The Retail Apocalypse & Renaissance of Retail Modality
If you believe the headlines, retail is dying. But if you look closer, what’s actually happening is more like an evolution, one driven by technology, cultural shifts, and a fundamental redefinition of what it means to “shop.” At the 2019 National Retail Federation (NRF) “Retail’s Big Show,” that transformation was on full display. Despite a partial government shutdown that paused federal economic data releases, the message was clear: retail is far from over. It’s simply becoming something new.
The Big Picture
Retail remains one of the nation’s economic cornerstones:
- 3.8 million establishments across the U.S.
- 29 million jobs, supporting 1 in 4 American workers
- $822.5 billion in labor income
- $1.2 trillion contribution to GDP
- And yet, behind those staggering numbers lies a massive shift in how and where we buy.
In 2018, total U.S. retail sales reached $5.3 trillion, with $4.8 trillion from brick-and-mortar and $525 billion from e-commerce. A year later, retail grew to $5.5 trillion, a modest 3% increase — but e-commerce grew 15% year-over-year, dwarfing physical store growth at 2%. This isn’t just incremental change. It’s a reshaping of the entire landscape.
The Retail Apocalypse
2018 saw the collapse of household names: Toys “R” Us, Sears, Mattress Firm, Claire’s, Brookstone, and Nine West. Department stores like Macy’s, J.Crew, and Ralph Lauren struggled with unprofitable stores and sinking stock prices. To many, it looked like extinction. But as in nature, extinction often precedes renewal. While malls are dying, models of retail are multiplying. We’ve moved from markets to department stores, from catalogs to malls, from multichannel to omnichannel — and now toward something new: harmony. The future of retail isn’t about physical vs. digital. It’s about how the two work together to deliver frictionless, personalized, and meaningful experiences.
Winners in the New Economy
Even in a so-called apocalypse, there are success stories. Stocks are up for Amazon, Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Nordstrom, Home Depot, Tiffany, Costco, and nearly every discount retailer. Dollar stores, in particular, are quietly taking over America. There are now more dollar stores than the six largest U.S. retailers combined (Walmart, Kroger, Costco, Home Depot, CVS, and Walgreens). Dollar General and Dollar Tree alone operate 30,000 locations. Meanwhile, companies like Walmart are hiring 25,000 personal shoppers to handle curbside pickup — blending convenience with human touch.
Trends Defining Retail’s Next Era
At NRF 2019, a few themes stood out that point to what’s next:
1. Sustainability & Transparency
From blockchain-backed supply chains to zero-waste commitments, sustainability has moved from buzzword to business imperative. Kroger’s Zero Hunger | Zero Waste initiative, which includes eliminating single-use plastic bags by 2025, sets a new standard for purpose-driven retail.
2. Frictionless Shopping
Consumers don’t distinguish between physical and digital — they just want convenience. The “buy online, pick up in store” (BOPIS) model is now mainstream: more than half of U.S. shoppers are aware of it, and 70% of those have used it.
3. Retail as Experience
“Retailtainment” is real. According to NRF, 58% of U.S. consumers are interested in retail events, and 82% attended one in 2018. REI’s outdoor adventures, TOMS’ in-store VR experiences, and Tiffany’s Fifth Avenue renovation all prove the same point: shopping can be transformative.
4. Digital Natives vs. Legacy Retailers
Direct-to-consumer brands like Away and Glossier are winning by merging product, experience, and story. Legacy retailers are responding through reinvention — partnerships, pop-ups, and tech integrations designed to close the physical-digital divide.
5. Privacy & Personalization
Consumers are increasingly aware of their data — and willing to share it when it benefits them. “Zero-party data” (information intentionally shared by customers) is becoming a cornerstone of trust-based personalization.
6. Polarization of the Market
Luxury and discount segments are thriving, while the middle is hollowing out. Consumers either want exclusivity or affordability — there’s little room left for the in-between.
