Government
Making Shopping Easier for WIC Participants
The Problem
About 8 million people buy healthy food for their families each month through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children. But the shopping experience can be confusing and intimidating due to strict rules about which brands and sizes families can buy, inconsistent store labeling of WIC-approved items, and the risk of picking up the wrong item and facing embarrassment at checkout. Families also forget to use benefits before they expire because they're unsure what's left in their balance. These frustrations cause people to stop using WIC, even when they need support. California's WIC app needed improvements to address these challenges.
Our Solution
We enhanced the California WIC app to make shopping simpler by:
reorganizing the food balance to highlight remaining benefits
adding expiration reminders
improving the barcode scanner to suggest alternatives when items aren't eligible
creating a shopping list for planning ahead, and
adding recipes to inspire new meal ideas.
The Results
Through user testing with 19 WIC families across three California counties, we validated that these improvements addressed real pain points. Families told us the redesigned features–particularly the enhanced scanner that offers alternatives instead of just error messages–made the app feel more helpful and less judgmental.
The reorganized food balance made it immediately clear what benefits were still available, eliminating the need to mentally calculate or keep receipts.
Families called the reminder notifications "actually useful" because they included specific details about which foods would expire.
The shopping list feature resonated strongly: families said planning ahead would reduce the stress of making decisions while managing kids and groceries.
During user testing, families also expressed a desire to learn new ways to use WIC foods, leading us to create a recipe finder to help them discover meal ideas and potentially use more of their benefits.
