How do you take your coffee?
Coffee with a side of rewards.
Who doesn’t love a great cup of coffee? Well, I am sure there are some of you out there who don’t but what about a nice cup of tea or a sugary drink? Starbucks has so many drinks to offer that most people should be able to find one they like.
One thing that I really appreciate about Starbucks is their many ways to earn extra stars. From buying qualifying Starbucks products at the grocery store to completing challenges, receiving extra stars is always a joy.
My most recent experience with trying to earn bonus stars; however, didn’t go so well. I was on my way to getting 125 bonus stars, but somehow there was a glitch in the system. I purchased a White Chocolate Mocha and a Pumpkin Spice Latte early last week. I had received two checkmarks on my challenge. Later on last week, I bought a Java Chip Frappuccino. I was expecting to see the last check mark get filled up, but that never happened. I know the cold drink was the only one that I had not yet purchased so I was confused as to why I did not receive my stars. Perhaps the barista rang up the wrong drink. I really do not know what happened. (I have since contacted Starbucks customer service, so I’m waiting to see if they can help me out.)
I proceeded to tap around in the app to see what information I could find to uncover the issue. As can be seen from the image above there is no induction as to which drinks from the challenge I had already ordered. There are only two green circles with check marks inside them which indicate that I had purchased two qualifying items. I tapped on them to see if maybe I would get a popup as to what the qualifying items were. No luck.
As I continued to look for more information about my qualifying purchases, I tapped on the Terms and Conditions. I was hoping to possibly find my purchases listed there. No luck again. I was further disappointed to find that it did not mention a start date for the challenge, only an end date. I was getting nowhere.
Finally, I was hoping to find something in my purchase history to confirm my purchases. And I was yet again disappointed. Starbucks has a list of past purchases and upon tapping on one of them, it brings up the individual receipt. The receipt; however, only lists the date, time, location, and transaction amount of the purchase. It does not show what items were purchased. This is another usability improvement that Starbucks should consider implementing in a future update. They should include the items that were purchased on the receipt.
As it turns out, it was up to me, as a user, to remember which items I had already purchased so I could know what I still needed to buy in order to complete the challenge.
My suggestion as a UX Researcher would be to advise Starbucks to keep the checkmarks up at the top but to also include a checklist next to the items as they are purchased. They could also simply run a faint line through a purchased item to indicate that it is completed. This way, the user would know which ones they still need to purchase to complete the challenge, and they wouldn’t be going off pure memory. Below are some examples.
By adding these cues, it would help to comply with Jackob Neilsen’s 6th Usability Heuristic for User Interface Design which is Recognition rather than recall.
Minimize the user’s memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.
All in all, I am very pleased with Starbucks and the app experience. There are just a few minor pain points that I have encountered recently. If you have any personal pain points beyond the ones I just mentioned, I would be happy to hear about them in the comments. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy your next cup of coffee or tea. Cheers!