Kroger: A Case Study in Transformation
Kroger is a powerful example of how a legacy retailer can redefine itself. Under CEO Rodney McMullen, who started as a part-time stock clerk in 1978, Kroger has become a technology-driven innovator. In partnership with Microsoft, Kroger launched a “connected store” pilot powered by Azure cloud and IoT sensors — featuring smart shelves that display real-time prices, nutritional data, and personalized offers. They’re also:
- Partnering with Ocado for robotic delivery.
- Expanding Instacart and Alibaba collaborations.
- Testing driverless delivery with Nuro.
- Opening a digital HQ in Cincinnati and an innovation lab at the University of Cincinnati.
- Introducing OptUp, an app promoting healthier food choices through data science.
McMullen outlined his vision at NRF 2019:
- Retail won’t go away — it will evolve faster than ever.
- Retail will be both digital and physical — customers will simply choose the most convenient modality.
- Retail will be purpose-driven — solving problems for both people and planet.
- Retail will disrupt advertising — data-driven precision marketing will replace mass messaging.
The New Retail Reality
The so-called “apocalypse” is really a power transfer — first from retailers to brands, and now, increasingly, from brands to machines. As artificial intelligence and machine learning take hold, purchasing decisions will rely more on product attributes — performance, price, convenience — and less on brand reputation. AI will become the ultimate comparison shopper, optimizing every decision. The challenge for retailers and brands alike is not survival, but relevance — finding harmony between digital and physical, scale and soul, efficiency and empathy. Retail isn’t dying. It’s being reborn.
Beyond User Experience: Design Principles for the Human Experience
The concept of user experience (UX) feels modern, born from the rise of digital interfaces, apps, and analytics, but the mindset behind it has existed for centuries. The practice of designing with empathy, experimentation, and systems thinking is rooted in disciplines as old as science, psychology, anthropology, engineering, and architecture. Even more surprising: many of UX’s foundational ideas trace their roots to the Midwest. Before Silicon Valley made “design thinking” a business strategy, innovators from Ohio to Michigan to Iowa were quietly shaping the principles that would become the UX movement.
The Midwest Origins of UX
Consider the lineage:
- David & Tom Kelley, founders of IDEO, were raised in Barberton, Ohio.
- Janice Fraser, co-founder of Adaptive Path, studied at Ohio University; Mike Kuniavsky attended the University of Michigan; Jeffrey Veen graduated from Calvin College.
- The Information Architecture Institute, a cornerstone of digital UX, was founded by Louis Rosenfeld (University of Michigan) and Christine Wodtke (Iowa City).
- Karl Fast, a leading voice in UX education, taught at Kent State University.
- Midwest UX, the annual conference now in its seventh year, was born from the collaboration between Columbus’s Interaction Design Association (IxDA) and the Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA).
These roots matter, not just because of geography, but because of values.
Midwestern Principles
The Midwest has long been known for a set of enduring truths that extend beyond region or industry. They’ve also quietly shaped the principles of user experience design itself.
- Honesty & Integrity: An honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.
- Respect, Kindness & Empathy: The neighborly instinct to understand others.
- Dedication & Reliability: You can depend on us, always.
- Curiosity & Invention: A relentless desire to improve systems and tools, think Henry Ford and the assembly line.
- Quality & Excellence: A belief that good work should endure.
- Collaboration: The understanding that progress happens together.
These principles, authentic, humble, and quietly radical, helped establish UX as more than a technical discipline. They made it human.
Before UX was a formal field, these same values drove the great thinkers and designers who sought to improve the human experience long before “user experience” was a term.
Case Study 1: Leonardo da Vinci and the Art of Curiosity
We know Leonardo da Vinci as an artist and inventor, but he might also be considered the world’s first UX designer. His notebooks show an obsession with how people interact, with tools, with the body, with nature itself.
While we don’t have his explicit “design principles,” author Michael Gelb distilled da Vinci’s creative mindset into seven timeless practices:
- Curiosity: A relentless quest for learning.
- Independent Thinking: Testing knowledge through experience and mistakes.
- Refine Your Senses: Especially sight, as a way to truly see the world.
- Embrace Uncertainty: Finding possibility within ambiguity.
- Balance Art & Science: Merging logic and imagination.
