How This UX Researcher Would Revolutionize Uber Eats with a Game-Changing Feature
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Complete interview transcript & analysis below
Enhanced transcript with interviewer insights
INTERVIEWER
Um, OK, so this is a more vague. Question and it's designed, well, it doesn't matter it's, it's more, it's more of kind of a Uh, do you have an iPhone or Android phone that you use every day?
CANDIDATE
Uh, yes, an iPhone.
INTERVIEWER
iPhone, perfect. So. Uh, pick an app on the phone that you use every day because you love it, not because you have to. So like, FaceTime doesn't count, mail doesn't count, right? But an app that you Made the decision to download because you love the experience and it can't be your current company's app either. And yeah, um, and I want you to First, let's start with, what's the app and why do you love it?
CANDIDATE
I would say practically speaking, it would be Uber Eats.
INTERVIEWER
Lost you again. I, hold on, I lost you at Uber Eats.
CANDIDATE
OK, um, OK, I I'm gonna move over in my building closer to the router, so hopefully that that helps.
INTERVIEWER
Uh, it could be a router. It could also just be you're on a shared line for your building and right now you're super backlit, by the way, so that's not, it's a terrible video experience. OK, there you go. Much better.
CANDIDATE
OK. So, yeah, I was saying that um Uber Eats is the app, and I would say that uh the reason why I love it is I'm too busy to, to cook. So in grad school, like I generally made a homemade meal every day. Um, but then since I started working, that wasn't really feasible, um, for many reasons. And so, um, I feel like Uber Eats allows me to still eat healthy. Even though I have kind of time constraints that don't allow me to be able to cook homemade meals. So, um, so yeah, so that would be the app that I would say realistically at the moment.
Interviewer Insight
this is definitely a personal choice for the candidate - which is a good starting point - but the candidate did not openly ask whether or not this might have been tried and rejected by the company before. It's almost too obvious an answer to have not been considered by the team.
INTERVIEWER
I don't actually don't usually know the name of the company that is mentioned because it's a small selection of apps that people use. I don't, I actually don't know who is the CEO of Uber Eats. Um, but let's pretend I did. Joe, uh, Joe is head of product at Uber Eats, and Joe has found you somehow. You got a phone call and he says, Jonathan. I hear you are a super talented guy, but I also most importantly hear that you'd love our app. We have a design sprint coming up. Where we have surprisingly free resources. So I would like you to tell me what feature you would propose that we design and build for this app to satisfy users like yourself.
CANDIDATE
Yeah. I would say, um, a feature that I would be really interested in having is something that allows me to know like kind of new restaurants that appear on the app. A lot of times I can kind of just resort to a lot of the same restaurants. So like, there might be like my favorite Indian restaurant or my favorite Thai restaurant, etc. but I would love for them, for there to be a feature as the new company is on board with the app to um To share that information with users, um, which I haven't seen. So if that, that does exist to make that feature a bit more prominent or to develop that feature, um, if it doesn't exist. And so that way um I can try out new restaurants in the city from the comfort of my own home.
Interviewer Insight
as a researcher it is interesting that the candidate doesn't consider that user behavior tends to trend toward routine and not constant discovery of the new.
INTERVIEWER
Why do you think this would be something worth pursuing?
CANDIDATE
Um, I think that it would be great for your, for the user or for the customer because again like they would be able to um, be able to order from different restaurants in the city, um, and they would be able to learn more. Like, so for example, if there were a new Italian restaurant, they would be able to, to, to try it out and they would, it would be easy to find. And I think it would be great for the companies as well because a lot of times when you're a new company on an existing platform, um, it's hard to generate traffic. Because people are so familiar with the com with the restaurants that they usually eat at. And so, um, to be able to be featured relatively prominently on the app, it might um lead more customers to try out this new place, which is great for the business and then great for the user or the customer because they, they get to try out the new place that, um, no one's tried yet.
Interviewer Insight
this is not good for UberEats unless it has a direct impact of reducing customer acquisition costs, reducing churn in the customer base, increasing order frequency, or increasing average order size.
INTERVIEWER
Well, you are stating a logical way. That this would be good for the business. Why would this be good for the business?
CANDIDATE
Um, so when I was saying business, I was, I was thinking the restaurant, the new restaurant, but I think it would be good. So
INTERVIEWER
you, you, OK.
