Monical’s Pizza is a family-oriented pizza franchise with roughly 65 locations in the Midwest. The franchise business has a single web site at MonicalsPizza.com to serve patrons of all locations. While this helps the business to maintain a consistent brand across all franchises, it also adds to the complexity of finding a location and placing an online order for delivery.
Based on the findings from user testing results, the focus of this redesign is to improve the ordering process for all customers. Specifically, the redesign will address three main issues that were confronted by all three users during testing. These include:
- the time-consuming and confusing process of choosing the closest Monical’s Pizza location prior to being able to place an order,
- the inability to save order information such as address, credit card data, or closest Monical’s location,
- the time-consuming process of selecting menu items and building an order (especially for habitual people who frequently order the same type of pizza).
All three participants indicated that the ordering process required far too much typing or clicking. This redesign intends to resolve these issues by focusing on automating some of the ordering process and making repeat orders less time-consuming.
Issue #1: Finding the Closest Monical’s Pizza Location
Before a customer can place an order at monicalspizza.com, she must first identify the closest Monical’s location. While this may be an obvious task for customers in some locations, there are 50 locations in Illinois. It could be confusing for customers located in an area that has more than one Monical’s Pizza restaurant. It could also be confusing for customers who are new to their area of residence.
Solution:
Implementing HTML5 geolocation would allow the user to provide her geographical position to the web application if she desired. This would speed up the ordering process and lessen any confusion about proximity of locations. If the user provided her geographical position, the web application could then detect the location and automatically pick the appropriate Monical’s location for the customer.
Issue #2: Can’t Save Location or Preferences for Future Orders
In addition to the complexity of choosing a location, the site also lacks any feature to save the location for future orders. This means that each time a customer visits MonicalsPizza.com, she is forced to re-enter information required to place her order including:
- choosing a Monical’s Pizza location,
- providing address information,
- providing payment information, and
- re-selecting favorite or frequently ordered items.
Solution:
Allowing customers to create an account could eliminate the need to provide order information and select a location every time they place an order online. As part of this redesign, the ability to create an account and login to order will be added to the site. When a customer creates an account, she will be presented with the closest home location based on her geographical position. This will be saved as her preferred restaurant location. She can manually change this by editing her account information at any time.
In addition, she will also be able to store her address information, payment information, and frequently ordered menu items. This would help decrease the amount of time future orders would take to place online.
Issue #3: The Order Process is Tedious and Time-Consuming
In addition to requiring customers to choose a location and enter address and payment information every time they place an order, the site also requires them to go through the process of selecting menu items. For one-time customers, this is an absolute necessity. However, for repeat customers who frequently order the same menu items, allowing them to store a favorite/frequent order would help to speed up the order process.
Solution:
If a customer orders a large pizza with mushroom, onions, and green olives every Friday, she should be able to save the item in her frequent orders list and schedule automatic ordering and delivery.
As part of the redesign proposal, the flow of ordering online would include the ability to automate frequent orders as well as reduce the number of clicks required to choose items and place an order.
Summary
By implementing the three solutions described in this design document, Monical’s Pizza could reduce the customer’s time spent on locating a restaurant and placing an order. The ordering process would be streamlined and simplified and would cater to repeat customers. Since it takes more money and effort to create new customers, it makes financial sense to cater to existing customers to encourage repeat orders. By adding these features that allow customers to repeat previous orders easily, they are more likely to order in the future and remain loyal to Monical’s Pizza.
Overview
Monical’s pizza is a restaurant operating in the Midwest with locations in Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. The restaurant is family-oriented and has grown significantly over the past five years with the opening of many new locations. The business’ quick growth has likely left the owners scrambling to find a way to maintain the restaurant’s brand and keep their processes similar across all of their locations.
All of the Monical’s locations use the same web site. This helps the owners to maintain control over Monical’s Pizza’s brand. However, multiple restaurant locations poses a problem when trying to target their customers. Customers are required to find and choose their location before placing an order online.
Although web site visitors can order pizza online, the process the visitor goes through to select their location and order a pizza is very tedious and disorganized. The site requires them to choose their state and then find their location before they can even begin placing their order. It definitely doesn’t meet the 3-click rule in that regard.
Target Audience and Purpose
Individuals representing a wide range of demographics use this site to order pizza, Italian dishes, salads, appetizers and desserts. These individuals enjoy pizza or Italian cuisine and the convenience of not having to cook dinner. Some order for their entire family, while others order for themselves because they feel it’s a waste to prepare and cook a meal for a single person. Ordering in is a convenient date night option for couples and a great catering option for business gatherings and large groups.
