Cuisine shortcuts

 

Taking the concept of cuisine shortcuts to reality so that they could become one of the most popular ways to find food on Deliveroo.

 

Cuisine shortcuts

Taking the concept of cuisine shortcuts to reality so that they could become one of the most popular ways to find food on Deliveroo.

 

Cuisine shortcuts 

Taking the concept of cuisine shortcuts to reality so that they could become one of the most popular ways to find food on Deliveroo.

Cuisine shortcuts

Taking the concept of cuisine shortcuts to reality so that they could become one of the most popular ways to find food on Deliveroo.

Cuisine shortcuts

Taking the concept of cuisine shortcuts to reality so that they could become one of the most popular ways to find food on Deliveroo.

Duration

October 2018 – December 2018

Role

Lead Product Designer

Introduction

When I joined Deliveroo the consumer app and website was undergoing it’s biggest redesign of the home page. Designs had been tested in multiple global markets and engineering efforts to implement across Android, iOS and the web were well underway.

In March 2014 Google announced a new version of Android specifically designed for smartwatches. Because the majority of the experience existed within transient card UI they realized that they needed a collection of watch faces that would effectively act as a wallpaper for the OS. The watch faces would be pre-installed with the OS in time for Google’s annual developer conference in June. So Google reached out to ustwo for help and subsequently an internal request was sent for design help. I was very excited by this new technology. No one had ever done this before. I wanted to find out and define what an authentically digital watch face would look like. I wanted to learn all about the constraints and I wanted to work closely with our talented engineering team (the ustwo team consisted of 3 designers working closely with 2 Android engineers).

We designed, built, tested and delivered 8 watch faces which were demoed live on stage just weeks later.

2018 vs 2019

Deliveroo redesign featuring a first draft of the cuisine shortcuts

The initial designs were looking great, but it wasn’t clear to me how the shortcuts would be organised, where the dish photography would come from and how the colours should be defined (the colours from the first draft were not from Deliveroo’s brand palette).

Eat More Amazing campaign

It just so happened that earlier in the same year Deliveroo had rolled out a new global advertising campaign that centered around the line of Eat More Amazing. The campaign featured a variety of original, distinctive food photography. I instantly knew that these assets could be great for the cuisine shortcuts, so I reached out to the internal brand studio who were able to provide me with the full collection:

Eat More Amazing assets

Eat More Amazing assets

I optimised the assets so that their size and positioning were consistent whilst also making sure to retain the transparency of the backgrounds as this would later allow me to incorporate different background colours depending on their position in the carousel.

home_2019

New cuisine shortcuts using brand assets

At this stage the cuisine shortcuts were tested alongside the rest of the new home page redesign. Key findings from the research report: 

  • Every participant tried to interact with the cuisine shortcuts as soon as they opened the page
  • It proved to be a valuable visual method by which both Pursuers and Browsers could find food quickly
  • The use of colour and imagery helped it to stand out

So far so good, but how would the shortcuts be organised? My dream was to completely contextualise them so that the consumer would only see the most relevant shortcuts. Perhaps based on time of day or which cuisines would be trending at the consumer’s locale at that time?

09:00

Breakfast

12:15

Lunch

1930

Dinner

To help better understand the possibilities, I connected with a data scientist on the team and we agreed that displaying the Top 10 cuisines for each of Deliveroo’s 12 markets would be the best approach for a first release. I cross referenced data of the most commonly searched cuisines with the available Eat More Amazing assets. This exposed some missing cuisines; Bagels, Dessert, Italian, Kebab, Sandwiches and Vegan.

Cuisine matrix with empty spaces

Matrix of markets and cuisines with missing cuisines

At this point I reconnected with the brand team and asked what it would take to work with the original photographer from the Eat More Amazing campaign, Richard Pullar, to shoot our missing cuisines. It turned out it would be possible, but shooting wouldn’t begin until the following month and approval for costs would be required. I also explored some alternative options to help make a decision:

cuisine_shortcut_exploration

Exploration

The team all agreed we should pursue the Eat More Amazing style, so costs were approved and shooting would commence the following month. I also worked with Jenny Kutnow to provide art direction for the shoot:

product_direction_bagels
product_direction_dessert
product_direction_italian
product_direction_kebab
product_direction_sandwiches
product_direction_vegan

Art direction for the shoot

Shooting new assets with Richard Pullar in London

cuisine_shortcut_desktop_bagels
cuisine_shortcut_desktop_kebab
cuisine_shortcut_desktop_desserts
cuisine_shortcut_desktop_sandwiches
cuisine_shortcut_desktop_italian
cuisine_shortcut_desktop_vegan

New assets applied to the shortcuts

The photography was now complete and I was able to fill out the top 10 cuisines for all of Deliveroo’s markets:

Complete cuisine matrix

Completed matrix of Top 10 cuisines across 12 markets

Final collection (1:1 for mobile, 16:9 for desktop)

cuisine_shortcuts_devices

Final design in situ

Working with Abdul to implement on iOS

Working with Abdul Ajetunmobi to implement on iOS

Live demo

Data insight

The shortcuts were launched to 50% of Deliveroo users across the UK over a 3 week period in Q2 2019. During that time 22.3% of cuisine shortcut views resulted in a click with 9.9% of those going on to place an order. This was the second most successful driver of orders after the Order Again carousel. Cuisine shortcuts has since been rolled out to 100% of global Deliveroo users and continues to be a strong driver of orders.