H Erd Yakingun v1.0.10

Initial approach

Prior to the membership app, Marley Spoon had tipped their toes in the app space before. However, it was an app at a time when the company had a different business model and also limited to iOS users. Not only this, but the company had only been in existance for less than a year, so the user base wasn't quite there yet.

This time around, the company wanted to interview customers and internal departments of how they'd imagine an app to be. There were several interesting ideas - including Spotify integration, shame we never got to that one! For the most part though, all reasonable things a customer may require in a core experience.

Building something that doesn't exist

Probably the greatest challenge of this entire project was building something that doesn't exist. A problem we had already encountered with the web app and some internal tooling. Granted many of Marley Spoon's rivals had a way to achieve order tracking, we didn't feel them to be robust enough at that given time.

Giving the user clarity and ease of use with complex delivery and order data was clearly our challenge here. Why do I say complex? Well simply because the flexiblity Marley Spoon afords their customers. You can change your order dates, times and locations relatively close to cut off time. Now you know the tip of the iceberg in terms of challenges faced. How did we approach these issues?

Being fortunate enough to work with a relatively small but great team (cc Hannah Hebenstreit & Serena Soldo), it meant we could move fast and agile. Everything from initial planning sessions to collaborative wireframing sessions. It was pretty great to be able to move so fluidly and be open to each others ideas and potential solutions to problems.

For me it's important to mention that because a lot of case studies talk about we did a, b, c. Sometimes when you work with great people, solutions click slightly better! The shameless plug of this case study I guess.

Questions & answers

Through out design, build and release a lot of questions cropped up. Things such as does our navigation make sense? Are we making it too easy for users to skip their orders? Do we show enough future orders? There were plenty of questions.

With questions a plenty, we eventually started finding answers through user testing and continuously QA'ing (is that a word?) the app. With the eagle eyed detail the team and even company worked with we started solving things from teething issues technically to UX problems. We also achieved this through rapid prototyping to mull through features.

Conclusions

Having gone through various tests and trials with a small team, we eventually had a big payoff for our efforts. We were happy to be featured on the App Store as main feature in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. This for us was a great achievement because as mentioned we were a small team and we put our heart and soul into it.

The app still continues to thrive today and helps provide the basis for both Marley Spoon and Martha & Marley Spoon.

(Written in 2016, things may have changed!)