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I did a little #UX experiment related to online order tipping and I would like to share the results of this. So, here's fun a thread for all of the #restaurants and #UX folx out there.
I manage the web presence and online ordering system for a restaurant/bar (I also work there in other capacities). This has saved our asses during the pandemic. We were able to convert our business overnight to takeout and delivery. It's been awesome.
Online ordering platforms always have weird problems for both customers and employees of restaurants. But I noticed that our platform offered the following tip suggestions when a customer got to the end of the checkout process:
No tip, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, Custom amount
No tip, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, Custom amount
So, I opened a support ticket.
They made the change for me withing about 6 hours of opening the ticket, so now our interface looks like this:
So, check this out. I made this change on January 29. Here is the daily tip rate over the last 2 months.
And here is the tip rate over the last few weeks:
I only have a week of post-intervention data, but it seems to have worked in that it has 1) reduced the variance of the tip rate, and 2) effectively made the floor for daily average tip rate closer to 20%.
What does this mean? It means that if you run a restaurant with online ordering, you really need to get rid of those low-rate tip preset options. It also means that if you develop for online ordering systems that include tip, you should remove the low-rate tip preset options.
People do not want to leave no tip because they know that it will make them look like an asshole (because they are if they do that). People will choose the easiest possible option. People do not know how to do simple math.
If they want to tip less than 20%, make them work for it. Don't offer them the option of a preset or a suggestion less than 20%. Do restaurant employees a favor and let the interface push customers to tip better. They will, if you don't give them the option not to.
This may seem counterintuitive, as it seems like by designing away the low-rate options, you are making the process of tipping more difficult for the customer. But you are actually making it EASIER for them to do the right thing, which is tip better.
And by extension, you are making it easier for restaurant employees to get paid better.
We need to really expand the epistemics and worldview that we use when designing systems far beyond "What is good for the user?" to "How do our design decisions ramify through socio-technical systems and assemblages?" (HT @k8lin)
