Overview

 

In a graduate User Centered Design course, I worked in a team of three to prototype and test “Food Now”, an integrated food delivery application. 

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The User

This target user for this app is someone who not only orders delivery, but makes an effort to find the most convenient or cost-effective method of doing so. 

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The Problem

With the growing number of available food delivery services, it's difficult and time-consuming for users to compare their options and choose the best fit for their needs.

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The Solution

By integrating the available delivery options into one application, the user will no longer need to open and switch between multiple mobile applications to gather the following information: 

• The full range of restaurants available for delivery 

• The cost of delivery for a specific order across all available delivery options

• The estimated time of arrival for their order

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My Role 

My primary role in this project was to perform user research (i.e. contextual inquiries and usability testing) and data analysis to inform the designers' processes. In the initial phases of the project, I used participant data to create personas and the journey map structure. 

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Objectives

 

The system will integrate the available food delivery options to allow users to easily compare across food delivery services and order through the option that best fits their needs. 

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Key functions will allow users to: 

• Link their food delivery service accounts

• Search for restaurants & cuisines

• View & filter by categorized recommendations 

• Note favorite restaurants and menu items

• Compare available delivery services for a specific order

• Place an order for delivery 

• Rate their delivery & restaurant experience

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Design Vision

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Food Now is targeted towards people for whom delivery is the most convenient option. The vision for this app is to design for convenience and minimize the user's cognitive load. 

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This app aims to maximize the convenience of the food order and delivery process by: 

• Storing and auto-populating frequently needed information such as delivery instructions and payment methods 

• Consolidating delivery service options for a given order, including delivery fees, service fees, and arrival time 

• Storing the user's preferred restaurants and meals to allow users to quickly reorder their favorite food
   

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Contextual Inquiries 

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To develop an understanding of the user base for this app, I conducted contextual inquiries with 6 participants who use multiple food delivery services and had ordered delivery within 30 days of recruitment. 

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During sessions, participants walked through their experiences ordering food delivery and demonstrated how they choose a delivery service to order from. 

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Key Findings

• People order delivery because it's the most convenient option

• People tend to remain loyal to their preferred service, which tends to be the first one they used 

• The total cost of delivery (fees + discounts) is an important factor in choosing a restaurant to order from

• When people crave a specific food, they navigate directly to it without browsing for other options

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Based on my conversations with participants, I also Identified two main themes. Participants were:

• Interested in exploring delivery options or tryin something new

• Familiar with available options and aware of what to order

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Personas

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When creating personas, I focused on the way people interact with the app as the main differentiator and applied the two main behavioral themes.