This article was translated from Britta Cheng’s article (with permission from the author)

Both Chinese and American food delivery software have a large number of users, but there are some interesting differences in user experience design between the two countries. This article introduces what I think is good in Chinese food delivery software.

The overview

There are two giants in China’s food delivery industry

Both apps offer on-demand delivery services, including takeaways, supermarket goods, fresh fruit and vegetables, over-the-counter medicines, drinks, bread and flowers. In other words, downloading either app is the equivalent of downloading GrubHub, UberEats/DoorDash, Instacart and PostMates in the US.

From a design and aesthetic point of view, it was difficult to design a simple and beautiful app because of the number of features, but they took a different approach and designed the app to provide users with an easy to use, good shopping experience for food delivery, which I really appreciate.

What did they do well?

1. Information transparency

A recent study found that there are several main reasons for users to give up payment in the checkout process:

  • 60% : extra costs are too high, such as distribution fees, taxes, etc.
  • 23% : unable to visually see or calculate the total order cost;
  • 18% : delivery time is too long;
  • 11% : think return policies are unfair or unsatisfactory;

Meituan and Ele. me have their own solutions to these problems. They show all the information up front, ensuring that users don’t get confused when billing. In fact, by estimating all of the hidden expenses and showing important information before billing, the user feels in control from the start of the purchase and believes that the product is trustworthy.

Instant feedback

In my previous article, I talked about the Instacart shopping experience, and one of the key points is that users don’t know what the minimum amount of spending is, and the app doesn’t provide any hint when the minimum amount of spending is met, but meituan and Ele. me have cleverly solved this problem.

Ele. me puts the total cost of the order in the TAB bar on the user’s selection page. Animations and color changes can clearly tell the user when the order reaches the minimum amount.

3. Seamless interaction

Remember what you took a screenshot of the last time you shopped on your phone? There are usually several reasons:

A. Share screenshots with friends or family

B. Feedback problems to after-sales service

Meituan and Ele. me have taken this detail into account, offering additional sharing and feedback tips when users take screenshots within their apps.

When users are familiar with an app, they want to be able to use it more efficiently. When users do things with an app, they want to be able to use it faster, and they want the app to respond to their actions in a timely manner. The actions mentioned above can be found elsewhere in the app, but the interaction combined with screenshots creates a smooth user experience and maximizes user productivity.

conclusion

Many product designers think Chinese apps have too many features and look ugly. Coincidentally, I recently read Jason Brush’s article on Amazon design theory:

Amazon’s success has taught us a hard theory in the design world: successful design is not necessarily beautiful. Of course, the notion that design was merely an aesthetic practice was debunked long ago, as research-oriented design became widely accepted. However, it remains a challenge for people to accept that a well-designed user experience may not look good.

In my opinion, Meituan Waimai and Ele. me are examples of great user experiences that don’t look pretty.