DiDi Food| Internship
Duration
August 2023 - Sep 2023
Team
Worked with designers, PMs, Engineers, researchers, and operators in Merchant Design Team.
My Contribution
Research, Ideation, Prototyping, Testing, Designing.
Overview
Background
Meal delivery service and platform
DiDi Food primary focus on connecting customers, merchants, and couriers to ensure prompt and efficient meal deliveries from the restaurant to the customer's doorstep. They are operating their business in the south American countries. During my three-month summer internship, I worked with the merchants design team to help merchants in running their businesses smoothly.
Problem
Orders canceled by merchants
We empathized with the dissatisfaction of customers when they place orders on DiDi Food, only to find they were canceled. This not only creates a negative experience for customers but also incurs losses for the restaurants, potentially affecting future orders.
Design Challenge
How might we help merchants receive orders and mitigate orders canceled by merchants?
Metrics
Business Metric
Business cancellation rate = Orders not canceled by customers / All canceled orders
UX Metric
Help the merchants receive orders easily and efficiently
Results
Increased 51% in order completion rate
We reduced the Business cancellation rate in three countries from 3.69% to 2.45% in two months and provided merchants with a more convenient order-taking experience.
Research
Constraints
Because of geographical limitations and language barriers, we are unable to physically visit the site or conduct in-person interviews with merchants.
Collaboration
This necessitates close collaboration with the operations teams, product managers, and user researchers in South America and China.
Quantitive Research
Finding #1 A significant increase in the cancellation rate during holidays
During the Halloween, Christmas, and New Year, the cancellation rate increased significantly.
Finding #2 Systematic cancellation more than cancellation by the merchant
According to the data collected in June 2023, various reasons were identified as contributing to the overall 2.4% B cancellation rate.
I was surprised to observe that the majority of cancellations contributing to the B cancellation rate were initiated by the system, specifically due to timeouts.
🧐 Revised Design Challenge
How might we assist merchants in receiving orders before they timeout?
Qualitative Research
Reasons for timeout orders
To figure out why some orders will timeout, I worked with the operation team in South America and analysed the data collected during the workshop with merchants monthly, Here are possible reasons of timeouts as follow.
No aware of any orders
App is not running in the front of the system
The order taker is late and leaves early
The status is online but the kitchen is not ready
Low willingness to accept orders
Too many orders during peak periods
The item is out of stock
Prioritised issue
Merchants may not be aware of some incoming orders
There are several solutions for each reason, and I believe the platform should optimise and prioritise assistance for merchants who are willing to take orders but may not be aware of any incoming orders because the platform has the responsibility to help them receive orders.
Why aren't merchants aware of some incoming orders?
Insight #1 Forget to set the special business hours
Kayla Ray
"I forgot to set the special business hours for some holidays and were online automatically without awareness."
Insight #2 Miss the voice alert
Eva Elle
"I can't hear the voice alert now and then and will miss the order. I don't understand why the volume changes all the time. "
Design
Part I — Special Business Hours
Problem
Have to remember and set holiday business hours manually
I identified this issue within the business hours settings. Merchants can set both regular business hours and special business hours. However, when configuring special business hours, they need to manually remember all holidays. This process required more effort to organise and is prone to overlooking important dates.
Solution
Provide guide with approaching holidays
Deliveries
Usability test and iteration
Due to the design necessitating more actions from customers than before, we conducted a brief usability test to understand how merchants perceive it. They expressed that it is helpful and recommended incorporating features that would enable them to quickly set special business hours for upcoming days.
Part II — Sound Alert
Problem
Volume sttings default to the system volume.
I identified the problem in the settings that the product lack volume settings, meaning the voice alert sound defaults to the system volume. Consequently, when users navigate away from the order receiver to adjust settings or lower the volume, the volume remains reduced when they return to the order receiver.
Solution
Enable to set and test the voice volume
Deliveries
Collaboration with the software engineers and iteration
After discussions with the software engineers, I found that there's no need for the button. And we recommended to set the default volume as 70 because complaints were received before when default volume was 100.
Conclusion
Results
Successfully reduced Business cancellation rate and optimized order-taking experience
We have reduced the B cancellation rate from June for two consecutive months in three countries and provided merchants with a more convenient and effective order-taking experience.
Next Steps
Identify and report sold-out items
We can facilitate merchants in swiftly identifying and reporting sold-out items, preventing customers from placing orders for out-of-stock products.
Set business statuses
Merchants can set various business statuses; for instance, if they're busy during peak hours, we could minimise their appearance frequency on customer devices.
My takeaway
Designing is essentially a form of communication with users
Collaboration with diverse team members
Collaboration with diverse team members, including project managers, user researchers, software developers, and operators, is crucial for creating an excellent user experience through effective communication.
Comprehensive consideration
Design considerations should extend beyond problem-solving; designers must also evaluate how the design impacts other aspects such as business, operations, and the product within the system.
Technology built up connection between people