Zomato has been the go-to choice for many people, especially bachelors who are staying away from family for the sake of a job, a new lifestyle, and getting out of their comfort zone. Just like Maggi, which has been the primary savior of people during late-night cravings/ no urgent delicacy availability, Zomato has also stepped up for the same cause.
However, Zomato has some good and bad features, for which I’ll be performing the heuristic evaluation of the app by following Jakob Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics of user interface.
1. Visibility of System Status
The system should always keep users informed about what is going on with the system through appropriate feedback within a reasonable amount of time.
- In the images, we can see that the status is updated from time to time. Whether it is about “packing your order”, “ready to be delivered” or “Food is being prepared”. The “coupon code” remains disabled until it is clicked and activated.
2. Match between the system and the real world
The system should speak the user’s language with words, phrases, and concepts familiar to the user rather than using system-oriented terms.
- The App uses a daily understandable English language.
- It also follows the order of operation procedure and what it means is one can choose one food item, add quantities and can proceed to check out. If the customer is not interested in between, he can also remove the food item from the cart. Similar to that of a restaurant.
3. User Control and Freedom
Users often choose system functions by mistake and need to be able to get out of the state that they’ve gotten themselves into. Through a clearly marked emergency exit or something similar.
- “Add more items” and “View Details” while checking out. Features like this help the customer in quick decision making if he/she needs to add more while not worrying about an already existing order being canceled.
4. Consistency and Standard
Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Also, it’s important to follow platform conventions.
- The app is consistent throughout the labels, fonts, and icons.
- The standard practice of “search bar on top” is followed to maintain the design consistency just like other applications.
5. Error Prevention
Even better than good error messages is a careful design that prevents a problem from occurring in the first place.
- The error prevention methods are good as is evident from the design. If a restaurant is not open, it is marked accordingly, and similarly, if the restaurant is about to close it is also marked as “Closes in 30 mins” which helps the customers plan ahead of time and not make errors with the timings.
- For any error during delivery, a voice record option for the address is also added.
6. Recognition rather than Recall
One wants to minimize the user’s memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another.
- People are more prone to remember a thing visually than with words or numbers. And Zomato did a good thing here by adding “visual elements” like the food images against its names. Although they could tell the restaurants to upload the original image, nevertheless it is an important feature.
- “The previous order” feature is another aspect under the “recognition”. People can reorder if they like the dish. So there is no need for them to recall the particular dish or restaurant’s name.
7. Flexibility and Efficiency of use
For not-so-new users, this is very helpful while navigating through the app. While new users might not recall the process, old or frequent users are acquainted with it.
- For a new user, the personalized feature works wonders and the new user then can navigate through the plethora of dishes or restaurants they’ve to provide.
- Similarly, the feature “Reorder” is a classic example of “efficiency and flexibility” as it saves a lot of time for the users.
- Saved card/ UPI details for easier checkout.
8. Aesthetic and Minimalist Design
Dialogue should not contain information that is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue or on a screen competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.
- The app does a decent job for a minimal design. The UI is not very cluttered but can be overwhelming at times for new users.
9. Error Recovery
Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors. Error messages should be expressed in plain language, no codes, no programmers speak, precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.
- The application makes sure that there is no error in adding or removing or during checkout. If certain payment methods are unavailable, they are make sure to mark it beforehand which they do by following the 5th point of “Error prevention”
10. Help and Documentation
Though it’s better if the system can be used without any documentation, it sometimes may be necessary to provide help and documentation.
- Easy to navigate for any help by contacting the customer service over chat and overall there is no need for documentation as the “user flow” is well-defined and any new or old user wouldn’t necessarily face any issues.
Conclusion
So my conclusion will be that it’s good to use Zomato and any novice who is exposed to the internet and apps can easily navigate through it.
Zomato as it is today, is doing good and its customer experience is also doing great. The few things that could make it better are mentioned in the above heuristics and if the app can work on slow internet as not many parts of the city have proper availability of internet bandwidth.
