HomeCart

Inspiration

This project was inspired by our shared experience as immigrants. When you first arrive in the U.S., one of the first things you have to do is not necessarily opening a bank account or getting official documents. It is going grocery shopping.

For many immigrants, the grocery store is one of the first and biggest cultural shocks. You walk into a store and suddenly you do not recognize the brands, the packaging, the product names, or even the measurement units. You are unsure whether a product is the same as what you used back home, and sometimes you end up wasting money by buying the wrong thing. What should be a simple weekly task can become stressful, confusing, and emotionally exhausting.

Grocery shopping is also not a one-time challenge. It is something people repeat every week. We wanted to create a tool that makes this repeated experience easier, more familiar, and less intimidating.

What it does

We built the concept for a mobile app that acts like a culturally aware grocery assistant. Users can scan a product, search by text, use voice search, or upload an image to understand what a product is and how it compares to something they know from home.

For our demo, we focused on an immigrant from India living in the U.S. The app can help with questions like:

“What can I use instead of atta?” “Can I use Greek yogurt instead of curd?” “Is cilantro the same as coriander?” “Which rice is best for biryani?”

The app provides practical answers, product equivalents, taste and texture differences, measurement conversions, brand suggestions, and tips for where to find items in the store.

How we built it

We started by mapping out the main user pain points on paper: scanning an unfamiliar product, searching for an equivalent, translating product information, understanding measurements, and saving past searches.

From there, we created the core user flows:

Onboarding, where users choose their preferred language and home country.
Home screen, where users can search, speak, scan, or upload a photo.
Scan flow, where users identify a grocery product with the camera.
Product result screen, where users see a culturally relevant explanation.
Search result screen, where users find U.S. equivalents for familiar products.
History/list and profile screens, where users can save and personalize their experience.

We then translated those ideas into a mobile app structure focusing on a warm, calm, and easy-to-use interface.

On the front end we used react native for building the app for IOS and android. We are using Google models for our AI gerenation.

Challenges we ran into

One challenge was designing for many cultures while still making the demo specific and realistic. We decided to make the app scalable for immigrants from many backgrounds, but use a persona from India for the first demo.

Another challenge was deciding how much information to show. Grocery shopping happens in a busy environment, so the app needs to give helpful answers quickly without overwhelming the user. We had to think carefully about making the content short, scannable, and useful.

We also had to balance emotional support with practical guidance. The app should not make users feel like outsiders or beginners. It should feel like a knowledgeable friend helping them shop with confidence.

On the technical side, installing the application on the phone and testing it out to make sure the functionalities were functioning as expected.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that HomeCart comes from a real immigrant experience. It does more than translate products; it gives cultural context and helps users understand what to buy, how to use it, and how it compares to food from home.

We are also proud that the app supports confidence and independence in a task people repeat every week: grocery shopping. It helps make a new country feel a little more familiar.

What we learned

We learned that grocery shopping is not only a practical task. It is also emotional and cultural. Food connects people to home, identity, comfort, and independence.

We also learned that translation alone is not enough. A user does not only need to know the English name of a product. They need to know whether it works the same way, tastes the same, has the same texture, and can be used in the recipes they already know.

Another important learning was that measurements are a real source of friction. Moving between grams, kilograms, ounces, pounds, cups, and fluid ounces takes time and mental effort, especially while shopping. Including measurement help became an important part of the product experience.

What's next for HomeCart

For the next version of Grocery Bridge, we would like to add budgeting features. Many immigrants who come to the U.S. are students or people starting a new life with limited financial resources. Grocery shopping can already feel confusing, and it becomes even more stressful when prices are high and users are trying not to waste money.