the car which i had rented
i went to melbourne for my final year internship where i had to work somewhere part time to pay off the bills so i chose to work as an uber eats delivery partner. now that i had worked as a delivery partner for almost a month now, I had a hypothesis regarding the pain points of the whole experience and thought maybe even others might also be having the same issues, so I conducted this study to validate the hypothesis and maybe explore this as a case study.
how can we make the delivery experience more smoother and less anxiety inducing for delivery drivers????
Usability Testing
Contextual Inquiry
1:1s
posters were put up in popular driver areas (hotspots: hawthorn market) with a qr code for filling out the survey form (for qualitative data) you can read the questions here
i had made some acquaintances while working and recruited 5 of them for usability testing and 1:1s interviews (quantitative data)
find out the pain points of the delivery drivers
give recommendations for solving the pain points
understand what factors are making the delivery drivers experience anxiety while delivering
the complete delivery flow
journey mapping of the whole delivery experience
Pain Point 1: The ringing sound
17/20 participants in the survey mentioned that the sound was one of the reasons which made them feel anxious while driving, they also mentioned it takes up too much of attention & cognitive load while driving.
Possible Solution: a little more softer and lighter sound alarm
Pain Point 2: Too less time to make a decision
The average time taken to make a decision (accept order/ decline order) ranged from 10 to 20 seconds when idle, suggesting that the current system might be insufficient, especially when driving. Also the timer pill is too small to be visible while driving.
Only 1/5 participant was successfully able to make a decision while driving.
Possible Solution: more time to make a decision
Pain Point 3: Parking Issues
Riders who use car find it difficult to park and the most common reasons for rejecting orders after accepting them are parking issues, 17/20 participants face the issue of finding parking spots in rush hours. And this issue of cancelling the order after accepting it makes the delivery delayed for the end consumer making the whole experience bad for them.
Possible Solution: Show metadata regarding parking spots before accepting the orders or
reserved parking spots only for uber drivers in busy areas (maybe Uber PMs could pull this off)
Pain Point 4: Waiting Time
Riders have to wait for the order to pick up from the restaurant and some restaurants have preparation time. Some restaurants may happen to delay to prepare the order and riders get negative reviews from the customers.
Possible Solution: Show metadata regarding the waiting time before you accept the order and Show that the rider has arrived and been waiting for the order to get picked up.
Pain Point 5: Too small cancel button
While conducting usability testing it was observed that 4/5 users had to struggle to click the cancel button and the whole card is clickable to accept; dark pattern.
Drivers often accidentally hit the accept button, finding it challenging to cancel the order while driving.
While sitting beside the drivers only 1/5 of them was able to successfully decline the order in the first attempt.
Possible Solution: Swipe to accept button, noticed even zomato and swiggy has a swipe to accept button on their screens
Pain Point 6: New orders keep coming
When you're 2,3 mins away from the location new orders start to keep coming, which hinders the process and makes the drivers more anxious as:
• when you’re near the address, you have to find exact house
• lot of things going on (eg. taking photos & verifying otps)
• for alcohol & tobacco deliveries you have to verify ids also
• during night hours it’s too dark at some places making the driver more anxious
Possible Solution: stop receiving orders just when you’re near the drop off location and
start receiving orders when you’re 4,5 mins away from the drop off
Learnings and Takeaways
❋ Putting yourself in the shoes of your users gives the insights which even users couldn’t give to get the most accurate insights and user behaviour there’s no alternative to this.
❋ By actually focusing on these problems it’s hard to cater the end customer as the main goal of uber eats is to deliver the best customer experience for their customers, delivery riders are neglected.
❋ You can either be ethical or make money; it’s hard to do both 😁