A scalable central experience
HelloFresh is a company going through an unprecedented period of hyper-growth. Feature ideas and expansion avenues are not in short supply but these are hampered by an interface still based on the product choice available and attainable not all that long ago.
ROLE:
Design Lead & product manager working with an external contractor, leading a cross-functional squad for HelloFresh, a global leader in home-delivered meal-kit.
The Problem
If users are struggling to manage twenty meal choices, how will they manage a hundred?
More choice brings complexity, with the meal options provided by HelloFresh being set to expand from solely dinner options to breakfast, deserts, side-dishes, meals for special events... rendering the current user experience crumbling at the seams.
THE PROCESS
User Interviews on the existing model
Since the existing experience had grown incrementally over the last five years, we conducted sets of users interviews with existing users to reduce internal bias. These highlighted how the current UI is perceived as well as any ‘hacks’ or patterns that emerged.
Analysis of direct and adjacent competitors
The addition of increased variety makes it increasingly difficult for a simple weekly subscription model to fit everyone’s needs. Analysis was conducted on food and delivery apps, particularly ones that paired a subscription model with an itemised checkout option.
Holistic journey mapping and & wire-framing
It became clear early on that this initiative was far-reaching. That said, it was considered important to still consider the end-to-end user experience whilst preparing initial explorations as opposed to a piece-meal approach. These were discussed with stakeholders then tested both internally and with potential users.
Scoped down experimentation
Again, due to the experience in question being so encompassing, to kick things off, we needed to seriously limit scope whilst looking to iterate. This would also give us the option to pivot if need be should any data on initial releases gave any new insights.
The Outcome
Through research, we identified that the current model had three key weak points: Users struggled to distinguish and navigate between selecting meals and planning their delivery; the existing filtering options rendered exploring the growing meal options cumbersome; and the lack of an adequate order summary/check-out experience made users nervous about how much they would be charged each week.
Through our decision to segment and scope down this project, our first experimentation (conducted during late 2021) focused on the first pain point, i.e. separating meal selection from delivery planning. We leaned into the mobile experience since it already utilises a home screen that summarises current and upcoming orders.
We brought the ability to clearly plan deliveries and view an order summary to the home screen, previously buried a few touch-points deeper, all whilst streamlining the experience.
Initial tests show promising improvements across all core metrics (particularly early user retention), the next step is to focus on improving filtering options and the subscription model structure along with the check-out experience, whilst iterating across the board.