A Google UX Design Professional Certificate project
Contents
Project Takeout is a fictional restaurant chain located in Jakarta that caters to office workers and people on-the-go. They only take pickup orders (no sit-in) to save rent space and cost. Currently, customers can only see their menu and order meals in the restaurant, and they have to queue to order any food there.
Initially, this method served their customers just fine. But, as the business grew rapidly and expanded into many offices and malls, it became apparent that this method of doing food business won’t be sustainable for long. Customers pour into the restaurant. Queues started to become unmanageable and annoying. Dissatisfaction of the long wait has gone through the roof. Clearly, something needs to be done to solve this.
The stakeholder noticed this problem. They determined that the eliminating the queues is the main goal. The hypothesis was made: Removing the need for customers to queue and order meals will make the customer experience better.
The most important question: Why do we need to make this project?
What will the product be and who is it for?
What are the primary needs of our customers?
Who are our competitors and how can we stand out?
What are the challenges that will be faced by this project?
This step consists of user interview and competitor analysis that results in the creation of persona, storyboard, and user journey.
Removing the need for customers to queue and order meals will make the customer experience better.
Is this hypothesis really true, though? To find out, I conducted interviews with several office workers who have short lunch breaks and have limited time to order food. Then, I created a persona based on them to understand the users I’m designing for and their needs.
This user group confirmed the initial hypothesis, but research also revealed that queuing time was not the only factor limiting users to order from Project Takeout.
Time restrictions
Office workers are too busy to spend time waiting in line just to order food.
No pre-order
There’s no way to pre-order food takeout and skip the line.
Menu hard to read
The unexpected insight: the menu behind the counter can be hard to see from afar when waiting in line.
The persona is created to represent the participants that are interviewed. After that, I tried to imagine what they will do when we gave them our solution:
The storyboard shows that the solution is an app made for mobile devices. Why is that? It’s because of…
The competition for this business is the big startups that also offers food order and pickup service. They are divided into 2 groups:
The direct competitors of Project Takeout are in the same business with very similar business model. Most of them provides a mobile app to see the menu, order and do food takeout, and keep track of loyalty points. Dailybox and Box & Co doesn’t provide pickup services.
The biggest flaw, however, is that their apps can be overwhelming to some people. One participant even said that they prefer not to use them and just wait in line instead. Accessibility is also an issue: some of the apps even have text below 12pt — that is too small for mobile users to read! This is important to note, since our persona has vision impairment and needs glasses.
The indirect competitors of Project Takeout provides food pickup service, but they are not associated with a specific restaurant. Instead, you can order from many restaurants in their app. While this is a very compelling offer to their customers, it lacks extensive food customization and tailoring ability that Project Takeout is always known for.
And with the opportunities found, competitors audited, and the goal set — that is to design something for Project Takeout that allows their customers to see the menu and pre-order their meals and skip the line, we can move on to the next step.
The sketch started on paper, then it is designed digitally using Figma. The design is verified using usability testing and iterated once.
This activity is done using moderated remote usability study with 5 testers, 18-35 years old, and lives in urban areas. Each session lasts 10-20 minutes and done without any additional tools.
The insights are shown below:
Use QR to confirm
3 out of 5 testers prefer using QR Code to confirm their order for ease of use.
Better checkout experience
Simplify the checkout experience by regrouping functions and deemphasizing scheduling function that is rarely used.
Simplify personalization
2 out of 5 testers said that food preferences and dietary restrictions personalization should be simplified.
With the iteration done, we can move on to making the high-fidelity prototype with these things in mind:
The prototype is an Android-based app and used Material Design 3 that was introduced in Android 12 as the design guideline.
This activity is also done using moderated remote usability study with 5 testers, 18-35 years old, and lives in urban areas, now using Maze and Google Forms as the data capture tool. Each session lasts 20-40 minutes.
Overall, the results are promising. The average time on task is less than 10 seconds and the success rate of each task is 100%. The calculated Net Promoter Score (NPS) is 80 and the System Usability Score (SUS) is 82.5. It can be said that the app has gained Project Takeout customers’ trust and have met their needs and wants.
“This app feels polished, looks professionally-made and comparable to world-class apps such as UberEats and GrubHub. I love it.”
Add button to see all menus in homepage
2 out of 5 testers takes a long time to figure out how to access the full menu from the homepage.
Include additional notes
2 out of 5 testers said it is better if they can add notes not covered by the food customization process.
Order details in confirmation screen
Before scanning QR code to confirm pickup order, there should be a way to see what meals are actually being ordered.
The prototype is finalized with the feedback that are captured before.
The overall design choice of this app is intended to evoke professionalism and simplicity. Big, bold, geometric Outfit for heading and the humanist, ever-popular Lato as the body gives the app presence and clean subtlety.
The colors are also very muted — almost black and white with occasional hints of color and shades of gray. This is intended so the content (especially the gorgeous food photos) can be the central focus of the app.
As the COVID-19 pandemic subsides and people started to get back to offices, food pickup market will be an interesting business opportunity to overcome. This case study shows that ordering food at a restaurant, something we are familiar with, can still be improved in a number of ways.
I thought that creating a pickup-only food ordering app should be a trivial process, because I can simply imitate the competitions. Turns out through the entire design process, I managed to find out niches that can be developed with the help of participants who are willing to tell their stories and give honest feedback to improve the app.
Thank you for reading this case study. I hope you enjoy it!
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