Panda Express is a United States based restaurant chain that serves American-Chinese cuisine. With over 2,000 locations, it is the largest Asian restaurant chain in the United States. Panda Express has quietly established itself as a fast-casual stalwart, posting another year of double-digit sales growth in 2020 (12%).
I love Panda Express. As an avid fan of Chinese cuisine, it is my favorite to-go lunch due to its convenience and wide variety of menu items. Since the beginning of COVID-19, we have all had to adapt to a new lifestyle, one that skyrocketed the use of mobile preorders and pick ups. I, of course, was no exception.
Due to quarantine and the safety concerns of living in a pandemic, I downloaded the Panda Express app so I could still eat at my favorite fast-casual chain. However, I quickly realized the app had multiple problems affecting my user experience. As a designer, I couldn’t stand it.
I believe Panda Express could make their order process easier through a mobile app redesign. In the following analysis and project, I will focus on user experience and creating a smoother operation within the IOS app.
If actually designing for Panda Express, I would also be using the company’s road map to consider whether these new features fit within the company’s future goals. However, my main goal now is to focus on improving the Panda Express mobile app user experience.
In order to better understand the existing interaction problems in the app, I drafted a couple of questions and started to conduct informal interviews with my peers. I focused on peers who were experienced Panda Express app users as they are more likely to pinpoint usability issues due to the frequency of their app usage.
Below are some of the key takeaways from my user interviews:
Due to time constraints on this project, I decided to look through Panda Express’ reviews in the Apple App Store as it would be one of the quickest ways for me to understand the problem. These reviews would also complement the user interviews I’d already conducted.
Apple Store users' reviews generally fell into the following FOUR categories :
From my research I created the following user personas to guide my design process:
After researching and analyzing the frustrations and design goals of app users, I began to develop solutions that would allow me to achieve these design goals.
In the current mobile app, users cannot follow the real-time progress of their orders. Instead, they are provided an estimated pick-up time. This estimated pick-up time may change depending on how busy the store is or other factors. In the app, the pick-up time will automatically change, but users are not notified of the change. This often results in a longer wait time when they arrive to pick-up their food (i.e. 25-30 minutes additional wait time).
My first instinct was to redesign the order page and the way that represent the order process.
On the current “After Payment” and “Order Page”, the pick up time is the only order process information users can see. According to user reviews and interviews, the final pick up time does not accurately represent the order process, but is also the main way users schedule their pick up. An unexpected delay to the order can cause the pick up time to change. The current app violates the Usability Heuristic, Visibility of System Status. Though the estimated pick up time is inaccurate, we continue to use a system that shows an inaccurate pick up time.
Therefore, creating a visual order process, allows users to see a more accurate pick up time in the app.
Instead of the app immediately providing a numerical estimated pick up time, I added a loading bar that tracks the order status to the top of the "Orders Page".
After presenting this design to a user group, I received the following feedback. Users still wanted to look for an estimated pick up time, even with the loading bar. Within their information hierarchy, a numerical pick up time was one of their highest priorities when assessing their order status.
I quickly though about an idea:
Adding a notification system would require work within the back end development of the app. If I had access to developers, I would consult with them about this change and the work in the back end to balance the value of the change for users with the required work for developers.
The final feature I added to the "Order Page" includes an "I Am Here" button. This would send a message to the restaurant and allow the user to be confident that their order was made and corresponds to the estimated pick up time in the mobile app.
To address customer service needs, I made changes on the web wrapper customer service function.
Users need to fill up a detailed form to report a simple problem, which is frustrating to the users. And users are only able to find the “Contact Us” Tab under “my account” -- might not be a related section when users looking for help regards with their orders. It might confuse users when they are trying to report a simple order issue. They have to click each section to find out the “Help” button.
Since it is a mobile preorder app, I decided to add the “Need Help” function tab under my order page which is related. Once click on the “Need Help” button, it will direct you to a chat room. This gives users a kind of self-confidence, panda express is taking care of any issues and response as fast as they can when compare to the form former.
Base on the information and feedback that I gain from the user research, some users asked for an order survey / review function. And having a rating option on each order are also allow user to have private comments right.
I added a feedback rating system to the "Order Page" that allows users to rate and give feedback on individual orders.
After walking through the feedback scenario myself and sharing the prototype with other users, I realized the rating stars are too small when considering a phone screen’s size. Users had difficulty with clicking the correct amount of stars ultimately worsening the user experience.
After receiving this feedback, I created alternatives in Figma and used the actual screen size to modify the rating system so it works better on mobile devices.
Around these four core design directions, I started diving into details about how I can link those new features into a meaningful flow.
This was my first time redesigning and adding features to an existing product that already had a large user base. Starting with a product pushed me to consider the current user experience and what aspects of the interface were frustrating. I also had to consider whether my new features would interrupt existing flows and interactions, and how it would affect the existing back end systems.
Due to the current trends and existing user habits, I made more conservative choices in my redesign of the ordering process. I did this in order to work with the users’ existing experiences with the app and not completely change how they interact with the system. I am still unsure if this was the best solution for the redesign, but would love to discuss and learn more about redesigning existing products!
During the redesign process, I considered many of the challenges associated with working on a pre-existing product: user flow, learned user interactions, and branding materials. These challenges allowed me to practice integrating existing product direction and Panda Express’ branding while also capturing a creative idea in the process of redesign.
