TEAM HACKATHON PROJECT
Meet 'n Eat
ROLES
User Experience
User Research
Wireframe
Visual Design
Front-end Programming
DURATION
Jul 2021-Nov 2021
4 Months
TECHNOLOGY
Mango DB, Authentication, Figma, React, Heroku App
ACHIEVEMENTS
Use to order 5+ team meals for various team events. We would like this app to be potentially utilized by the whole Intuit.
Client: QuickBooks Developers & Partners team
Team Formation: 3 design technologists
Task: To create an interactive platform for Intuit leaders to order food delivery to employees. We started this project during a team hackathon, and converted into a real project later.
Problem Identification
Due to COVID-19, all employees at Intuit are required to work from home. As a result, all team socials are held online. However, there is no easy way to order food for each employee, because everyone has unique mailing address and food dietary restriction. It is necessary to develop a platform to make team orders under a working-from-home environment.
User Research
Since this was initially a hackathon project, we did not have a lot of time to do thorough research about the problem. However, we discussed as a team and evaluated alternative solutions. Specifically:
PMs use Google Form to collect team members' food choices and then make orders online
Pros: No reimbursement process
Cons: Time consuming, Repetitively collect the same information (address, dietary restrictions, phone numbers, etc.)
Team members order food via Doordash/Uber eats and then submit expense forms
Pros: Flexible food choices
Cons: Complicated expense process, Extra work for team members
Team members connect their Uber Eats account to the Uber Eats team account, and then use it to order food
Pros: No reimbursement process
Cons: The Uber cooperates account does not work all the time. Sometimes teammates are not able to make successful orders
In the end, we decide to focus on simplifying the time-consuming food ordering process for both event hosts and participants.
Design & Prototyping
In Figma, we envision our product to have two different user groups: admin and users. Specifically, admins can create events and see users' food preferences. They place orders for users and update the status in the app. Meanwhile, users can save their home addresses and delivery instruction in the app. They will see the order status update after submitting their food preference to admins.
What makes our app unique is the follows:
1. Connect the event details and the food ordering part in the same platform.
2. Save user information and users can easily update their home address if they move.
3. Status update is visible to both admins and users.
We use the following technologies to build the prototype:
Front-end: React/SASS/JavaScript
Database: MongoDB
Authentication: Google Account (Intuit emails only)
Admin page
User Order page
User Test
Later on, we did two test rounds with the design technology team and got a lot of constructive feedback. From the user testing, we found the following areas of improvement:
1. (User) There is no obvious reaction when users submit their food option requests. -> Change: Added a confirmation message
2. (User) Only saving phone numbers and home address is not enough. -> Change: Modify the app to also save dietary restriction and delivery instructions
3. (Admin) The result page is not very intuitive. -> Change: Add a button that allows admins to download results in a spreadsheet.
4. (Admin) It's hard to find the food which users requested for -> Change: In the User ordering page, add a required text field for users to type in the doordash/Uber Eats link of food they request
Launch
After iterating the app based on the user testing result, we launched the Meet 'n Eat order app in November 2022, and started to use it for bigger team events. So far, it has been used for ~30 people-sized team events and hangouts. We plan to promote it to bigger team events at the end of 2022.
Here are the main features of V1:
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Users can freely update their phone numbers, addresses, delivery instructions and dietary restrictions. There will be no worry when they move.
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Admins can create new events and share the food ordering link for users to fill out. Admins can then download the response CSV and easily copy & paste the information into a third-party order app.
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Users and admins can communicate in the app regarding the delivery status.
Takeaways
By leading the design and front-end development of this project, I practiced my skills in Figma, React and JavaScript. Meanwhile, I also learned to use MongoDB, a backend database to store customer data. Lastly, I observed and learned from my coworkers on how to deal with Google authentication when user sign in to an app. The completion from this project built my confidence and made me realize that by having the skills of design and technology, as well as teamwork, I will be able to bring any idea to life.
The 2nd version of this project is still in discussion. Future feature includes integrating the Meet n' Greet app into third-party apps such as Doordash.