- Mind & Body: Cultivating grace, fitness, and poise.
- Interconnectedness: Recognizing that everything is connected, systems thinking before systems had a name.
Leonardo didn’t separate art from engineering or science from beauty. His approach foreshadowed the very idea of design thinking, that empathy, experimentation, and synthesis lead to better outcomes.
Case Study 2: Dieter Rams and the Discipline of Simplicity
Centuries later, Dieter Rams, the legendary designer behind Braun’s iconic products, brought a similar philosophy into the industrial age. His work, minimal, functional, timeless, redefined modern design and laid the groundwork for what we now call human-centered design.
Rams articulated ten principles of good design, each one rooted in respect for people:
- It is innovative, useful, and aesthetic.
- It makes a product understandable, honest, and unobtrusive.
- It is long-lasting, detailed, and environmentally friendly.
- It is “as little design as possible,” less, but better.
Before there were UX heuristics, there was Rams. His pursuit of simplicity wasn’t aesthetic minimalism; it was emotional clarity, a belief that good design should never get in the way of human intention.
Demystifying User Experience
As UX evolved from intuition to industry, it formalized what people like Leonardo and Rams had always known: design is a bridge between people and possibility. Let’s trace the evolution.
From Science to Systems
The scientific method, observation, hypothesis, experimentation, analysis, gave us a framework for curiosity. It became the foundation for research-driven design. Data became insight; insight became information; information became architecture. Information Architecture (IA) emerged to organize and structure content for clarity and accessibility, helping people find what they need and complete tasks with ease. From there, User Interface (UI) design brought interaction into focus, making digital systems intuitive and responsive. Interaction Design (IxD) added emotional nuance, defining how users feel during those interactions. And Usability, as defined by Jakob Nielsen, introduced measurable qualities, learnability, efficiency, memorability, error prevention, and satisfaction. Finally, User Experience (UX) emerged as the holistic integration of all these disciplines, a recognition that every touchpoint, from product to service to brand, contributes to how people perceive value and meaning.
Beyond UX: Toward the Human Experience
When Don Norman coined the term “user experience” at Apple in 1993, he was expanding the lens beyond usability. He saw that the interface was just one small part of a larger emotional and cultural ecosystem. Today, that lens has widened again, from user experience to human experience. Designers and strategists aren’t just shaping digital interactions, they’re shaping the moments, emotions, and relationships that define our lives.
That’s why human-centered design, as championed by IDEO, Stanford’s d.school, and others, remains so powerful. It starts not with technology, but with empathy. It ends not with efficiency, but with impact. As Tim Brown of IDEO defines it, “Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.”
Empathize. Define. Ideate. Prototype. Test. It’s a process, but more importantly, it’s a philosophy: one that reconnects creativity with humanity.
Designing for Humanity
So where do we go from here? If UX was about usability, and CX about consistency, HX is about meaning. It challenges us to move beyond interfaces and into experiences, beyond systems and into stories, beyond design thinking and into human thinking. The next chapter of design isn’t about making technology easier to use. It’s about making life easier to live.
Rise of the Machines: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robots & Automation
Automating the Human Experience: How Technology Is Transforming and Challenging Our Humanity
Automation is no longer a future vision; it’s the present moment quietly reshaping everything from how we work and travel to how we think and feel. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, and autonomous vehicles aren’t just tools, they’re participants in the human story. The question is: how do we ensure they make that story better?
The Machines Are Learning
At its core, machine learning is about optimization. These systems are trained to continually refine their internal logic in pursuit of the highest possible percentage of correct answers to a given set of problems. But in order to train the machine, the answers must first be known, humans set the boundaries, define the problems, and validate the outcomes.
That’s the irony of automation: it depends on us to teach it how to replace us.
AI and machine learning are now embedded across industries—marketing, finance, legal, logistics, making decisions faster and more accurately than any person could. The payoff is efficiency. The cost, however, is a growing distance between human intention and machine execution.
From Robots to CoBots
Automation isn’t limited to code. It’s moving into the physical world through robots and co-bots (collaborative robots that share workspace with humans).
