Swiggy Junior
UX CASE STUDY
Type: Individual Project Duration: 48 hours
GOAL
Imagining Swiggy Junior, a food ordering app for 4–8 year olds. It will be a separate app with special kid friendly menu, linked to the main Swiggy app of a parent. The young users will be able to browse menu, add items to the cart and send them to their parents for approval and payment.
SCENARIO
Do you remember the days when you used to buy packets of chips just to collect PokemonTazos? At McDonalds, Kids can not just select a burger and a drink but also a toy as a part of this meal! Giving the choice of selection to kids made their ordering experience as exciting as eating the special meal.
Now imagine a world where there are many restaurants offering similar thoughtfully crafted meals for kids. Swiggy, as the leader of food delivery in India, would definitely want to include such special menus and offer them as a kid-friendly package for our young users.
ASKING
THE RIGHT QUESTIONS
The What, how & why
WHAT
What do we need to do here? What do users want?
The primary users here being 4-8 year olds and 'customers' being their parents. It is a known fact that kids and toddlers as young as 2-3 year olds, upto the age when they get their own smartphones, operate the parents smartphones. They are fairly familiar with the operations and use of applications on the phone.
As 90s kids, most of us have memories of buying snacks for the freebies and toys we get with it, which, mind you, was always updated to suit the hot and popular cartoons at the time. There is little to no change in this strategy that FMCG goods, especially packed food and snack brands employ in the current day and age. Don't we all know a kid who is obsessed with kinder joy? This strategy of creating surprises and delights for the young users has proven to be fruitful, not only for the providers, but also the consumers who are left with a 'happy' experience.
Swiggy had the idea of employing this delightful experience for kids while ordering food for delivery, and rightfully so; why should this experience be limited to ordering on the counter of a fast food chain in person or buying packets of chips and chocolates off supermarket racks. So the WHAT here becomes, creating an interactive and kid-friendly experience while ordering special meals curated by restaurants for kids on the Swiggy app.
HOW
How do young users order food currently? or do they?
The findings from a study, suggests that food ordering by pre-teens in the age group of 12 and above is done independently on the application, with either the phone being passed to the parent for payment and confirmation or the order payment being automatically processed from the saved card details or available pay balance in the parents account.
Since our target users fall in the age group of 4-8 year olds, a qualitative survey focussed on this segment will be conducted to understand the HOW.
WHY
Why does the User need this?
Ordering food online has seen a massive rise in recent times, with people being confined to their homes and the not-so-great times we are going through as human race. While adults have the option to order food on applications tailored to suit their preferences, the same experience is lacking for the young users. The aspirations and motivators are different for each of these user segments.
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The intent is to create a digital space where young kids can experience the excitement they feel while ordering food at the counter of a fast food chain; the pointing fingers at the fancy graphics on the banner or screen display, the curating of toys with the meal, requesting for extra ketchup packets, all inclusive.
This gives us a clear problem statement to work with:
INTENT
DESIGN A DELIGHTFUL EXPERIENCE IN THE FORM OF A DIGITAL APPLICATION FOR YOUNG USERS AGED 4-8 YEARS WHO WANT TO ORDER FOOD ONLINE
FOR
HAVING GOAL
* for Swiggy
Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru,Kochi, Chennai.
GETTING TO KNOW
THE USERS
To curate a new experience for young users on Swiggy, it is important to know the influence of the decision makers, in this case, the parents on the food ordering activity of the kids. A qualitative survey was conducted as primary research with participants falling in the defined category, to get an idea of the workings in each of their minds regarding ordering food online.
Parents
Young Kids
05
07
30-40 yrs
04-09 yrs
Some of the findings are:
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Verbal Choices: The kid is asked by the parent about what it is that they would like to have, and the parent orders those items for the kid along with their own order. The catch here is that the kid's answer is restricted to their memory of favourite foods, and even then sometimes not all of their favourites. This limits the kid's exploration and discovery of new dishes.
