Global Vision project
Just Eat's menu sorely needed innovation, and a shared vision
Dec-Feb 2022 | Global Food Discovery Vision for online menu
Product
Europe's largest Online Takeaway Product - Apps & Responsive Web
Team
11 members — Me as Lead, 2 Senior UX Researchers, 2 Senior Product Designers, 4 PMs, 2 Lead PMs, 1 Engineering mgr across 3 regions
Global merger. No shared vision. Siloed knowledge.
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I took it upon myself to create and lead a Global Vision Project as I saw an opportunity during a merger.
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First ever global vision (Amsterdam, Berlin, UK, Australia.)
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Large corporation in a period of merging 3 companies.
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Knowledge in silos & lack of communication.
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Under-utilised recent research and very clear consistent insights across markets.
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Lack of shared vision despite desire to innovate.
What we set out to solve
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How might we bring three markets together and align on a vision?
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How might we identify and prioritise key HMW statements to ideate on?
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How might we identify which of these problems to validate?
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How might we motivate a team in a period of disruptive change?
My goal as the lead of the project
Empower and motivate a global team around a shared Food Discovery Vision
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Form a cross-disciplinary team of 11 experts in Product Design & Research, Engineering, and Product Management.
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Share past research, identify overlaps, gaps, and personas.
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Foster diverse perspectives to align on business and customer goals.
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Generate innovative solutions to key problems from varied viewpoints.
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Distill core values, mission, and prototypes to align on a shared purpose and ignite excitement for innovation - a core business goal.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
How we got there — collaboration and influence
Research synthesis
To kick things off, I created a space where we could share our extensive research and uncover common themes and gaps across various markets.
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Collaborative remote workshops x 2
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16 exercises conducted over a total of 5 hours.
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20 diverse participants - product management, analysts, design, and research.
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Workshop 1: problem definition, identifying opportunities, setting priorities & four 'How might we' statements.
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Workshop 2: Sketched and developed 4 product propositions.
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Analysis & making it all actionable
Following these workshops, we analyzed the data, distilling it into key insights and a shared mission.
To ensure alignment, we broke down the concepts into smaller, manageable themes linked to the specific problems they addressed. We prioritised these themes based on user value, business value, and effort, using a scale of 1-5.
In summary, my efforts aimed to bridge the gap, foster collaboration, and provide a clear direction for the future by harnessing the collective expertise of the group.
Deliverables
After thorough analysis, prototyping, and collaboration with product managers, my responsibilities included delivering:
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Six key values
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A shared mission
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High-fidelity prototypes
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A prioritised spreadsheet highlighting problems and potential feature areas
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Key questions for further validation through research.
User research -
what we already knew
Across 3 markets, 7+ Product Designers and Researchers and I, had amassed a very clear picture of our customers supported by qualitative and quantitative methods over the previous 6 months.
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I was responsible for producing a clear picture for the business on 'What Makes a Great Menu' by conducting:
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Extensive competitor review (19 products)
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Heuristic review
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User interviews & Usability testing (Run by User Researcher)
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2 x Surveys (Run by User Researcher)
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Synthesis & analysis
All primary & secondary research included in project
Screenshots of my research presentation
50% of customers named lack of confidence in satisfaction with their order as their biggest pain point.
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A good menu helps a customer find what they want easily, make the right choice and explore new dishes.
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A poor menu structure and lack of dish descriptions suggests a lack of care and poor quality.
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We lack critical information which users need to make decisions.
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Customising items is something we, and none of our competitors, do well.
Survey results split out by theme
01
Critical information lacking
22.7% feedback
Users are not getting all the info they need to make decisions.
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Accurate & quality description, image, portion size, spicy scale, dietary info and ingredients are all crucial elements of a great menu that are inconsistent.
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“Improve the descriptions of the menu items. Be more specific”
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Difficulty customising items
19.7% feedback
Users expect levels of flexibility we don’t provide.
User expectations: Remove certain item types, make certain requests per item, and ability to trust that their requests will be respected.
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“Encourage/require restaurants to allow basic customisation of menu items such as removing mayonnaise from burgers”
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Navigation not intuitive
8.6% feedback
Users are struggling to find items quickly and easily.
Users refer to our menus as clunky and confusing. Want “less back and forth”, “simplification”, and to be made more ”intuitive.”
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“Menu for the takeaway we used to was too complex and took ages to find what we wanted... I just found the menu a bit confusing..."
Kicking off with a problem definition & prioritisation workshop
This one was a team effort. I learned patience. Delegation. Regional considerations. Cultural differences. And most of all, maximising output with the collective.
I led an online cross-disciplinary workshop with 20 participants across 3 markets using Miro, leading 2 other Product Designers and a Senior User Researcher to help plan and facilitate. Participants spanned across Product Design & Research, Engineering, Product Management.
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Outcome was four prioritised 'How Might We' statements derived from key personas and their jobs, pains & gains, mapped on a matrix against business goals & user impact.
Activities
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Lightning talks on past research and current user needs (pictured)
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Participants wrote down JTBD, Pains and gains
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Elicited ideal future state
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Defined key business goals
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Defined key HMW statements using proto-personas & JTBD
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Prioritised those on a matrix of business x customer value
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Lightning talks as part of the first workshop
HMW statements informed by business priorities & user needs, pains gains and jobs to be done.
We boiled down the 'How might we' (HMW) statements we wished to solve for & key business goals
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We learned that increasing trust, conversion, returning customers and customers trying new things, were our key business goals.
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From there, we prioritised the HMW statements by plotting customer value relative to business value.
