The McDonald's App:
Usability Case Study​
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Background
Overview
As a class project, I was given the task of choosing a mobile application, website, or desktop application to assess for usability. I chose the McDonald's app. Using professional usability practices, I provided my recommendations for changes based on these practices and using my professional UX Research and UX Design knowledge.
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Why the McDonald's App?
I selected the McDonald’s app because it seems to be doing really well and nearly everyone that goes through the drive-thru uses it. I hardly ever went to McDonald's until the app was created, so it enticed me to look into its usability.
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Users
Anyone over the age of 13, has a smartphone and is hungry.
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Mcdonald's Value Proposition Statement ​
“Food of a consistent quality that is served quickly and consistently across the globe.”
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Purpose
The McDonald's app allows those who are hungry to order McDonald's food quickly while giving them access to deals and rewards through their reward system.​
My Experience & First Look
Personal Use
I use the McDonald’s app primarily for its reward system. I get consistent coupons and free food after reaching certain point milestones. It’s cheap and easy to pick up through drive-thru or curbside as well.
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Discovery
I first discovered the McDonald's app because of my uncle who would go to McDonalds mainly for breakfast and coffee and loved the point system through the app. This sparked my interest as a very casual McDonald's-goer at best.
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Likes and Dislikes
I like the reward system. It is easy to collect points and receive rewards. I also like that I can use my account to earn points in the physical store as well.
I don’t like the lack of cancellation. If I am driving home and accidentally allow my food to be ordered to a location near my car's location, as opposed to near my home, it is impossible to cancel my order or change the location of my order.
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I dislike the number of clicks to order. It takes far too many clicks (taps) to order a single item.
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Initial Assessment
I then performed a basic assessment of the app using my running knowledge and current experience using it. This was to find some of the surface level issues of the app that could help leverage refinement of the app later on.​
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Ease of Use
Finding what you want to order.
The products are categorized and organized in a way to maximize efficiency when looking for a specific item.
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Using coupons/rewards
McDonald's makes BOGO coupons simple buy giving you the only options that are possible to choose from instead of making you apply the coupon after your selections have already been made.
Difficulty of Use
Finding the "My Bag" button.
The button itself gets a little lost on the page and doesn't quite stand out enough for everyone to find easily.
Cancellation.
The UI for changing locations is confusing and either does not exist after a confirmed order or is extremely difficult to access.
UX Usability Principles
Next, I refined and determined a set of 5 UX usability principles that, in my professional opinion, best represented the McDonald's Corporation. These set the basis for the best practices in which the McDonald's app should be operating.
Heuristic Evaluation
To further evaluate the usability of the McDonald's app, I used this set of 5 usability principles to help detect usability problems before potentially bringing in actual users.
My Methodology
1.) Setting the heuristics to base my evaluation on (The 5 Usability Principles)
2.) Prepare 3-5 questions pertaining to each heuristic.
3.) Create an Excel spreadsheet. This contained the questions, whether it upheld that principle, what the specific problem was, how severe that problem was, and finally my recommendation to create a better user experience based on that heuristic.
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As a UX designer I am able to bring a perspective from the unseen user. I put myself in the shoes of the different types of people that could be using this application and use my knowledge of usability and design to refine and improve areas of the application that seem “fine” from the viewpoint of a single user.
My Findings
After thoroughly evaluating the McDonald's app, it held up well to the evaluation overall, but there is still room for improvement.
The green are areas that have 0 issues and are done excellently.
The Yellow areas are places that are okay, but certainly not done perfectly.
The Red area is where there is important improvement that needs to be made
Main Issues
1.) Store location: There is no way to cancel a “completed” order or change locations when and order is already “completed.”
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2.) The Home page: I would deem it as unnecessary and distracting. Especially when it contains information that is already currently held under the pages of the categories in the navigation bar.
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Results:
16 upheld Well (Good)
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7 upheld okay (Okay)
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1 failed to uphold (Bad)
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Insights and Recommendations
After thorough analysis and the Heuristic Evaluation, these are my insights and recommendations on what McDonald's does well and should continue to do and what is done poorly from a usability standpoint with specific changes to make.
Continue to Do Well
1.) Keep the familiarity and flow. The user flow of the app is almost identical to the user flow of ordering in a physical location. Including the “Make it a meal” option and the overall feel, colors, imagery, etc.
2.) Keep the language. In English, the language is easy to understand and straight to the point. It aids in work flow and is identical to the experience in a physical McDonald’s Location.
My Recommended Changes
1.) Add a warning message that you aren’t using your typical location. Add either a cancellation button or a "change location" button once the user has already confirmed their order and/or is headed to a location for pickup.
Users should feel in control and always need a way out. without it, they won’t want to use the app and might stop buying from McDonald’s altogether
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Before
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After
Before
After
2.) Remove the current home tab and make "Menu" the "Home" tab. It is unnecessary and disrupts the users flow to reach their goal of purchasing food. The advertisements and repeated navigation are overwhelming to the user.
Before
This change would bring the user directly to the menu to find their way to the item(s) they are looking to purchase.
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For specific or seasonal items and deals, McDonald's could potentially make use of a loading screen advertisement when the app is first opened and starting up.
After
3.) Change the "Earn Points" icon to the "M" coin and the "Rewards & Deals icon to a coupon. With the rewards being such a driving factor of the app and attraction to new potential users, like it was for me, it should be branded better and clear on the navigation bar.
Before
Currently, a QR code is displayed as the "Earn Points" navigation icon. For new users especially, this is unclear as to what it does and how it's used. Its purpose is to scan a QR code at a physical McDonald's restaurant, but that shouldn't be the icon, as the goal is to earn points. Since McDonald's already uses an "M" coin for the points and reward system, I recommend this coin to be the icon for "Earn Points".
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In this case, it seems that "Rewards & Deals" uses that coin going into a slot for its icon, but it's not entirely clear. It looks more like a "Donation" icon. Instead, I recommend a coupon icon to better connect with the real world of using coupons. Users will feel more comfortable and instantly recognize a coupon as the place to go to look for deals and rewards.
After
Learnings and Suggestions
What did I learn and gain from this usability assessment and how would I continue this work?
Learnings and Takeaways
1.) Small details make all the difference. Most of my recommendations are changes that are relatively minor. The changes mainly capitalize on what McDonald's is excelling at already, and implements it into areas of the app that are lacking. I know that these small changes could make the McDonald's app significantly better and they're all details that are easy to adjust and refine.
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2.) There are effective ways to test a product's/system's usability without user testing. I will certainly be using practices such as Heuristic Evaluation and Journey Mapping to test the usability of a product/system from a fundamental standpoint before needing to bring in users to test the product/system and interview. In this assessment, I was able to find flaws and make professional recommendations for the app without the bringing in users to test the app.
Beyond this Assessment
Without the constraints of time and resources, I would move on to conducting user testing as well as user interviews involving the "Home" page. I would continue to iterate on this problem area and listen to the feedback from real users to learn how useful/useless or distracting the "Home" page truly is. I would oversee and analyze its importance to the user flow. I believe this is an important change to make, but it is a significant change that needs testing and analysis to deem a truly necessary upgrade.