Many older adults face barriers when it comes to healthy eating, such as limited mobility, difficulty with meal preparation, and limited access to healthy, affordable food options. These challenges can significantly impact their independence, autonomy, and well-being. Existing solutions to this problem are often not flexible to the unique needs of older adults, with technological barriers, lack of personalization, and rigid offerings. By redesigning the Doordash UX experience, we can create a solution that addresses these challenges and enables older adults to age in place with ease, comfort, and dignity.
I had the opportunity to collaborate with DoorDash on a project aimed at redesigning the DoorDash UX experience to empower older adults in aging in place. Our goal was to address the challenges faced by seniors when it comes to healthy eating, and create a solution that would allow them to maintain their independence, autonomy, and well-being with ease, comfort, and dignity. I am proud to have played a part in creating a solution that truly makes a difference in people's lives.
I had the privilege of collaborating closely with UX researchers during this project and was actively involved in the complete user research process. Although I cannot disclose specific details due to my NDA, I would be happy to discuss my work in general terms. For further insights, you may refer to my resume. If you're interested, I'd be happy to meet up for a coffee chat as well!
A sample of the Stakeholders identified in this project include:
DoorDash Drivers
Older Adults
Restaurants/Merchants
DoorDash Corporate
Semi Structured Interviews - Older Adults
The goal of the interviews was to understand how older adults currently experience the DoorDash online food ordering and delivery process? and what are the specific health needs of aging adults and how are they currently met or unmet?
Interview Findings
Older adults lack trust in DoorDash’s ability to cater to their specific health needs.
Many older adults require specific dietary accommodations due to health conditions (e.g. diabetes, thyroid disorders, high cholesterol)
Older adults had difficulty finding restaurants that met their dietary needs and specifying what those dietary needs were in the app.
Older adults also do not trust that the restaurants see and follow through on these requests.
Older adults lack trust in knowing when and how their food will arrive.
Many OAs described contexts where they missed the moment their food was delivered.
Some OAs need additional assistance with their delivery, but the app doesn’t suggest specific accommodations beyond “Hand it to me” or “Leave it at my door”.
There is a text input field in delivery instructions, but this is a barrier to use.
Refined Objective
How might we build trust in DoorDash’s ability to cater to specific health needs?
How might we build trust in DoorDash’s ability to ensure customers know when and how their food will arrive?
Semi Structured Interviews - Dashers
In order to get a more holistic understanding of why users lacked trust in how and when their food will arrive, we decided to involve dashers as secondary users.
Design Needs
Meet Health Needs
The system should make it easy to discover food options based on specific health needs and provide additional information to build trust.
Strengthen Communication
The system should effectively communicate with users and dashers to minimize tension at time of hand-off.
User Test
6/8 Users thought the diet and cuisine preferences were ambiguous or limiting. Users saw more value in specifying explicit allergens & intolerances.
Request allergen & intolerance information only and provide more details about intolerances to help filter search results.
Include additional information to enhance trust.
5/8 Users were confused by placement at checkout. Change placement to item selection.
4 users mentioned a lack of trust in restaurants seeing or adhering to allergen-related requests.
Users saw value in the options suggested (reduces barrier to ask for health specific needs).
8/8 Users saw tremendous value in these features and could instantly put themselves in contexts where they would use them.