In warehouses, Fetch Robotics, founded by Melonee Wise, builds mobile robots that work alongside people, retrieving goods, mapping floors, and managing logistics. Wise once said that if the average person still struggles to understand a web browser, adding robots to the equation is a usability mountain. Her point: the challenge isn’t just building technology—it’s building trust.
Meanwhile, Amazon continues to refine its fulfillment centers with autonomous systems that blur the line between human and machine labor. The choreography is astonishing—and unsettling.
The Road Ahead
Automation has wheels, too. Autonomous vehicles, from ride-sharing cars to long-haul freight trucks, are already on the road.
Companies like Waymo, Uber, GM, and Ford are competing to mass-produce self-driving cars. The scenarios are complex: population density, infrastructure, regulations, and cultural readiness all determine how fast we adopt them.
In freight, Uber Freight and Tesla are tackling an industry defined by driver shortages and rising costs. Driverless trucks could revolutionize supply chains—but they also raise questions about what happens to the millions of people who make their living behind the wheel.
At the University of Michigan’s MCity, engineers are simulating real-world traffic scenarios to test these vehicles in a controlled environment. It’s a reminder that innovation isn’t just about building—it’s about learning safely before scaling globally.
The Human Equation
Stephen Hawking once warned that “the automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining.”
Elon Musk echoes that concern, calling AI “the biggest risk we face as a civilization.” He advocates for proactive regulation, before it’s too late.
Mark Zuckerberg, on the other hand, sees AI as essential progress: “I think people who are naysayers and try to drum up these doomsday scenarios... it’s really negative and in some ways pretty irresponsible.”
Three perspectives, one theme: the future of work and humanity is being redefined.
The Challenge
Automation’s effects on mankind are both profound and paradoxical.
Disadvantages:
- Shrinking workforce: Oxford predicts up to 47% of U.S. jobs could be lost to automation.
- Ethical dilemmas: How should a self-driving car choose between two bad outcomes?
- Infrastructure shifts: Who designs the road signs robots will read?
- Environmental and social consequences: As efficiency rises, so do new forms of waste and inequality.
Advantages:
- Higher productivity, quality, and consistency
- Lower costs and increased safety
- Predictive analytics that enable smarter decisions across sectors
- The challenge isn’t whether automation will happen—it’s whether we’ll evolve fast enough to guide it.
Transforming the Human Experience
At shark&minnow, we believe transformation begins with people. Technology should not replace the human experience—it should elevate it. That starts with principles designed not to resist automation, but to reclaim humanity within it:
- Vicarious Experience (Research & Empathy): Understand how people feel before you design what they’ll use.
- Appreciation (Enlightenment & Insight): See technology as a reflection of our values, not a substitute for them.
- Constellation (A Plan for Moving Forward): Connect ideas, data, and people toward a shared vision.
- Thoughtful Design: Make complexity invisible and humanity visible.
- Contagious Content: Spark conversation that connects people, not just algorithms.
- Global Citizenship: Use innovation to improve lives across communities, cultures, and continents.
Automation is inevitable. Humanity is optional. The future depends on which we choose to invest in.
The Chain Reaction: Why Blockchain Matters More Than You Think
You’ve probably heard the term blockchain thrown around in conversations about cryptocurrency or the next big thing in tech. But what is it really, and why should anyone outside Silicon Valley care?
At its core, blockchain is a digital ledger, a record of transactions that’s transparent, secure, and built to last. Unlike traditional databases that live on one central server, a blockchain is maintained by distributed databases, think of it as a global network of computers working together. Each one verifies and records transactions using cryptography (from the Greek word kryptós, meaning “hidden secret”).
These transactions are stored in blocks, each connected to the one before it, hence, a block chain. It’s a continuously growing, time-stamped record of everything that’s ever happened on that network.
So, why does this matter?
Because you can track anything, from its origin (genesis) to its current state, with absolute transparency. That makes blockchain an incredibly powerful tool for protecting both tangible and intangible assets, whether you’re dealing with money, medicine, or microgrids.
