Tablet usability research: case study

Just Eat: establishing a usability baseline to drive improved UX

A world leader in online and mobile food ordering, Just Eat operates across 13 countries, with 29,000 restaurant partners in the UK alone.

The company’s service involves a touchscreen device that its restaurant partners use to process orders. We were commissioned to undertake tablet usability research, helping Just Eat develop a deeper understanding of the issues relating to its device.

Challenge

Anne Stevens, Just Eat’s Head of UX Research & Content, wanted to establish a clearer picture of how its technology was being used, what was going well, what needed improving, and how.

Research objectives

• Understand usability issues and make recommendations.
• Evaluate the digital and physical experience/interaction with the device.
• Design a measurable and repeatable tablet usability research approach.

What we did

To enable rapid improvements, we delivered a two phase solution:

1. Phase 1: In-context visits to understand Just Eat’s restaurant partners’ interactions, pain points and unmet needs relating to the tablet.
2. Phase 2: structured, lab based user testing sessions to drill down into device usability.

Phase 1: in-context research

We started by preparing a research protocol. This equipped Just Eat to be able to repeat the process in future benchmark tests.

The in-context tablet usability research included visits to restaurants in Glasgow, London and the home counties, utilising mobile lab equipment to capture data. Anne Stevens comments, “System Concepts created and sent out an intro pack in advance… this meant the restaurants had a really good understanding of the process before the researchers arrived.”

Some client personnel accompanied our researchers on the in-context visits. We then held an interim meet up with Just Eat where we shared video clips, photos and stories from our visits.

Phase 2: Lab based user testing

We prepared a session guide to support a rigorous research approach, also providing another valuable resource enabling Just Eat to conduct consistent re-tests.

During the lab-based sessions we replicated restaurant set-ups to ensure true-to-life interactions. Just Eat stakeholders were able to monitor these sessions first-hand from our UX lab observation room. While one of our researchers moderated the sessions, another facilitated simultaneous live notetaking, and a prioritisation workshop with the Just Eat team.

Benefits

The tablet usability research delivered a series of high level findings and actionable points. Our feedback included a detailed and clearly prioritised issues and solutions log.

We place huge importance on the way we report and communicate research findings. To bring our final report to life, we made creative use of visual design, icons, diagrams, scales, graphs, storyboards, screenshots, photographs, videos and more.

We also recorded and delivered a series of repeatable measures. This equipped Just Eat with a baseline, and the tablet usability research tools to make improvements and evaluate progress in the future.

Just Eat’s Anne Stevens concludes, “We wanted it to be a collaborative project and be involved along the way – and System Concepts’ consultants were great. I wouldn’t hesitate to work with System Concepts again in the future.””