A 9-Day Mixed Methods Diary Study To Examine New Yorkers’ Use of Online Food Ordering
Role: End-to-end Researcher
(Including: study design, recruitment, script development, data collection, analysis, reporting)
Methodologies: discovery research, interview, diary study, unmoderated usability tests, survey
Tools used
Recruitment: Email, Instagram, word of mouth
Data collection: phone, WhatsApp communications, Google forms
Data organization and analysis: Google Docs, Forms, and Slides
Timeline: 6 weeks
November/December 2020
overview
Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, more people are ordering delivery, and restaurant operations have shifted toward being more delivery-focused. As someone who has worked in the shoes of various steps along the delivery process, I wanted to learn more about how online food ordering could be improved for all stakeholders: clients, restaurants, delivery workers, and app vendors.
Research Questions
Specifically, I was curious - How do people use apps and websites to order food online? Which apps are most often used? What do people like and dislike about them and the process? How can usability in the online ordering process be improved?
Recruitment
I recruited 6 participants who live in NYC and reported ordering food online at least twice per week on average.
The Study + Research Methods
The study consisted of a 9-day mixed methods remote diary study where I examined through interview, survey, diary study, and remote unmoderated usability tests participants’ habits, motivations, pain points, and app usage in ordering food online.
Process
01 Recruitment
02 Interviews
03 9 Day Diary Study - First 5 days - 1 big question per day
04 9 Day Diary Study - Last 4 days - meal diary
05 Debrief
06 Analysis + Report