The demographic of the primary audience includes individuals aged 19-35. Generally, as adults age they try to eat healthier foods that are lower in calories and fat compared to pizza (the main product of Monical’s Pizza).
The Organization’s Brand
Monical’s Pizza began as a family-owned and family-oriented restaurant. They try to maintain that brand identity by offering specials geared towards families and their communities. The owners named their products with titles such as ‘Family Pleaser,’ and offer a separate menu for kids. They call their restaurant the ‘Home of the Family Pleaser’ and encourage visitors to ‘Join [their] Facebook family.’ They also include a section on their site for games that the whole family can enjoy.
Monical’s Pizza also takes an active role in supporting the community by sponsoring local youth athletic programs and hosting banquet dinners. Some of the other community efforts they support include the D.A.R.E. graduation recognition program, reading programs, and lamaze programs for new parents.
The Competition
Main competitors of Monical’s Pizza include:
- Domino’s
- offers online ordering
- coupons/specials/deals
- account/signin
- Unique: order tracking
- Pizza Hut
- offers online ordering
- coupons/specials/deals
- account/signin
- Unique: membership offers/rewards
- Papa John’s
- offers online ordering
- account/signin
- coupons/specials/deals
- membership rewards program
- Unique: advertise their mobile ordering app on their site, future ordering up to 21 days in advance, save favorite orders
- Little Caesar’s
- No online ordering, pick-up only
- coupons/specials/deals
- No account/signin/membership
- Giordano’s
- offers online ordering, but it’s getting a facelift and out of order right now
- coupons/specials/deals with subscription
- Unique: ship a pizza nationwide, send location to phone
- Several small non-franchised vendors
Goals
The goal for this project would be to redesign the web site to make the ordering process simpler for the web site visitor. This could be accomplished by including geolocation technology to help detect location information currently input by the user. By reducing the number of steps (and, in turn, clicks) the visitor experiences, visitors will be more likely to place an order than exit the site.
In addition, the building of an order, itself, needs to be simplified. It’s a confusing interface that requires picking items, sizes, and toppings, but not in a cohesive, organized way. Again, I think it would be possible to help guide the user through the process with a more adaptive interface. Order options can be presented based on previous choices made by the visitor, instead of forcing them to consider every option regardless of its relevance to their selections.
Testing Script
Scenario
The goal of this initiative is to make the process of ordering dinner, a Monical’s pizza, online quick and easy for you. You may be sitting in the comfort of your own home or you might be leaving work and on-the-go. Regardless, ordering a pizza from your mobile device or desktop computer should be straightforward and painless.
Questions and Tasks
- Your favorite pizza is a meat lover’s pizza but you just started dating a vegetarian. Place an online order for a half-and-half large pizza. Add all of your favorite meats to your half and add only onions, green peppers, and olives to the other half. Place your order and exit the site.
- You just moved to a new area and want to thank your movers for helping you by ordering in pizza and appetizers. Since you’re new to the area of Urbana, Illinois, you will need to find the closest Monical’s restaurant before placing your order. You will also need to register for a customer account. Create an account and find the restaurant closest to you. Once you’ve selected your restaurant, order 24 hot wings with ranch dressing, and a 16″ Cheese pizza. Place your order.
- You and your husband stepped outside your comfort zone last time you ordered pizza and really loved the flavor of the new topping choices you made. The problem is, you don’t remember what toppings you ordered. Access your order history to find out what toppings you ordered during your last order, make the same order and checkout.
- You just finished placing your order within the last five minutes when the doorbell rings and Aunt Betty is at the door with a bucket of KFC and a jug of her famous homemade sweet iced tea. You need to cancel your order quickly! Log in and find your recent order and cancel the order. Check your e-mail to ensure the order was confirmed as canceled and log out.
- It’s 6 a.m. and you just finished working the graveyard shift and you’re starving. You don’t think that Monical’s Pizza is open and delivering at 6 a.m. but you wouldn’t want to miss out if they were! Log in and try to place an order at 6 a.m. If you are unable to place an order, schedule the order in advance for 5p.m. tonight, just in time to eat before your next shift.
- You and your family are outrageously hungry after a day at the indoor waterpark. Since you’ve dropped a ton of cash on amusement activities today, you really want the best deal you can find for dinner. Find the specials on Monical’s Pizza’s web site, place a qualifying order and enter the discount code to receive the discounted special price. Place the order and exit the site.
- Twenty minutes ago you placed an order for a large pizza for two. Your friend just called to say that she won’t be able to make it for dinner. Log in to find your recent order and try to change your order from a large pizza to a medium pizza.