Key prioritised 'How might we' (HMW) statements from workshop
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HMW guide a user through a menu so they can find what they want faster?
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HMW help customers find previously ordered and favourite dishes?
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HMW showcase all necessary information so customers can find dishes appropriate for them?
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HMW offer a more personalised menu with relevant recommendations?
Prioritisation matrix of HMW statements
"Menu for the takeaway we used to was too complex and took ages to find what we wanted... I just found the menu a bit confusing..."
Customer user on RW Just Eat website
Lo-fi Ideation
We primed the team to think with a future mindset with a fun future task
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The goal of this task was to ensure the team weren't conceptualising solutions we could implement tomorrow.
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It was successful in priming the team to think beyond the constraints of our existing products & devices.
By sketching using crazy 8s, we came up with 4 prioritised product proposition statements based on the 4 primary HMWs from workshop one.
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4 groups of 5 assigned a HMW each to rapidly ideate solutions for
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Crazy 8s & further refinement of top voted concepts
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Writing future product propositions describing concepts
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Presenting back & identifying crossover
Future thinking primer exercise
Crazy 8s sketches of product proposition statements
We landed on four key product propositions that addressed our key user needs and business goals that we'd take into higher fidelity.
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Help customers find previously ordered and favourite dishes
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reducing the overwhelm of seeing dishes that aren’t relevant to them
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allowing them to tailor their food profile so that they only ever see their favourites on a menu.
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Guide a customer through a menu so they can find what they want faster
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reducing the need to imagine or guess
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increasing the accuracy and fitness of choice according to their nutritional needs.
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Offer a more personalised menu with recommendations
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simplifying cognitive load & choice
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still meet their preferences & desires.
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Showcase all necessary information so customers can find appropriate dishes
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removing irrelevant options
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increasing info about dishes they like & visibility of ingredients and dietary info.
This was the first time this group had come together globally. And it was a hit!
We noticed really high engagement on a very challenging, fast-paced workshop. Participants felt they better understood our users' goals and challenges, as well as felt they could trust our existing research and all felt they had a voice.
Analysis & prioritisation
Together with my UX Researcher and a Product Designer who'd completed the same activity for Home & Search, we devised overarching themes & findings across Food Discovery journey.
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Pulled out needs & problems to distil into key themes the team can continually refer back to globally.
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Reviewed all product propositions to define what our shared mission might be in collaboration with UX copywriter.
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Created interactive prototypes using Figma to bring concepts to life.
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Presented draft vision Lead PM of the group, 3 PMs and Lead Product designer for input & alignment with their strategic objectives.
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Boiled down final concepts into a spreadsheet of problems and prioritised using a scoring system based on user value against business value and effort.
Spreadsheet of key thematic needs and problems across food discovery with columns for user impact and business impact ratings for prioritisation.
Key research areas to pursue to validate concepts
This is the point at which we identified the key themes we'd need to take into testing to validate.
Comparison, Control, and Inspiration.
The UI & solution
These are the prototypes I designed to solve these 4 HMW statements and spark innovation in the Food Discovery team.
How might we help customers find previously ordered and favourite dishes?
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Dedicated usuals section on user's favourite restaurants
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Space for dynamic suggestions based on past orders and known preferences
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Ability to quick add on page without needing to open modal
How might we offer a more personalised menu with recommendations?
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Engaging taste profile builder to teach machine learning likes and dislikes to increase algorithm accuracy
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Increasing user trust in recommendations they're given
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Ability to add to or edit taste profile over time, so our ML can keep up with user tastes evolving
How might we guide a customer through a menu so they can find what they want faster?
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Assisted ordering - with personalised chatbot reducing choice overwhelm by refining results in an engaging way
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Real-time nutrition suggestions - paired with user's dietary app or future smart device
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Pairing recommendations uses machine learning to make smart pairings based on the dynamic meal selected
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Profile level preferences that user can set and forget, or periodically come back and tweak whenever they like
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Recommendation controls so user can decide how much they want to be inspired to stick to what they know and love
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AR assisted cart allows users to identify missing items or adjust their order up and down quickly
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Never again will users order too much or too little by visualising the relative serving sizes for dishes
How might we showcase all necessary information so customers can find appropriate dishes?
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Extended product information with quick ref panel
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Profile preferences toggle to allow users to filter out unsuitable options & reduce choice overwhelm
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Ability to view and add user generated content to supplement restaurant imagery of varying quality and trustworthiness
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Added inspirational recommendations 'customers like you bought' that are contextually & preferentially relevant
Outcomes
Project used as template to roll out across entire customer product globally.
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Vision methodology applied to entire Customer team of 60 designers to combine into one future vision for the entire customer product for 2025.
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​Successful cross-country collaboration as a first.
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Knowledge siloes reduced.
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Transformed findings from 15+ reports into 5 actionable research hypotheses.
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Mission, vision and proposition statements used to guide product direction for 2022 roadmap.
"This is literally the most exciting thing i've seen at Just Eat in the 3 years I've been here"
Lead Product Manager
"Super insightful and excited to think about the future"
Workshop participant
Learnings
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
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Always set very clear expectations with regard to deadlines and deliverables from the outset and follow up in writing.
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Delegating work and collaborating with like-minded individuals significantly speeds things up and helps drive project outcomes - the whole is greater than the sum of its parts in a really big way.
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A completely different approach to motivation is required for people who need more direction and to be led, which will slow the team down if not actively managed by ensuring clear expectations are set, and following up with check-ins well before deadline.