User Research project
Role
UX Researcher
Time
January 2022
Project type
Project at S4D
DELIVERABLES
Literature Review
Survey
Persona
User journey map
Service blueprints
Improving the experience of waiting for an order
In order to improve the order confirmation page of the e-commerce platform, I conducted research based on the following questions;
1
What do users usually do while they are waiting for the order?
2
What is the users’ expectation on order status updates?
3
What do users want to see on the order confirmation page?
4
What frustrates or confuses users?
At first, I explored the data from the past research. The past research includes our own research and online articles. Below are the takeaways of the literature review.
In a nutshell, our users...
Enjoy seeing the status of their order moving forward.
Get frustrated not when the order is delayed, but when the delay is not communicated to them.
How to show ETA
Type of ETA shown to users
Users would feel frustrated when they see ETA getting longer for no reasons. In order to prevent that, we might want to show the ETA in the following way.
Before dispatching:
Rough but correct ETA (e.g. ‘Your order will be delivered at 19:00-19:10’)After dispatching:
Accurate and correct ETA (e.g. 'Your order will be delivered in 10 minutes’)
Communicating the delay
Users should be notified of the delay as soon as the delay is detected, which could be;
While user is placing an order
While user is waiting
How to utilise users’ waiting time
If users have something to do while they are waiting, they feel waiting time shorter than when they have nothing to do. Here are the examples of what we could do to help users kill time.
Show benefits of making an account
Users join the loyalty program
Show rewards to loyalty members
Users explore the loyalty page
The literature review answered a part of the research questions, but still more data was necessary to answer all the questions. Therefore, I decided to conduct user survey. The results revealed the following tendencies among users, including the inaccurate ETA as the main source of their frustration.
How do users wait for an order?
The survey revealed how they wait for the food delivery. Based on the results, we could assume the following;
Users often stay close to computer or mobile
Users are often in relaxing mode unless they have work/housework to do
In most cases, users stay at home
While you are waiting for your food to be delivered what do you usually do?
64
64
61
49
42
38
35
29
27
0
Never
100
Always
What is users’ expectation for order status updates?
The results implied;
Many users want to receive push notifications especially about;
Delay
‘We received your order’
‘Order is on its way’
Most of them don’t expect the constant updates
How often do you check the status of your order?
45%
25%
25%
Every
10-15 minutes
Every
30 minutes
Only when it’s
taking too long
5%
What information do users want to see?
From the survey, it became clear that users want to see the estimated time of arrival (ETA) at any stages of waiting time.
The information that they are interested differs depending on the order type (delivery or pickup).
When it is delivery, they would like to see the live location of the order. If it is pickup, they want to find restaurant’s contact detail quickly.
What information do you want to see on the order confirmation page?
ETA
Confirmation message
Order summary
Loyalty program
Information of the restaurant
Create an account?
95
82
78
62
43
38
What frustrates users?
I also included some open-ended questions in the survey about their frustration and confusion.
It revealed that many of them share the same negative experience with ordering food online.
The most common frustration that they have was receiving not accurate ETA, followed by receiving not accurate order status.
Not accurate ETA
Not accurate
order status
Order cancelled
without any notification
Hard to find order summary
ETA changing multiple times
No notification on delay
No apology
on delay
Driver getting lost
Based on the survey results, I made several user journey maps to identify what we could do to improve the users’ waiting experience.
Through this research, we learned that the best approach in communicating with the customers is to be transparent as much as possible.
The key to happy customers is...
‘Honest, accurate and humane communication’
Here are the suggestions on how we could improve the users’ experience on the order confirmation page.
Order status
Be accurate!!!
Send push notifications to key updates, such as;
Delay
‘We received your order’
‘Order is on its way’
Letting users configure the notifications is also an option
Other detailed order status updates can be displayed on the website
ETA
Early stage: Use time frame (e.g. 18:00 - 18:20) to compensate the lack of accuracy
Later stage: Show X minutes left only when it’s very likely that it will be accurate
Avoid changing ETA multiple times. If it is inevitable, consider calling the customer
Apology
Apologise for delay or troubles
Provide compensation
Add the human touch :)