Let’s look at a few examples:
Financial Institutions
Money is the obvious one. The most famous blockchain application, of course, is Bitcoin. But beyond digital currency, banks and investment firms are exploring blockchain to speed up transactions, reduce fraud, and cut costs associated with intermediaries.
Wall Street
Imagine trading stocks without waiting days for settlement. Blockchain allows trades to clear almost instantly, with full traceability and security baked in.
Diamonds
Companies are using blockchain to trace the origin of diamonds, from the mine to the market, ensuring they’re conflict-free. Each gem gets a digital fingerprint, so you know exactly where it came from.
Smarter Business
IBM and others are experimenting with blockchain for contracts and supply chains, especially in industries like pharmaceuticals. By verifying every handoff along the way, blockchain improves efficiency and reduces the risk of counterfeit goods or lost shipments.
Walmart, for example, began testing blockchain with IBM back in 2016 to improve food safety and traceability. The pilot project, tracking pork in China, was so successful that Walmart later filed a patent to use blockchain for tracking delivery drones.
Smarter Cities
Dubai has an ambitious goal: to conduct most of its government business on blockchain. The idea is to make services more efficient and to attract global enterprise by simplifying record-keeping for trade and logistics. If Dubai succeeds, it could set the standard for how cities of the future operate.
Communications
In a world flooded with misinformation, blockchain can help authenticate sources, identify fake accounts, and restore trust in digital communication.
Energy
Blockchain is powering renewable energy marketplaces and microgrids, allowing communities to trade solar or wind energy directly, peer-to-peer, without the need for a utility middleman.
And this is just the beginning. Many of today’s most transformative technologies are built on open-source foundations, Linux, for example, powers everything from Android to MacOS. Blockchain, too, is an open framework, and that openness may prove to be its superpower.
One fascinating example comes from healthcare. A startup called Patientory is building a secure platform that lets patients and providers share medical data safely and efficiently. It’s a simple idea, give people control of their own health data, but it could completely change how care is delivered. The recent ransomware attacks on major health systems like the NHS show just how urgently this kind of innovation is needed.
In the end, blockchain isn’t just about Bitcoin or buzzwords. It’s about trust, something that’s been eroded in many of our institutions, markets, and systems. By making transactions transparent, verifiable, and permanent, blockchain gives us a way to rebuild that trust, one block at a time.
Order a Pizza Without Leaving Hulu
Hulu just turned “What’s for dinner?” into a call-to-action. At this year’s Hulu Upfront presentation in New York, the streaming platform unveiled a bold new kind of ad experience in partnership with Pizza Hut, one that lets viewers order food right from the screen they’re watching. No QR codes, no app-switching, no second screen required.
Dubbed an “in-stream purchase unit,” the new format blends commerce and entertainment into a single seamless moment, and it could redefine what an ad break means. Instead of interrupting the viewing experience, it becomes an extension of it. Watch. Crave. Click. Eat.
For Hulu, this is more than a gimmick. It’s part of a larger effort to reimagine advertising for the streaming era, one that keeps viewers engaged and gives brands a direct line from awareness to action. With users spending an average of 50 minutes per session, Hulu’s audience is already leaning in. Now, the platform wants to make that engagement transactional.
The innovation arrives as audiences continue migrating from desktops to mobile devices and connected TVs. Hulu’s strategy anticipates this shift, promising interactive ads that scale across screens and formats. The Pizza Hut partnership is the first slice of that vision — a preview of a streaming future where buying, watching, and craving all happen in one place.
In a world where commerce is everywhere, Hulu and Pizza Hut may have just delivered the next evolution of “shoppable media,” the frictionless intersection of content and consumption.
ACTIONABLE!NSIGHTS
- Mash-up: Hulu × Pizza Hut
- Customer Experience: Contextual and seamless ordering
- Customer Engagement: High dwell-time, content-integrated interaction
- Digital Behavior: From multi-screen consumption to single-screen conversion
Food for the Price of an Instagram Photo
In London, a restaurant once let you pay for dinner with a photo. The Picture House, a pop-up restaurant by Birds Eye, flipped the dining experience by replacing the bill with an Instagram post. Diners were encouraged to photograph their meals and share them with the hashtag #BirdsEyeInspirations, turning each dish into a form of digital currency.
