore, we steered away from language and cultural
concepts and focused instead on images, music and other universally understood concepts. Several rounds of
brainstorming yielded interesting results. We weren't able to incorporate the universal concept ideas into our
solution, but we feel that there is some value for those interested in representing data that can be experienced
using human senses.
Visual cues:
1. Translate data to well known objects that are immediately recognisable (fruit, animals, sun, moon stars, etc.)
2. Use attributes of objects (size, shape, color, location, abilities) to depict a mismatch. (E.g., a picture of a
blue banana can be recognised universally as incorrect)
3. Compare two photos of a location that are taken from different perspectives. Humans will be able to
recognise the Eiffel Tower immediately, whereas a computer cannot.
4. Use visual patterns (optical illusions, Escher type prints) to represent differences or incongruities.
5. Use of other senses (touch, hearing) to enable those with sight difficulties play (e.g., compare two series of
notes or two chords to determine if they are the same, differ by an octave, etc.)
Methods of Comparison
1. Related (key and lock)
2. Equal (apple is same as apple)
3. Similar groupings (bird and cat are in animal group)
4. Sequences (clock progression, horse before cart)
5. Environment consistency (pig flying)
The output of the matching and identification exercises above are helpful to tag images with key words or
values, but we couldn't see how this would help data that wasn't already in visual or audio form.

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Figure
17:
Brainstorming

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8.3. Result
When confronted with the need to narrow our focus to a minimum viable product, we concluded that the result
would need to manage quality, timeliness and ensure efficient use of workers’ time, and positive working
relationships. The team brainstormed again to come up with a way to resolve data failures using crowd sourcing
in the academic, humanitarian or commercial areas.
We chose the online grocery idea because it resonated with members of the team. More important, we all
believe the idea can successfully be put into practice.
8.4. Examples of how EBay Rates Sellers

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Figure
18:
Poster

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9. SUMMARY
A young start-up company named ChannelSight asked us to help them with a specific problem. They were
looking for us help them correct or cleanse incorrect data using gamification and crowdsourcing.
Our team picked a particular area where incorrect or missing data is a common problem. We decided to focus on
online grocery shopping. Online grocery shopping can be a frustrating experience for a lot of people. Our aim
was to make this process more enjoyable, accurate and allow our crowd-source to correct missing or incorrect
data.
We developed eMEND to encourage and empower the customer to improve the data quality of the retailers site.
The outcome is positive for both the shopper and the supermarket, as the frustrations are reduced, the data is
improved, and sales are increased. This system has potential for further applications in online retailing and
beyond.

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10. APPENDICES
10.1. Survey Monkey Questions
1) Do you shop online?
2) How often?
3) Average monthly grocery bill? How much of this online?
4) How would you rate the experience (0-5)?
5) Do you ever find that items are missing / wrong category (online)
6) Does this happen one a month/ week etc.
7) What is your level of satisfaction /dissatisfaction
8) Does this discourage you from online shopping?
9) If offered an opportunity to correct data would you partake?
10) What reward would you find most valuable?
Club points / Status / Priority delivery / Vouchers / User picks product

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eMend - Online Grocery Shopping Experience Improvement

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