With super-sized grocery stores supplying shoppers with everything from a dozen eggs to a gallon of gas, how is a shopper supposed to quickly find something simple like a jar of peanut butter? If British designer Murray Laidlaw has any say in the matter, soon the shopper can just ask the grocery cart.
Laidlaw, whose goal is to make grocery shopping faster and easier, is designing grocery carts with a global positioning system (GPS) to guide lost shoppers through a mega-grocery store’s shelves. The shopper will input the name of the item he or she is looking for into the small computer screen attached to the cart handle and the cart will guide the shopper to the product’s in-store location.
“This device will make shopping trips less confusing and time-consuming,” said Laidlaw in an interview in the Daily Mail. For his effort on the project, Laidlaw received a 30,000 pound grant from the British government. Laidlaw hopes to have a prototype of the shopping cart ready sometime this year.
Ergoweb CEO Dr. Peter Budnick comments, “Time will tell whether Mr. Laidlaw’s idea is commercially viable, but making tasks faster and easier are prime goals in ergonomics. I’m probably not a good candidate for his technology, but if there are enough