During my time at Shake Shack, I worked on a range of projects across the company’s three digital products (iOS, Web/Android and in-restaurant kiosks). I had worked closely on the launch of a new pricing communication message to customers ordering delivery on the Shake Shack app. This particular feature was launched in early 2024.
My goal was to determine the best level of guest-facing communication for price variation based on handoff mode. I needed to take these following considerations in mind...
My team and I had conducted a competitor audit to see how our competitors were conveying pricing differentiation across their digital platforms
We found that visibility ranged vastly across our competitors. This ranged from nesting the pricing differentiation message into the app’s terms and conditions to conveying this difference in a pop-up modal when switching from one handoff mode to another. These examples helped inform the designs that we ended up testing.
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Each option has a different way of displaying differentiated pricing between pick-up and Delivery.
To get a better sense of how customers would feel about the proposed designs, we decided to run a two-part research study using an unmoderated UX research tool called Playbook UX. My team and I screened users to ensure that they were familiar with food delivery apps.
All options were rendered as clickable prototypes –– one Android, three iOS. The reduce bias towards the brand, all Shake Shack branding was removed.
Each version would interrupt guests with modal when they switched from Pick-up to Delivery. Rather than going through an entire flow, guests would see a static screen. Each version contained different copy in the modal:
We had roughly 30 participants over 2 rounds of testing. Participants wanted to have enough information to understand the different pricing between order types in a clear, concise and visible format.
Our findings led us to discover that over 70% of participants would combine one or more options. Out of the participants who would combine either of the four options, the most common combination was Prototype B+C and A+D. The most common prototype used in combinations was Prototype B.
Although participants gravitated towards the pop-up modal in Prototype D, we ultimately went with Prototype B since it had the clearest language and did not disrupt the ordering flow compared to the other options. This option also required the least amount of tech effort, which would allow us to roll-out the differentiated pricing information to our users faster. The copy required some additional refinements to be more short, informative and concise.
To ensure a smooth design handoff, I worked with our engineering teams to deliver font and spacing specifications for this pricing communication experience on both our Web, Android and iOS delivery pages.
The design was handed off in early November 2023 and is currently live on the Shake Shack app.
