Seamless Partner App
Babylist
Seamless Partner App
Dates: 2012
Roles: Product Design (Contract)
Back in 2012, Seamless reached out to me to work on a B2B App for Seamless Partner restaurants. The app would be developed for the Kindle Fire with the Android operating system. The Kindle Fire's will be distributed to 500+ single location, mom and pop restaurants in New York City. These smaller restaurants did not have access to a computer and typically relied on a good old landline and fax machine to communicate with customers.
What was the problem?
Imagine my surprise when Sarah, the PM, told me that the restaurant partners were receiving orders through a fax machine. I was just imagining how slow and manual communication was.
For example, say a restaurant ran out of avocados and now a restaurant worker has to find the customers number on the fax, call the customer to see if they would like to cancel the guacamole order or replace it with another side item. Reading off all the possible side items before the customer can make a decision. Then having to manually update the order and total. On top of that, the restaurant has to call back anyone that orders guacamole for the rest of the night.
Not only were there operational pains, bookkeeping was a pain. Keeping track of orders was all done with organizing and storing physical printouts and folders. The good people at Seamless wanted to solve this problem and I got to help.
Goals
New Features
The goal of this app was to reduce pain points for customers ordering from small mom and pop restaurants. And at the same time, give these restaurant partners better tools to work with customers and Seamless.
The Babylist Store was missing key shopping features such as Filters (price, brand, color, features), Quick Shop, Image Zoom. To help shoppers comparison shop, we added a fixed product summary on scroll and surfaced product videos closer to the top of the Product Details page.
Considerations
Understanding the pain and empathizing with both the restaurant partner and the end customer, got me excited to work on this project. I had a Seamless PM as my product partner, their style guide, imagery, fonts and some sketches, I was ready to get to work.
I was instructed to reference a couple of screens of the new design of the desktop dashboard for vendors. With the design of this new app, they were also hoping to test and solve some major visual design issues they had with the current Seamless desktop dashboard.
Various Seamless screenshots from their existing desktop app (left and left bottom). Screenshot of a new design they were implementing at the time (right), which influenced button heirarchy for the Partner app I was working on.
New Page Designs
New Features
Through the app, restaurant partners would now be able to manage incoming Seamless orders. They will be able to communicate an order's status, update delivery time, cancel and amend orders, seamlessly. No more fax machines. No more phone calls.
Once the vendor log's in, on the Monitor screen, they can scroll down and review their New Orders, Confirmed Orders, orders that have gone Out for Delivery, and Future Orders. The Monitor design uses the established color coding system that Seamless created for different order types - Yellow for an Individual order, green for Group orders, and red for Future and Catering orders. The colors were initially very intense, and I was able to mellow them out.
- How can we make it easier for a Registrant to build their baby registry?
- Where will they need to add items from? From the Babylist store, external online stores and Babylist Guides and Articles.
- How will the brand evolve?
The restaurant vendor would log into the app (left) and land on the Monitor screen (right).
New Page Designs
Tapping on an individual order (yellow row) will take the partner to the individual order's detail screen.
Originally built as a test store with few categories, it grew quickly, soon outgrowing its original taxonomy and navigation. Babylist Store was limited in the amount of products it could carry. After a year, the store could not support new business, design, and engineering goals.
Originally built as a test store with few categories, it grew quickly, soon outgrowing its original taxonomy and navigation. Babylist Store was limited in the amount of products it could carry. After a year, the store could not support new business, design, and engineering goals.
Different states of an Individual order screen.
New Page Designs
The partner will scroll to review the order and then tap Confirm when they start to fill the order. A notification is then sent to the customer letting them know that their order is being worked on. The Confirm button is intentionally at the bottom of the screen, so they won't need to scroll back to the top. Once Confirm is tapped, the screen animates back to top and the status is updated to Confirmed. Once the order is filled and ready for delivery, the partner will tap the Out for Delivery button and the status will be updated as well as notify the customer that their order is out for delivery.
Originally built as a test store with few categories, it grew quickly, soon outgrowing its original taxonomy and navigation. Babylist Store was limited in the amount of products it could carry. After a year, the store could not support new business, design, and engineering goals.
Originally built as a test store with few categories, it grew quickly, soon outgrowing its original taxonomy and navigation. Babylist Store was limited in the amount of products it could carry. After a year, the store could not support new business, design, and engineering goals.
By tapping on the Cancel/Adjust Order button, the partner can now update the order with any adjustments or cancel it without having to call and report it to Seamless, because it is now reflected in the order under Adjustment.
Originally built as a test store with few categories, it grew quickly, soon outgrowing its original taxonomy and navigation. Babylist Store was limited in the amount of products it could carry. After a year, the store could not support new business, design, and engineering goals.
Originally built as a test store with few categories, it grew quickly, soon outgrowing its original taxonomy and navigation. Babylist Store was limited in the amount of products it could carry. After a year, the store could not support new business, design, and engineering goals.
Cancel/Adjust form (left). Individual order detail screen with a noted adjustment (right).
New Page Designs
Now, small mom and pop restaurants will also be able to manage a variety of order types like, Group, Future and Catering Orders.
Originally built as a test store with few categories, it grew quickly, soon outgrowing its original taxonomy and navigation. Babylist Store was limited in the amount of products it could carry. After a year, the store could not support new business, design, and engineering goals.
Originally built as a test store with few categories, it grew quickly, soon outgrowing its original taxonomy and navigation. Babylist Store was limited in the amount of products it could carry. After a year, the store could not support new business, design, and engineering goals.
Group Order (left), Future Order (middle), and Catering Order (right). Different order types called for information heirarchy that was custom to each order type.
New Page Designs
Not only could restaurant partners seamlessly communicate with customers, but they could now communicate directly with Seamless for any operational updates that need to be made public on their Seamless Business page without having to call corporate.
Originally built as a test store with few categories, it grew quickly, soon outgrowing its original taxonomy and navigation. Babylist Store was limited in the amount of products it could carry. After a year, the store could not support new business, design, and engineering goals.
Originally built as a test store with few categories, it grew quickly, soon outgrowing its original taxonomy and navigation. Babylist Store was limited in the amount of products it could carry. After a year, the store could not support new business, design, and engineering goals.
Request Account Change form (left), Change of Hours detail form (middle), and success message (right).
New Page Designs
For example, updating their menu, changing their hours of operation, changing the delivery area, and getting general assistance. From the app, restaurant partners can request an update on their business page and Seamless will make the updates.
Work uninterrupted. Not having to stop what they’re doing to call and give the bad news that they no longer deliver to a customers neighborhood or that their favorite appetizer was no longer available. Besides, who uses a food ordering app to end up talking to a human being?
Stats & Reports
New Page Designs
I was most excited about the Stats & Reports feature. A section of the app intended to help restaurant partners understand and track the health of their business. The top section is the Stats Overview where they can see how they are doing today vs the same day last week.
Daily Summary (left) and Order History (right).
New Page Designs
Restaurant Partners would also get to see their Daily Summary, Order History, Group Orders, and Monthly Invoices. Giving restaurants even more of an incentive to continue working with Seamless.
Group Orders (left) and Monthly Invoices (right).
New Page Designs
Final Thoughts
Working on an app that helped solve some everyday pain points for customers and small mom and pops was hugely rewarding. From this experience, I learned that working as a contractor with the addition of not being involved with the implementation process was not ideal for me. Not being able to have fluid conversations with other team members and only having one point person to talk to, made me realize how important it is for me to be involved from beginning to end. This experience steered all my future decisions to always work in-house.
Selected Works
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