Enhancing the Just Eat Checkout: Leading the Charge in Design Strategy

The Problem

The Just Eat checkout had not received significant updates in a long time, resulting in it falling behind competitors and causing substantial friction for our customers during a crucial part of their ordering journey.

Data revealed that the second most common reason for order cancellations was customers wanting to make changes to their orders. This indicated that allowing customers to review their order items and details at checkout could significantly reduce cancellations.

Additionally, the checkout stage had an abandonment rate of nearly 12%. By addressing this issue, we aimed to not only enhance the customer experience but also streamline processes for Just Eat’s Post Order Experience, Customer Support, Restaurant Support, and Payment Teams. Providing accurate information and tools upfront would ensure customers are well-informed when placing their orders, reducing friction across multiple teams.

What Our Customers Were Saying

‘Awful user experience, the company could invest in a better app. I had a problem with the checkout and had to wait 30 mins to use it again.’

‘Placed three orders, went to checkout but nowhere to redem my fathers day voucher?… I give up.’

‘Terrible checkout experience!!’

The Goal: Aligning Team Visions to Enhance the Checkout Experience

With four key teams contributing to the checkout experience, each with its own vision, the primary goal of this project was to identify both short and long-term opportunities. These opportunities aimed to exceed customer needs and expectations while creating alignment across each team’s roadmap.

At the start of the project, I visualised my strategy to ensure all teams and stakeholders were aligned with the proposed approach and had clear expectations. This visualisation helped streamline communication and fostered a unified direction for the project.

Competitor Benchmarking

I facilitated a workshop with a cross-pillar UXD team, where we examined exemplary checkout experiences from various industries. We highlighted memorable details and the timing and presentation of information that made these experiences stand out.

We then compared Just Eat’s current checkout process with our main competitors, Uber Eats and Deliveroo, as well as our partner company Skip, based in the Canadian market. Dividing into groups, we analysed what was effective, what wasn’t, and what aspects raised questions. Through this analysis, we quickly realised that Just Eat was underperforming in all key traits of a checkout experience.

Opportunity Workshops

Over several weeks, I planned and facilitated workshops using the Miro visual collaboration tool. These workshops included relevant teams and stakeholders and aimed to identify problem areas in the checkout experience from customer, tech, and business perspectives. Our goal was to understand unmet customer needs, current tech limitations, and business requirements.

With key stakeholders from each team, I conducted additional workshop sessions to synthesise the problem areas identified earlier and uncover common themes. We then used the ‘How might we’ framing method to transform these themes into opportunities. This exercise helped all teams understand the relationships holistically and frame them in a way that encouraged innovative solutions.

To further support the teams, I created a comprehensive Google spreadsheet capturing all higher-level themes, disaggregated opportunities, and the sources of customer insights. These themes will guide the teams’ short- and long-term roadmaps, ensuring a cohesive and strategic approach to enhancing the checkout experience. (Outcome of the workshops and Google spreadsheet shown below).

Further Discovery Research

To validate customer needs, I collaborated with a researcher to plan additional discovery research with Just Eat customers. The key objectives for this research were to:

1. Understand customer needs related to the checkout process and identify what constitutes an exceptional checkout experience from the customer’s perspective.

2. Evaluate the current Just Eat checkout experience, identifying what works well and validating or discovering further pain points.

3. Identify further areas for improvement across the checkout experience.

We approached the research in two stages:

Stage 1: Diary Study
Ten users recorded ‘stand out’ checkout experiences over one week via an online diary. This allowed us to explore broader checkout needs and identify ‘best in class’ examples

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Stage 2: Moderated Sessions
Six users participated in 1-hour semi-structured interviews. We explored overarching themes such as security and payments before evaluating the current Just Eat checkout experience.

The research findings were presented to key stakeholders across the checkout teams in a Google Slides presentation, which received positive affirmation. Below are some of the key insights:

Principles Guiding an Exceptional Checkout Experience

Drawing on insights from previous workshops and our latest wave of research, we identified six principles to guide the creation of an exceptional checkout experience:

1. Clear and Streamlined Journey:

• Ensure a seamless checkout flow with visible progress steps.

• Provide clear distinctions between guest checkout and account creation options, making the process intuitive for all users.

2. Greater Customer Control:

• Enable customers to easily view and amend their orders.

• Allow for effective management of account credits across all platforms, enhancing the user’s sense of control and flexibility.

3. Build Trust:

• Offer trusted and secure payment options to reassure customers.

• Provide clear communication about security measures, fostering a sense of safety and reliability.

4. Accurate and Transparent Pricing:

• Display all fees and discounts early in the checkout process.

• Ensure voucher code discounts are visible and easily applicable, promoting transparency and trust.

5. Reduce Manual Work:

• Save customers time by storing addresses and pre-filling delivery note options.

• Simplify the process with intelligent defaults and autofill features, reducing friction and effort.

4. Product Consistency:

• Maintain a consistent user experience across all platforms.

• Ensure the checkout aligns with the overall Just Eat Takeaway brand look and feel, reinforcing brand identity and user familiarity.

Implementing Short-Term Improvements

Leveraging our guiding principles and discovery insights, I initiated several short-term improvements to align with our customers’ needs. This strategy also considers current technical challenges and business objectives, ensuring cross-platform consistency and a cohesive fit with the wider Just Eat Takeaway brand. These improvements were scheduled for the Just Eat Takeaway internal beta release back in August 2021.

Current Checkout & Payments Design

Checkout & Payments Design Improvements

Project feedback