Starbucks’ iOS app must have a zero percent sign-up rate for Canadians
Or why user-testing is so important
Recently I moved to Canada (wohoo!) and now I’m doing all the techie stuff like installing apps, getting loyalty cards or both in one. Doing that I yesterday ran into a funny — or actually not so funny — problem with the Starbucks Coffee app for iOS.
While trying to sign up I was asked to enter my postal code, which is:
V3N 0A2
Now have a look below at the screen I was shown:
Makes sense?
You sure?
What if I show you this annotated screenshot now?
Doesn’t make so much sense now, does it? How do I enter the letters, if the app only offers me the numeric keyboard…? Exactly.
First I thought I downloaded the US app but I triple-checked that I used the Canadian App Store. I even deleted the app, restarted my phone, and reinstalled the app. Same problem.
Conclusion
Always user-test your apps with the correct target audience
Thorough user-testing should be part of any design process. Now when the excuse should be that there’s neither time nor money for this (which is a really bad excuse by itself), then at least do it guerrilla style: walk over to your colleague’s desk, visit the cafeteria or go to a coffee shop and simply ask somebody to quickly give it a try. You’ll be surprised what the findings will be.
How to sign up anyway
It’s possible but of course it adds a hurdle
Use the Starbucks.ca website to sign up from your iOS device. They will display the normal keyboard there — even for the postal code. Or sign up from a desktop computer.
Oh, and yes, I did ask Starbucks about it but still have to hear back from them.
Update 1 from May 9, 2016: Apparently the attentive folks at Starbucks did read my article and promised:
Thank you, Starbucks Coffee!
Update 2 from May 10, 2016: Starbucks got back to me a second time:
Via direct message they then explained the following to me:
Hey! Thanks for getting back to me so fast! I reached out to our digital team and the team who own account creation and they helped solve this issue!
When you download the Starbucks app from the US, CA or UK App Stores, you are getting the same app with no particular settings associated with the App Store you downloaded from.
The Starbucks iOS app defaults to Market for sign up = United States unless the following options are changed within your phone settings.
Market for sign up = Canada IF
in iOS Setting > General > Language & Region
- iPhone Language = English (Canada)
AND
- Region = Canada
Market for sign up = Canada IF
in iOS Setting > General > Language & Region
- iPhone Language = Francais (Canada)
AND
- Region = Canada
Market for sign up = United Kingdom IF
in iOS Setting > General > Language & Region
- iPhone Language = English (U.K.)
AND
- Region = United Kingdom
If those settings are changed to show the correct language and region settings within your general settings the app should adapt to that region so that things like the postal code are functional.
Hopefully this helps clears up this issue! I’m so sorry again that you experienced that but I’m glad you reached out so we could look into it and know how to help other customers in the future if this comes up again. Let me know if there is anything else I can help you with! -Shan
That seems to sound reasonable but I wonder why this restriction for entering a postal code exists in the first place? Why is there a need to force the user to enter it in a certain way it can backfire like in my case?
It’s good to be smart and to take work away from the user but be reasonable about it and don’t try to outsmart the user.