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See and Tell: While ordering food online, parents show their young kid the phone screen, where they can look at the images and ask for what they want.
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Parent's make the decision: Parents order food for their kid keeping their preferences and dietary restrictions in mind, without feeling the need to consult with their young kid as they know what is best for them.
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Fuss while ordering: Parents have stated that their kids create a fuss if they're given the freedom to order and if denied any item among the lot by the parent, and it takes away a lot of their time during a busy work day.
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Other Concerns:
"I'm able to alter the ingredients in what we cook commonly at home, to make sure that my daughter is able to have it, like less spices and chilli, smooth overcooked texture and so on. I am not able to do these alterations while ordering food for her online."
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"I try to not encourage ordering food online, my kids need to know the value of home cooked healthy meals, this is the age when they should get used to and start liking healthy greens."
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"I can't give fried and spicy food that we order online to my young kid, so I have to cook separately for my 5 year old son even when its an order-in night for the family."
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While most of the findings here help us validate the need for the problem statement, additionally it gives us numerous pointers to guide design thinking. Parents talk about their toddler being too young to perform the activity of ordering food on the current Swiggy app, which points to the kid's reading abilities, motor skills and intelligence.
WHILE DESIGNING
FOR 4-8 YEAR OLDS
For making better design decisions, I studied the aforementioned abilities of an average 4-8 year old kid. The cognitive and physical skills can differ drastically from one year to another.
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4yo
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5yo
* Participants from the qualitative survey
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6yo
7yo
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8yo
Reading and Writing: Proficiency in reading is different across the current age group. Common observations suggest the following:
4 years old | Late Pre-school:
Kids usually begin to speak words that rhyme, match some spoken and written words, write some alphabets, numbers, and words like their own name. Kid is used to seeing videos and rhymes on smartphones or tablets, can answer a call, use camera.
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5 years old | Jr.Kindergarten:
Write some alphabets and words, recognise familiar words in print, predict what can happen next in a story, identify and manipulate smaller sounds in speech, read words in isolation, able to predict sequences. Kid knows how to operate smartphone for calling, answering a call, pausing and playing videos, viewing images, playing simple games.
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6 years old | Sr.Kindergarten:
Read familiar stories, use pictures and context to understand new words, self correct while reading, start drawing to explain stories, can arrange a story in logical sequence.
Kid knows how to operate smartphone for calling, answering a call, searching a video on youtube, opening gallery and viewing images, playing simple games.
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7 years old | 1st Grade Primary:
Read longer books independently, read with emphasis and expression, can write words and frame small sentences, understand humour in text, write their own story in a logical sequence. Kid can operate the smartphone without assistance to an extent.
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8 years old | 2nd Grade Primary:
Explore and understand not only stories, but other texts like poem and fiction, understand relation between objects, able to extract information for text for instance, fact from science book. An average 8 year old in todays time, is able to operate the smartphone for most operations without assistance.
Before kid's learn to read, they might start with phonics/game apps, since they cannot read yet. To accommodate accessibility across thr 4-8yrs age group, special attention should be given to make it easy for early readers. Visual elements could be used to communicate certain textual cues better.
From the age of 4 years and onwards (until 12years) the main hand gestures when interacting with an app become more standardised. Here I have mapped the comfort of performing each gesture based on the kid's age.
Focus can be on broader gestures, like tapping, swiping and rotating the phone rather than pinching, drag and drop, flick etc. We can design for the use of full hand gestures, since kids using their 'thumb and index only' while using a touch based interface like adults do, is not common
CONSOLIDATING
THE NEEDS
Based on the given scenario, qualitative evidence, user stories and study of the primary user's abilities and constraints, I was able to identify the key requirements to be incorporated into my solution through affinity mapping.
1. Making a kid-friendly food ordering App.
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Interactions keeping in mind the motor, physical and reading capabilities of the young age group.
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Parents, the decision making customers in this scenario, would like if ingredient alterations suited to a child's needs is seamlessly available on the app.