Subject Profiles
| Participant | Age | Gender | Technological Background | Demographics |
| Justin | 30 | Male | Justin is very tech-savvy and experienced. He uses the Internet frequently for various tasks from research to online banking. He also uses a tablet and smartphone. | Justin was raised in Canada and now lives in West Central Illinois. He works as an Assistant State’s Attorney for County Government. He is married, without children, and enjoys the convenience of ordering take-out or delivery. He rarely cooks because he doesn’t have the time between working and training for an IronMan. |
| Zach | 22 | Male | Zach is very tech-savvy and grew up using the Internet. He also fixes computers in his spare time and loves tinkering with electronics equipment. | Zach is a student currently studying electrical engineering at the University of Illinois. He is single and spends most of his time studying, in class, or at work. He doesn’t make a lot of money and doesn’t have much free time so he often picks up fast food or orders in pizza for himself or for a group of college friends. |
| Angie | 38 | Female | Angie uses the Internet for social purposes, but says that technology is like a foreign language for her. She would much rather call someone than text and she doesn’t have a tablet or higher end smartphone. | Angie works part-time at a veterinary office, but spends the rest of her time caring for her 5-year-old twins. She is married to a police officer who often works late hours and isn’t home for dinner. She frequently orders pizza for her and the kids and sometimes orders delivery for date nights with her husband. |
Testing Results
Results from Participant #1
Justin had no troubles placing an order but was annoyed at the length of time it took and was frustrated with how the site operated on his smartphone. He felt it wasn’t functional on the phone and switched to a desktop computer near the start of the testing script to avoid frustration. He thought the process of creating a half-and-half pizza (different toppings for each half) was very easy and liked the interface of that part of the process. He said given the time it took to order, put in all of his information, and find his location he would have just phoned the restaurant instead.
Results from Participant #2
Zach had no troubles placing an order but hoped to find a coupon or discount code for students. He overlooked the promotional code displayed on the screen at first. When he did find it he said it looked more like an advertisement than a discount or coupon, which is why he initially ignored it. He thought it would be better if the site had a specific coupon section or an option to select that you’re a student if student discounts were offered. He also said he doesn’t always have his debit card with him so he wished there was an option to pay cash upon delivery instead. Lastly, Zach said it would be nice to be able to check on the order status to find out when the pizza is coming because he often has the music cranked up and sometimes worries about not hearing the doorbell.
Results from Participant #3
Angie had trouble finding the “Order Online” button to begin the process. She also had to restart the order process because she was interrupted by her young children. She was frustrated that she couldn’t save any of her order details and had to reselect everything, including her location.
Shared Results
All participants felt that the order process took too long to complete and felt it could be shortened for future orders if they had a way to create an account and save their information or preferences.
Issues with Current Site
Results of testing suggest that Monical’s Pizza’s current web site makes the order process very tedious for visitors. The results correlate with several functional features missing including:
User Preference Tracking
The site doesn’t offer the ability to create an account or save preferences. Each time a customer orders he/she has to select his/her location and start anew. There’s no ability to save a home location or favorite/frequent order.
Geolocation Detection
Although they offer a way to look up the closest location by zip code, Monical’s could save the customer more time by offering to automatically detect the customer’s location and find the nearest restaurant.
Ease of Custom Orders
The process for creating a custom online order takes far too many clicks. It needs to be simplified by allowing the customer to quickly create custom orders and add items to their cart without having to navigate through many different pages. Having a saved ‘favorite/frequent’ order could also help minimize the amount of work the customer needs to do to place a regular order.
Recommendations
Features Needed to Meet Goals
In order to meet the need of making online orders quick and easy for the customer, the web site will need the following features:
- Ability to create an account to save order history
- Ability to save favorite/frequent orders so reordering future orders can be done in a single click for habitual customers
- Ability to detect closest location based on geolocation technology to make identifying the closest location easier for the customer
- Ability to customize orders by adding and removing pizza toppings easily, splitting toppings by halving pizzas
- Ability to check on progress of order by logging in and viewing the current status
- Ability to easily use on-the-go on a mobile device (large button interface that’s easy to navigate and interact with)
- Ability to cancel or modify an order within 5 minutes of placing the order
- Ability to schedule and cancel orders up to 30 days in advance and schedule repeat orders to automatically charge and deliver
Measuring Success of Implemented Recommendations
Success will be measured by a customer’s ability to:
- Customize his/her order without confusion or limitations
- Create and cancel a repeat order
- View the status of his/her order
- Create an order while commuting and using a mobile device
Success will also be measured by the number of:
- Orders placed in given time periods (comparing month-to-month)
- Repeat orders placed by customer
- Members/Accounts
- Sales (Quantity of total sales and total revenue per sale in given time periods – month-to-month)
- Incomplete transactions/abandoned shopping carts
- Minutes it takes for customer to complete order from start to finish