Being a person who frequently orders takeaway, I find myself using takeaway apps 1-3 times a week. The three most popular food delivery apps in Dublin are Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats, the former two of which I use. In this post I would like to do a small review of Just Eat and point out one inconvenience I find in the app which can be improved. Admittedly, it is the most popular and dominant food delivery app that has brought a lot of convenience to my life so while there is room for improvement, it is unlikely that I will ever stop using it.

Firstly, I love the layout of the app and I like that my orders, addresses and payment methods are saved for quick re-orders of the weekly usuals. All this can easily be accessed in the drop down menu on the top left corner with clear pages – Find Takeaways (search), Orders, For you (offers), Settings, Help and Log Out. I also like the bright orange icons and simple but eye-catching illustrations of the different food cuisines. I personally like the orange colour used for food-related packaging and marketing as it is a warm colour that reflects a lot of the earthy colours in food (ie. brown, yellow, white, orange, red). As you browse through the different restaurants on the app, you will scroll through many images of food photography that will whet your appetite if you weren’t already hungry.

There is just one annoyance that I have with Just Eat that I have experienced: Sometimes I browse for new takeaways that I have not tried before on Chrome. When a takeaway does not have its own website for you to view the menu, you are directed to the Just Eat app. This is where it gets problematic because when the Just Eat app launches, it does not go straight to the restaurant’s menu. You will then have to go through the following steps:

1. Enter your address
2. You will be directed to a page with all the restaurants available in your vicinity
3. Find the search bar to type in the restaurant you were originally looking for
4. Search

This is illustrated in the following Images:

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All screenshots taken from Just Eat mobile app

 

I found myself slightly frustrated at the app because of its roundabout way for me to just view a particular restaurant’s menu. Being redirected to an uncategorised, list of hundreds of restaurants distracted me from the original restaurant that I wanted to look up, which is not great for that business. Perhaps this is more a technical app development issue than a visual design or UX problem and maybe there is a reason the Just Eat needs the app to operate this way. But if I were to nitpick at a, for the most part, effective and useful app, this would be it.