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2. Adding Delight to the Experience.
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Adding surprise freebies and gifts to the service- assuming it will not be a business constraint for now.
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Brownie points if the app is able to educate the young user about healthy and non healthy eating habits.
IDEATION POINTERS
FOR THE APPLICATION
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Young Kids are less attracted to real-life product images as compared to food images from their favourite cartoons.
Cartoon and anime representation of food has gained popularity over the years. Right from Popeye inspiring us to eat our greens and the deliciousness that we would see in episodes of 'Tom and Jerry' in our times to the currently popular Peppa Pig, all of these become extrinsic motivators for young users.
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Young kids like feedback after every interaction. It could be audio, visual or even acknowledgement of any form.
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They expect to be rewarded.
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Young kids do not want to or cannot accurately verify the address, location and payment details.
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A kid could miss out on knowing their allergies or dietary restrictions, as the parents take care of this information.
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Young Kids like to imitate and participate in most of the activities that they see their parent or an adult performing.
BUILDING
THE STORY
ACTIVITY:
A young User ordering food online on a food delivery application.
ACTORS:
PARENT
KID (4-8 yo)
Parent can install the app on their smartphone
The parent signs-in using their swiggy account/ otp or password
Parent sets up the kid's account, adds their name, age, food favourites and allergies, if any.
It is now completely fool-proof and safe to hand over the application use to the kid.
Delights
Young User explores the application with their already set up account.
They can change the avatar to their favourite character.
The Home screen displays food options according to the time of the day: Breakfast, Brunch, lunch, snacks or Dinner
Spotlights are character based curations of food dishes provided by restaurants.
Spotlights appear based on predictions based on the young user's age group, the most popular cartoons and characters among kids in that particular age group, or interests that have been entered under account details.
The kid can choose to directly order the desired meal option, learn to cook that particular food item via a short interactive cooking game or interact with ingredients involved and customise their order.
Once sent to cart, the young user can click on 'Ask to Buy' which will send the order details to the linked swiggy account belonging to the parent.
Freebie gifts like cartoon character sticks, if applicable can be claimed at this time.
Details like how healthy a particular meal is, whether it falls under vegetarian or non-vegetarian is reflected in each food order card.
The food order cards in the cart will be on standby up until the parent has confirmed the order from their end.
LOW FIDELITY
ARRANGEMENTS
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Larger Font size to ensure good readability for early readers.
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Bright colours used in digital real estate meant to drawn focus during the process of ordering food.
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Arrows used to guide with directions, scrolls and gesture based interactions required.
VISUAL
ELEMENTS
RAPID
PROTOTYPING
Click for Prototype
The young user is able to easily browse through the food highlights in ‘HOME’ which is curated as per their preferences , history of ordering and favourites entered by their parent at the time of ‘signing up.’
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Any allergens mentioned by the parent also helps in clearing dishes with those ingredients, thus making it safe for the child to use and order without assistance.
There is a lot of excitement when a dish the kid watches in one of their favourite shows, is now available for you to order!
The young user can select the dishes they want easily from this menu, can add it to the ‘ask to buy’ cart or even go ahead and click on ‘cook’. This leads them to a interactive game where they learn to cook that particular dish.
Customisation is included to directly solve one of the pain points mentioned in the qualitative research. Brownie points for this feature as the young users get even more chances to play and interact while ordering their meal.
Finally the order reaches the young user’s food basket, from here it goes to the twiggy account of the parent that has been linked to the kid’s account.
Features like check how healthy a meal is, get into the details of it are all thought of here.
Personal Greeting// Kids's Name
For Parent to change settings/ add or edit linked accounts
Meal Plans according to the 'time of the day'
Search
Popular// Favourites
Wide Bottom navigation bar
Spotlight menu is based on the young users ‘age’ and the popular cartoons among kids of that age group. Character based meals and packages are served by restaurants.
Cook and play // Add to cart
Home
Curated meals
Menu List
Selection of Order
Customisation of Order
The Cart