Analysis and teardown of Instacart web product experience as of Nov 1, 2014. Default UX, feature teardown, roadmap questions, and improvement suggestions.

1. Instacart
product teardown
David Kim
productmanagementfasttrack.com

2. 2. Flash teardown of the web product
● 3 - 4: Default experience and UX observation
● 5 - 7: Key flow & feature teardown
● 8 - 9: Improvements and roadmap questions
● 10: Contact
product teardown - david kim
http://productmanagementfasttrack.com
Product reviewed as of Nov 1, 2014

3. 3. Default Experience
● “Best” is a loaded word. Is instacart best at being fast (“instant”) or best. Period? Compare Google
Express, with a very specific promise.
In other words, what is the promise to customer and what customer
success is measured? (Hint: what do customers care about?)
I do like the clean interface, but it is wanting in terms of the
SCRAP principles for UI: http://goo.gl/jzgEyx

4. 4. Default Experience
● Upvote: super-easy and simple onboarding and login!
● Default landing page is uninteresting (to me).
(In full disclosure, this is the first time I’m ordering, so the system does not know my preferences. That said, is
the best hook really a banana? Maybe. I’m just curious.)
Feels very transactional - a Walmart experience instead
of Target, Safeway instead of Whole Foods.
By contrast some “eating” companies focus on visual
appeal and stories, a higher touch experience.

5. Has the team looked at rounding
up instead of forcing another
purchase? Would have costs, but
a really cool UX feature equivalent
to cashier giving you a penny at
groceries.
What about another offer or a
suggestion?
Who is my personal shopper?
5. Flow & Feature Teardown
● The selections in what constituted “Popular” were interesting to me. How were these optimized or
selected? Based on location-based, aggregated customer data? Or hacked?

6. 6. Flow & Feature Teardown
● Instacart Express is confusing: isn’t it redundant? Isn’t the promise already a fast, 1 hour delivery?
I added ‘Busy?’ For specifically busy
people.
How good is the segmentation
analysis for targeted offers?
Implicit hypothesis: busy people value convenience and will pay $99/year for it. That suggests a highly
urban, upwardly mobile demographic. What does that group really value?

7. 7. Flow & Feature Teardown
● Checkout process: I really appreciated the thoughtfulness of “Replacement Choices.” And I think it can
be improved … what if I had 10 items, do you really want me to answer 10 yes/no questions?
Bug: Shall I replace item A with item A?

8. 8. Improvements & Roadmap Questions
● So, I was surprised that neither my mobile nor web product picked up the zip code automagically. That’s
a simple fix.
● How about a map? Also a simple fix with Google maps API.
Granted, that’s NOT the key
roadmap issue. Customer success is
convenient selection and flawless
delivery. I think the UX and back-end
should map more closely for
those success drivers.

9. 9. Improvements & Roadmap Questions
● Emails: 1) I did not get order confirm email. 2) I did not get forgot password reset email.
● Personal touch: Tell me a little something about the people who do shopping for me. I tipped him/her at
check-out, I would like to know it was to a human being.
● Back-end: I suspect this is something the team is working on. I think this is a PRIORITY issue. There are
silly selections presented to the user. In other words, the computer is not smart.
Why wouldn’t I, or any user, simply select
“organic” selection for penny more?
● UI/UX: It would be good to include
easier navigation up and down the
food item.
● Idea: Shopping list -> and
automagically suggest best fit items

10. 10. Contact
Got questions about this brief deck?
By the way, teardown is easy, building something new is hard!
Kudos to the product team. Keep building!
● David Kim: daviddarden11 at gmail
● Follow @findinbay
product teardown - david kim
http://productmanagementfasttrack.com