Instacart App: a guerrilla usability test
How I discovered pain points and polished the design
Instacart promises to let us say goodbye to all the hassles we face while doing grocery shopping and it does bring us much closer to an effortlessly convenient “future of food.”
I’m very impressed with the app the Instacart team has built. In a handful of guerrilla user experience tests I did this past week, though, I discovered that there’s still a few opportunities for improvement.
*Kindly note that I’m not employed by Instacart. But as a frequent online shopper, I care a lot about e-commerce optimization.
Objective
Identify the pain points of the Instacart iOS app and recommend solutions.
Research Process
Location
Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco
Users
I tested with 7 first time users and 3 existing users who fell into the demographic of below:
Working professionals aged 22–45, spend averagely 2–3 hours per days on their phones, and are frequent grocery shoppers (≥1/week).
Test Scenarios
1. “Imagine you are at work and have realized that you need to do laundry tonight, but you’re out of laundry detergent at home. Due to time constraint, you can’t make it to the grocery store and have decided to give Instacart a go.”
2. “You’re not feeling well at home and out of hand soap. You think of Instacart again. Since you’re not in a rush this time, you’d like to find the best deal before making the purchase.”
Analysis
After reviewing both the recordings and the notes, I wrote down each pain point then grouped them into different themes:
According to some statistics I found, top reasons why people abandon carts include:
- 27%: The checkout process was too long or complicated;
- 22%: Reported the website had errors or crashed.
Based on that and my test results, I identified the top 3 pain points that matter the most for both users and business:
Key Issues & Recommended Solutions
Issue 1: User expects to “Checkout as guest”, while accidentally tapping on “Logout as guest”.
“I thought I was going to checkout but all of my items are gone now. ” — User 1
User Flow:
This is the top pain point for all users I tested with. When users who chose to “continue as guest” arrive at the screen after tapping Checkout:
a) “Log out as guest” can be easily mistaken for “Checkout as guest”;
b) There isn’t any alert to warn users they will lose all items in the cart unless they register or log in now.
My Recommendation: Alert users they must create an account to continue; and if they choose to log out as guest, they’ll lose all items in cart.
Issue 2: User expects to checkout, instead they are blocked by the minimum order threshold but they can’t figure out why.
“I can’t check out. I don’t know why.” — User 1
User Flow:
You may see why users failed to figure out why they couldn’t check out below:
When I first discovered this problem, my hypothesis was users only had to learn the rule once, so returned users shouldn’t find it to be an obstacle. To my surprise, 2/3 current users also encountered the same problem and took more than a few taps to figure out why, which means this instruction is not easily retrievable.
“Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.” — Jakob Nielsen
My Recommendation: Move the instruction closer to the checkout button so that it becomes more visible.
Issue 3: User expects to search for all store items when they’re at the “Search” screen. Same applies for the “Browse” screen.
“I expected the search to work like Amazon.” — User 1
My Recommendation: Add store logo to both the search and browse screens to shorten the learning curve.
Prototype & Validate Solutions
Using an interactive hi-fi prototype, I validated my design tweaks with 3 users with one simple, directed task: find cat litter and checkout.
During this interaction, my users could accurately identify the functions of the Search and Category screens, could immediately tell why they couldn’t checkout when the cart value was under $10, and added more items to cart to solve the problem; more importantly, they all noticed the “Delete cart” option and chose to log in instead. My tweaks worked!
Conclusion
For most, Instacart provides time-savings and convenience. But for the elderly and disabled, a grocery delivery service can be a lifeline. That’s why I love Instacart and decided to do a case study on it.
“Design should include everyone.” — Sinéad Burke
As designers, we continuously strive for designs that are “more intuitive to use”. Not just because it boosts efficiency, but more importantly, it allows people who are less tech-savvy to use the products smoothly and benefit just as much. I sincerely hope Instacart and many other delivery apps could keep up the good work and make their products easier to use for all!
I had lots of fun doing this case study. Hope you also enjoy reading it. This is my very first article and would appreciate if you clap for me or leave a comment below. :-)
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