Food delivery app within the airport — UX/UI Case study

Problem

It is observed that customers aren’t pleased with the meal served during the flight. Also, many of them have started taking food parcels from their favourite restaurants at the airport along with them to enjoy during the flight because the food counters are found at different locations in the airport. Even with the availability of wide choice at the airport, it is difficult for the passenger to enter other places for food due to security.

During open-ended research, it revealed that many travellers feel that while there is a limited choice for them to order from the cost of food is very high, making them opt for home-cooked meals.

This project aims to solve this disconnect by building a feature to order an airport from the counters located inside and extending it to create a timer so travellers get food before their flight departs.

Onboard the flight with the best meal!

Constraints

• I had to work on how can food be delivered from different corners fast & due to high security.
• The priority of the order to be delivered depends upon multiple factors like who placed it first and who’s the flight is supposed to depart first.
• No real-time interaction with airport authorities due to living in a remote location
• Limitations of GPS in a closed area

Defining the target audience

• Due to covid, restrictions on international flights are enormous hence, only marked local travellers as the target audience.
• Many people don’t prefer to buy food at the airport because it is usually very costly, so I have removed all those people.
• This made me choose whom to remove from the possible user base. I wanted to narrow down the question, so I started thinking this way :

Many people might use the delivery app at the airports, so Who’s most likely to buy?

A passenger of the economy class who could not bring outside food or a business class passenger who wants to eat before their flight because they already get free food in flights.

I initially included only economy class passengers so that it could be built an application on android users originally. If this system works out great, prospects could be cover the audience on iOS too, which most of the business class is assumed to be using.

Why would this work

Across the globe, few programs are running similarly, which suggests that similar programs could also be successful in India.

In-Terminal Food Pickup

A new airport-wide program at Los Angeles International Airport makes it easier for passengers to use their mobile devices to order food for pickup at dozens of restaurants. Partners in the program allow passengers to order directly from the site or scan QR codes in the airport. Order updates and alerts are sent to customers, who pick up their sealed orders at designated locations in the terminals.

In-Terminal Food Delivery

Approximately 54 airports worldwide allow passengers to have food delivered to them to choose between pickup or gate delivery.

In-Terminal Food and Retail Pickup and Delivery

Travellers can use their mobile devices to shop and order retail items for in-store pickup or gate delivery offerings beyond food to retail and give domestic and international passengers an alternate way to purchase duty-free products throughout the airport.

Research

I could connect with 7 people around me to know about their preferences. The idea was to know about the preferences if they buy food and what do they think could help:

• 7 people said they wanted more affordable food
• 3 of them told about the times they have skipped meals due to unusual flight timings
• 2 confessed they don’t like the food they bought
• Everybody revealed when they first used flight; they were too conscious of making a choice

Shweta’s experience

Pain points addressed

• Addressing the gap between user’s wish to order food but don’t have time remaining
• The ones who don’t want to skip their meals
• The ones who don’t want to move around for searching their meals
• Those who wish to affordable food

Let’s design!

The process got streamlined after defining the structure of everything. I created a minute style guide to stick to thinking about the elements, not what I did wrong. Can I alter this because, let’s face it, this keeps changing!

Choosing the colour scheme, I picked Orange as it conveys happiness and vibrance, so our box delivery is a happiness closet for the users.

The flow of scheduling an order

Timer and Location

Being the first section of the home screen, it was essential that the user could get the idea of the timer at very first glance. Location was placed in its traditional position for easy recognition.

Search and top restaurant

I had designed the search bar similar to how it is in Google but using a different style guide because users can associate with it, and any user on the internet might have used it once.

However, the search experience in this feature and Google are slightly different so it differs slightly in how this will move ahead. Users will need subtext in the results because of the wide variety of result options available to them, while they can prefer to choose just one.

Categories and Popular Items

Users have quick options to find from the categories of meals available or list popular items available at their airport which helps them take less time while ordering and get meals fast delivered.

Previous orders and offers available

The coupons have been planned to ensure use look into the variety of range available and to make it easier to search about the offers. The section of previous orders helps the lost users book through their past preferences.

But…

what to do when the item could not be delivered in the required time

How to ensure delivery on time

Ending note

1. Building a Style Guide — It was challenging to start a system because I have used a few before but never worked upon defining one. It took me time to understand who should be created and what to do.
2. Between working on the endless loop of iteration and finalising the structure, I did a lot of to-and-fro between the design because I was torn between structure and reason. Luckily, I arrived at this conclusion.
3. Not carrying out a defined process to write a case study, I usually prefer to follow the trends. Still, I was unable to connect with the users and the airport authority due to my remote location, so I thought of exploring this in a slightly different process than defined.
4. I have observed how much quicker and more precise. I think now, compared to my previous projects. Initially, I could not identify problems in my designs and be very defensive about my decisions, but with time, I got an idea of how to move ahead with this.
5. I believe in maintaining a check on the functionality of this application. We could set up a few criteria for future like Order Conversion time, percentage of successful delivery or maybe percentage time when the delivery person was idle (if we hire them on a full-time basis which might be necessary due to high restrictions on airport)
6. I also believe customer referrals won’t work for this project because the TG is limited, and trying to attract just one time users might increase app downloads. Still, consistent users need to be focused in the initial phase.
7. Added an option for real-time location along with a map depending upon whether the user is moving or not. They can choose on their choices.
8. I am not sure how exactly businesses work. Still, I believe strategic partnerships on joining aboard as listing fees could work with yearly renewal and progressive commission percentage depending upon the volumes.
9. This could also grow on collaborating with the leading flight booking partners across India who can offer discounts on booking food through this app. The future scope also includes launching an iOS application.

Thank you, I will look forward to your reviews. Thanks for the 50 clap 👏🏻 if you enjoyed this article. This will tell me to write more of it! :)