Hot Potato — Mobile app for fast food restaurant chain
Mobile app for fast food restaurant chain
About product
A restaurant chain app for ordering meals for delivery or pickup across 270+ food spots with over 400,000 monthly active users.
We took on an unfinished application at the MVP stage, which had been developed for 4 years by another company that left behind a lot of low-quality code. Our team had to seamlessly take over the project that was started by the previous contractor and ensure the app’s release and the required SLA. The client assigned us a range of different tasks:
- Creating loyalty program-related functionality;
- Implementing and supporting new functionality to raise sales and the average check size;
- Providing the functionality for the mobile app infrastructure, including optimization and administration;
- Guaranteeing KPI for stability, responsiveness, application speed, number of errors, and negative reviews related to improper functioning.
){kind=icon}
8 persons
){kind=icon}
12/2023 – now
What was the task
We started off by auditing and improving user scenarios. We optimized the existing scenarios, implemented new scenarios, and disabled the inefficient ones. UX/UI had been designed based on the product requirements – we adapted the old layouts and ironed out the design, rendering the user’s path to placing an order as comfortable and short as possible. For example, we removed the meal filtering and sorting function by price, calorie, and available promotions, as the function wasn’t working. We added menus, promotions, and coupons so the products to ensure the best deals were easy to find and could be selected immediately, without requiring any unnecessary clicks. Moreover, we integrated popular products on the main page to facilitate the user’s choice based on other customers’ recommendations.
The project architecture consists of two parts: the client’s backend + a mobile app backend. Our analysts prepared a technical specification for the app’s development and all further work was carried out in close cooperation with the backend developer of the restaurant chain’s IT team.
We had to refine most of the prior functionality, which wasn’t properly working due to poorly thought-out logic. We refactored the legacy code, which didn’t work on iOs, was never configured, and included many old libraries written by a previous developer. We switched the system to native modules, abandoning libraries that have not been supported for a long time, and wrote our own solutions.
- Updated the product to fit all Apple and Google technical requirements to run on the latest software versions. Fixed critical bugs, integrated actively with the backend, and now we are preparing the app to be uploaded to stores.
- Previously, the TestFlight service for app testing had been improperly configured. It didn’t load anything, so we revived the flow of the iOS versions to the tester and client.
- During the development process, we ran into some difficulties with the service, which is responsible for collecting app metrics. Connecting via the outdated library we inherited from the previous team did not work, so we rewrote the native modules for integrating the SDK from the service directly for Android and iOS. That allowed us to gather e-commerce event statistics (order payments) – who placed online orders when and how many.
- Initially, the app used the Geocoder API to convert addresses into coordinates when a user opened the map. We have switched to another service, which offers similar functionality but better terms for the client.
Now we continue on with the product’s development and are bringing it to release, adding new features to it.
Main functionality:
- Phone number login and guest access without an account
- Special offers (promotions and coupons)
- Menu sorted by food category
- Meal cards with a description and the price, composition, calorie content, and the option to add extra ingredients
- Creating and paying for delivery or pickup orders
- City map displays of restaurant locations
- Adding delivery addresses for orders
- Promo code entry
- Information about the order and its status: received, being prepared, ready, canceled, on the way, delivered
- Order history, for active and complete orders
- Receiving electronic checks via email
- Account settings: personal data, payment methods, order notifications, and email newsletters
- Contacting customer support: selecting the message subject, choosing the restaurant, and attaching photos
Interface
