Doordash - Usability Issue
Inferences:
1. Items ordered in the past matter a lot to people and sometimes determine whether the user will order something or not. The faster they can order, the better!
2. Although people frequently repeat their orders, they do not like to scroll much through their long list of orders.
3. Once they find their order, they cannot proceed to the payment screen to realize the restaurant is closed. This can dull their whole mood and sometimes end up with them not placing an order. Since DoorDash failed to update the actual status that the restaurant is closed during this process, the user may not be able to understand the real reason for not being able to pay. Therefore, these features need to be made more prominent and accessible with just a click for the user.
Proposed Solution
Here is the implementation of the changes being talked about :
1. The new update has “search bar”, “voice search” and “Status of the Hotel” on the main screen itself, which can speed up the whole process.
2. Even though this is too small, this is a great new addition to the app.
Recently, At a gathering one of my friends tried to order food on DoorDash for a house party. He was talking about some food he recently tried so opened his order history to place the order. He took a moment to order food on the app. The wait extended to over 20 minutes, during which I observed him scrolling multiple times to find the order and then struggling to place the order.
He remained unaware of what he needed to do and why he couldn't place the order. Then two of my other friends looked into the issue, and were still unaware of why they were not able to finish the action, and why the process was all stuck at the end.
After all his attempts, I asked him gently "What happened?"
He replied that the app is not moving forward.
He was not able to click on the 'Place Order' primary CTA again as it was disabled. He was not able to understand the reason why, he mentioned ‘I don’t know why is it not moving forward or what is it asking me to do’
From the scenario, all of them were
1. A frequent user
2. Around 25 year age
3. Tech-savy
4. Well educated
Drawing from my experience designing for similar user cohorts, here are a few key learnings:
1. The main reason for users going on to the orders page is to quickly order the food from their favorite food from their orders.
2. These users tend not to read extensive text.
3. They grasp CTAs that guide them forward.
Here are some suggestions to consider for A/B testing:
1. Disable the button to reorder the item when the corresponding restaurant is closed.
2. Add a tooltip that explains to the user, why the button is disabled, by saying “eg: closed. reopens tomorrow”
3. By adding the search bar the user does not have to scroll too much.