Case Study

role

UX Designer
Researcher

team

Maryam Khan
Myself

timeline

April 28 — May 17, 2020

tools

Figma
UsabilityHub
Notion

overview

Food delivery apps in the U.S. have become the go-to convenience service when you don't want to leave the house. Many people heavily rely on these services today, especially during the ongoing pandemic.

the challenge

Me and my teammate, Maryam, participated in a design contest where we were to redesign a food delivery application.

our design process

Our design process began with discovering the challenge presented to us. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, people have been relying more heavily on food delivery. We set our sights on discovering how we could improve Postmates' food delivery experience.

why postmates?

We did a walk through with each app in the food delivery industry to gain an insight into their user experience. We ultimately decided to choose Postmates for three main reasons:

1. Most Unfriendly User Experience
Their navigation system was frustrating and required us to spend the most time on their app.

2. Most Potential for Improvement
We recognized pain points that, if improved, could really enhance Postmates' user experience.

3. The Underdog
We don't hear about Postmates as often as its competitors and we thought it would be exciting to explore a service we were not as familiar with.

user pain points

We went through the actions of ordering pizza from a restaurant. In about 30 minutes, we came up with a rough list of about 15 usability issues that we discovered. The issues could be divided into 3 categories: homepage, recent orders, and restaurant cards. We further organized the list based on impact and cost to help prioritize and narrow down the issues.

insights

After analyzing the gathered information, we concluded that improving Postmates' recent orders experience would most beneficial for both the product and for the users. Creating a simple, easy-to-use recent orders page would make customers more likely to come back to re-order. This would also allow Postmates to receive more revenue from returning customers. Therefore, in order to create the best possible experience for customers, we would be improving upon the following features:

1. No Call-To-Action
The Recent Orders page simply shows users' past orders without providing something for them to interact with to help re-order.

2. Recent Orders Hidden Location
The recent orders are tucked away in the profile section, making them difficult to find and access.

3. Unappealing Photos
The boring restaurant logos and icons do not look appetizing, nor do they encourage returning users.

4. Inefficient Order Previews
Complete descriptions for past orders are not shown, so there is no way of knowing exactly what was previously purchased.

our focus

We ultimately wanted to create an easygoing and hassle-free experience for customers reordering from the application. This storyboard shows the journey of ordering from the app in a seamless and efficient way.

ideation

We gathered our data and moved to Figma to craft out our solutions to the 4 major problems we identified for Postmates' recent orders page.

a/b testing
round 1

We then went to UsabilityHub to get feedback on our initial solution. We compared the original Postmates recent orders page with our improved design.

In the first test, 21 out of 27 participants said they'd rather use our proposed design to view recent orders. We gathered the feedback and used those to improve upon our initial design.

Q: Which design do you find most useful when you view your recent orders?

feedback

Here are some critiques from participants who chose the original Postmates design:

"It can list more recent orders. Also the big picture is not necessary, since I already know the restaurant, I just need order info instead."

"You can see more of your orders, the pictures take too much space."

Using the critiques highlighted above we went back to Figma to make changes to our initial design by:

1. Making the pictures smaller

2. Allowing more information for the recent order to be visible

a/b testing
round 2

After improving the initial design, we ran a second test on UsabilityHub comparing Postmates' page with our edited design to get new feedback. This time, 10 out 13 participants said they preferred our proposed design for viewing past orders.

Here are some reason why participants preferred our proposed design:

"I see the reorder button right there which is more efficient."

"There’s a re-order button."

"I can see a lot more of the order."
‍
"It shows a picture and has a re-order button."

recommendations

In order to significantly improve the experience of their customers, especially returning customers, Postmates should implement the following:

1. Navigation Bar at the Bottom
While we did add a tab for recent orders on Postmates, we think a bottom navigation system would serve a better purpose for their app in the long run.

2. A Re-Order Button
Adding in a re-order button for past orders would make the recent orders list more efficient and easier to navigate.

key takeaways

Throughout this journey and this design contest, my teammate and I learned about the importance of time management and meaningful research. This contest ultimately taught us to:

1. Take in to account how much time it takes to test and improve our designs

2. Dedicate more time to think of strategic survey questions because it was difficult to predict how people would respond

that's all folks!

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