Why Context Matters in Design
On our trip to Iceland, my husband and I wandered into a grocery store and had a moment…because of the shopping carts.
These carts had four fully swiveling wheels. All four. They could move side to side, spin in a circle, the options were endless compared to the rigid, two-wheel-turning tanks we have in the U.S. My first thought was, “Why don’t we have these at home? This is clearly better!”
But as with most things in design, the more I dug in, the less “clearly better” it became.
A Tale of Two Carts
Here’s what I found when I started reading into the history of shopping carts:
The U.S. typically has larger stores with wider aisles. Grocery trips are less frequent, and families often buy in bulk.
Sylvan Goldman invented the first shopping cart in Oklahoma in 1937, and the U.S. version evolved to match this style of grocery shopping.
In Europe, and specifically Iceland, stores are smaller and tighter. Shoppers visit more often and buy fewer items at a time.
Swivel wheels (introduced widely in the 1980s) make carts more agile in narrow aisles. But anyone who’s ever wrangled an Ikea cart knows — put 360° casters on a huge load, and suddenly you’re learning to drift right into the corner of a “STORKLINTA” .
So my initial assumption — “these carts are objectively better” — wasn’t true at all. They’re better for Iceland. U.S. carts are better for the U.S.
From Carts to Checkout Flows
That’s when it clicked: this isn’t just about grocery shopping. It’s the same lesson we run into with websites all the time.
Big businesses design for one set of needs, and small businesses for another. Both can be “right,” but not interchangeable.
Take checkout flows, for example:
Big-box retailers (Amazon, Walmart, Target) build multi-step checkouts. They offer layers of options (shipping speeds, gift wrap, add-on offers, loyalty perks). Their audience expects choice because they’re often buying 10, 20, even 50 things at once. The complexity matches the scale.
Small businesses often thrive with streamlined, one-page checkout. Apple Pay, PayPal, or a quick card form. No fuss, no distractions. Their customers usually come for one or two items, and the priority is trust and speed.
Both approaches work… but only because they’re tailored to their audience and context.
Checkout Flows: Big Business vs. Small Business
| Big Business (Amazon, Walmart, Target) | Small Business (Local shop, boutique, roaster) |
|---|---|
| Multi-step checkout (cart → login → shipping → delivery → add-ons → payment → confirmation) | Streamlined one-page checkout |
| Multiple shipping options + upsells (gift wrap, credit card promos, “you might also like…”) | Quick payment methods (PayPal, Apple Pay, ShopPay) |
| Designed for large orders with lots of customization | Designed for single-item or small orders |
| Audience expects choice, control, and bulk shopping | Audience wants speed, trust, and ease |
| Feels clunky if you’re only buying one item | Feels incomplete if you’re trying to buy 40 items |
The Trap for Small Businesses
It’s easy to look at Amazon and think, “If it works for them, it’ll work for me.” That’s the same assumption I made with the Icelandic shopping carts.
But Amazon isn’t your model unless you are Amazon. Designing like a big-box giant when you’re running a boutique shop often adds friction, not value.
Instead, the win comes when you design for your audience, your store, your context.
The Takeaway
Good design isn’t about chasing what’s “better” in some universal sense. It’s about what works here, for these people, right now.
Sometimes that’s a giant cart with fixed wheels for wide American aisles. Sometimes it’s a nimble little cart with four swiveling wheels for Icelandic corner shops.
And sometimes it’s a streamlined checkout that lets someone buy your product in two clicks instead of six.
Because at the end of the day, design doesn’t just need to work.
It needs to be designed to work for your people.