The experiment was more than a marketing stunt; it was an early glimpse into the social economy that now drives much of consumer behavior. In exchange for posting a photo, guests sampled Birds Eye’s new range of chargrilled chicken and fish, and in doing so, transformed their feeds into ad space.
At the time, Birds Eye’s research revealed a cultural shift already underway: more than half of Britons regularly took photos of their meals, while nearly one in ten couldn’t go a single day without snapping their food. What began as a quirky social habit had evolved into a performance, artfully arranged plates, perfect lighting, and the pursuit of the ideal “food selfie.”
The Picture House capitalized on that moment. It wasn’t just about frozen food, it was about frozen moments: the visual, shareable proof of experience. Birds Eye’s campaign, “Food of Life,” aimed to redefine how people perceived frozen food by focusing on how people actually eat, interact, and share in the digital age.
In hindsight, the campaign feels prophetic. Long before TikTok recipes, influencer “food drops,” and #foodtok virality, Birds Eye understood that meals weren’t just being eaten, they were being broadcast. The act of sharing had become part of the experience itself.
ACTIONABLE!NSIGHTS
- Mash-up: Birds Eye × Pop-Up Restaurant
- Digital Currency: Photos for food
- Social Behavior: Food as content
- Social Influence: Sharing as payment
- Technology: Mobile and Instagram
All You Can't Eat
"All you can't eat" is based on the simple observation that lots of restaurants offer meals in such huge portions that people either can't eat them all or finish them only because they simply don't want to leave food on their plate.
Ogilvy & Mather saw this as an opportunity to help people and restaurant owners in Dusseldorf stop feeling bad about overeating or wasting food in this way and do something positive instead.
They approached local restaurants and invited them to place an "All You Can't Eat" sticker on dishes commonly served in huge portions to let people know they could order a smaller portion for the same price. The money that the restaurant saved was then donated to the food bank.
This very simple but smart solution is helping lots of people in Düsseldorf feel better about themselves. Restaurants are wasting less food, people aren't overeating just because they still have food on their plates and Düsseldorfer Tafel is getting a much needed cash injection that's helping to feed over 7,000 hungry people every day.
There's an opportunity for food banks all over the world to develop similar schemes to help feed the hungry in their communities.
All You Can't Eat - When you can't eat anymore, there's someone who can.
Good Manners
Giving to charity can be uplifting for impoverished communities and for the givers themselves, yet many of us seem to be unable to find time to make donating a habit. Luckily, the Polish Red Cross has devised a way to increase charitable donations without much effort. The Very Good Manners campaign uses restaurants’ placemats to inform diners that by laying their knife and fork like a cross on the plate, a donation will be added to their bill.
Unnumbered Sparks
The Technology
Unnumbered Sparks is an interactive art collaboration between artist Janet Echelman and Google creative director Aaron Koblin for TED 2014. The art installation and experience is made from ultralight fibers and hangs from a skyscraper over the water and walkways near the Vancouver Convention Center. According to a blog post by Google Creative Lab’s Jenny Ramaswamy, the interactive lighting “is actually one giant Chrome window, stretched across the 300-foot long sculpture with the help of five high-definition projectors…the result is a crowd-controlled visual experiment on a giant, floating canvas.”
The Creation
X–SPACE: A Library Designed and Built By Its Students
Recently launched on Kickstarter, X-Space is a library designed and built by 108 8th graders at the REALM Charter School in Berkeley. X-Space started out as a project by the students in the Studio H class, an in-school design and build program offered to students in the 8th to 11th grade. The students were asked what they wanted from their school and the majority just wanted a place to read, relax, and discover new things.
"For our students, this project came from their hopes and dreams and ideas for how their school could be better. They get to build the environment they want. The biggest benefit for our students is connecting an idea to a whole classroom full of tools to build something so audacious for themselves and for the hundreds of other students at REALM." - Emily Pilloton, Director of Studio H