CANDIDATE
Yeah, I think it would be good for the business Uber Eats because it would make it a more dynamic experience. I think that users, depending on the market that you live in, so I'm currently not at home, but I live in Las Vegas and there's always new restaurants coming up and so to be able to know what the new restaurant is to Able to to order from there um and try it out, I think that it would make it a more dynamic experience, especially in cities like Las Vegas or San Francisco that are kind of filled with, with many restaurants and new restaurants and people always wanting to explore what those new culinary experiences are. So,
INTERVIEWER
so I'm gonna challenge that statement because 222 issues. One, I want you to address the paradox of choice and how that might impact customers actually using the app or not. But two, Uh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna argue that Las Vegas, San Francisco, even Los Angeles. I don't know the answer. I'm going to hypothesize that they don't represent a significant enough portion of actual total orders to be a standing statement of as far as market penetration goes, that I, as the Uber Eats guy cares that there's new restaurants popping up all the time in Vegas. Maybe I do, maybe I don't. They might be organized internally by cities. I don't know, and so I'm just gonna, I'm gonna push that aside and willfully ignore that fact. So, but just kind of walk me through how, how you would address the. Potentiality for paradox of choice becoming an issue in this regard uh for the for the end user, but also. Defend the statement that I care as the head of Uber Eats uh product. I care that Vegas has a uh a restaurant turnover challenge when in reality, uh, Peoria, that's always the city we use when we talk about everyday America, but Peoria probably does not.
CANDIDATE
Yeah, um, so just to clarify, by paradox of choice, you mean like kind of having a larger amount of choice actually confines your, your,
INTERVIEWER
it causes, it causes the customers to shut down, right? They got, you know, you take someone from Pakistan who's grown up in Pakistan, who's gone to grocery stores in Pakistan their whole life, and they've had a choice for soap or two and they come to, you know, a king's. Supers here in in Boulder, Colorado, and they go, I don't, you have a whole row for soap. How do you make a decision? This is crazy, right? It's right,
CANDIDATE
right. So I think that there are different ways that you can incentivize um users in that regard, um, which the company already does. So for example, like having free delivery options for new restaurants or maybe having like a 5%. Off coupon, uh, for new restaurants that would incentivize users to um actually want to order from those restaurants rather than kind of going to their, uh, restaurant that they're most familiar with or the restaurant that they're most accustomed to ordering from. So I think that there are ways that you can still incentivize users while increasing the, the volume of options that they have at their disposal. So, um, And again, one of the benefits that the company already engages in some of the practices that would
Interviewer Insight
this did not address the core premise of paradox of choice.
INTERVIEWER
Lost your audio again. He was gone. Can you hear me?
CANDIDATE
You now.
INTERVIEWER
Oh, there you are. You're back.
CANDIDATE
OK, I can hear you now. Um.
INTERVIEWER
Are you connected? I've lost you again. Done. Go the 3 ft.
CANDIDATE
Um. Um, Are you able to hear me at all?
INTERVIEWER
Uh, yes.
CANDIDATE
OK, OK, um, yeah, I'm not sure what's going on. Um, so, yeah, so, um, uh, what part did it cut out, uh, when I was,
INTERVIEWER
uh, you just said it's, it's, uh, the restaurants providing them, uh, incentives. It moves customers off the city for common choice.
CANDIDATE
Yeah, so, um, so yeah, so I think, yeah, like having those incentives would get people to be more inclined to try out the new restaurants. And then I think, uh, oh, I wanted to ask a clarifying question around your second point. So were you saying that like in a place like Peoria, There are less new restaurants coming onto the marketplace that would not,
INTERVIEWER
yeah, it's, it's not only a function of less restaurants coming online, but like I think it's just your turnover of restaurants is probably lower. That's a guess. I don't know, uh, but I think it's a safe guess, uh, and your restaurant density is nowhere near what a place like San Francisco or Las Vegas would have, right, because you just have the population density of Vegas writ large by virtue of what Vegas offers, which is an entertainment product in San Francisco, which is more like. You know, New York, maybe Dallas, but there's very few cities in America that are like that, that are just vertically built and so dense with people, um, that necessitates a higher number of restaurants per capita or or per square mile than say, uh, Peoria, right? Or even, you know, where I live here. You know, in a 5 mile radius, I'm sure there's a large number of restaurants, but I'm guessing that it's, it's far fewer than what's available to you.
CANDIDATE
Yeah, well, I'm not sure about the, the total like kind of user statistics, but I would assume that um just as someone who doesn't drive and uses Uber, um, I would assume that Uber Eats is not that popular in kind of secondary markets like Peoria, um, for example, and the um. Yeah, so compared to like cities like Boston or DC or New York or LA, Vegas, etc. I don't think that much of the revenue is coming from kind of these smaller markets, and I think that even though it might not be fully applicable in a place like Peoria, um, The person still has access to the app and if they ever were to travel, for example, to Chicago, they'd be able to utilize this feature and I think that that could also be an exciting way for them to, like if they're not from Chicago, that can be an exciting way for them to learn about different restaurants in the city or like kind of new restaurants in the city to try out um and so. Yeah, I think that would be.
INTERVIEWER
OK. Uh.
Expert Assessment
Interviewer assessment - would be used in a hiring meeting
Another instance of the candidate not exploring beyond a very superficial analysis of what would be a new or novel change to an existing application. Candidate did not address core issues of whether this change would be good for the customer base beyond exploring their own personal biases. There was no discussion of utilization of metrics to govern the impact of the proposed change. Further, given the obviousness of the proposed change, the lack of the discussion as to whether this may have already been tried and rejected was a miss.