A mixed research study combining business strategy with a primary-research user study of 17 DoorDash customers. The goal: understand why users tap what they tap.
Before studying the experience, we mapped what DoorDash actually is. Each side has a different promise — and a different stake in the design of every screen.
DoorDash owns suburbs and Texas. Grubhub holds NYC. Uber Eats over-indexes Miami. Postmates locked L.A. The map matters because users switch apps to match it.
While Grubhub fought for the big cities, DoorDash quietly built 58% category share of the suburbs — and the pandemic moved customers right to them.
We split the DoorDash flow into five canonical stages and asked 17 users to rank each one. The pattern that emerged: where users feel in control, they enjoy it. Where they don't, they don't.
"More than an hour late or never arrived." "Delivery was held up — the restaurant didn't see the order." The ETA is a promise the app can't always keep.
Almost half tip based on order price. Some tip on distance. Some tip a flat amount. No two users had the same heuristic — and DoorDash's prompts don't help anyone choose.
Half the DoorDash users we surveyed actively prefer UberEats. Top reason: "better user experience and app layout." Second: Uber Pass bundling.
Users don't switch apps because one is broken. They switch because the other one feels easier.
We walked the same order through two accounts — one without DashPass, one with — and documented the differences across four moments: checkout, waiting, tracking, delivered.
UberEats shows both "30–40 min" and "by 7:45 PM." DoorDash shows duration only, leaving users to do the math when they care about a fixed end time.
UberEats moves the tip into a dedicated screen. DoorDash buries it in checkout. Splitting the moment out gives users space to think instead of deciding under fee pressure.
DoorDash partnered with GM's Cruise to test driverless deliveries in SF. A safety driver is on board, but the cost model shifts the moment the vehicle isn't a person.
Only 12% of Americans had used a third-party delivery service in the past three months at study time. The category is younger than the unit-economics debate sounds.
Smartwatches, TVs, cars. The next channel doesn't have a checkout screen at all — which changes what an "order flow" even means.