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I am, for better or worse, a "heavy user" of the McDonald's app. And unfortunately, all this architecture somehow still misses so many usability issues. The mos

I am, for better or worse, a "heavy user" of the McDonald's app. And unfortunately, all this architecture somehow still misses so many usability issues. The most annoying one, is that the app always defaults to the closest location "as the bird flies." Despite the fact that I have "favorited" a different store, and also my last 5 or 10 orders were placed at this favorite store, the app ALWAYS defaults to the first store, which may be a tenth of a mile closer but has three additional traffic lights and twice the traffic. The app is also wildly inaccurate with store open/close times (in both directions -- sometimes it tells you a 24-hour store is "currently closed"), and the in-store employees are often confused how to ring up or serve a mobile order. But the deals are good. BOGO QPCheese just about every day.

tstrimple 4y ago
The one and only time I've used the app was when I thought it would help them during the pandemic when drive thru's were actually slammed with demand while they didn't have enough workers. After waiting in the parking lot for 30 minutes while literally dozens of cars went through the drive through I went in to check on the order and the employees literally couldn't look up the status of my order without an order number which the app didn't give me at the time. An incredibly frustrating experience which turned me off to the concept altogether.
wincy 4y ago
I also use it a lot (I have a disabled kid who went from feeding tube to chicken nuggets and LOST weight, whatever she wants she gets). After you order and drive away, I’ll find the app hours later still tracking me and using GPS. I almost always have to force close the app. Then the next time I use it the previous order won’t have cleared out despite me picking it up, and I’ll have to go in and “cancel” the order. The coupons are good though. For a week or two it was giving 30% off, and almost always has a 20% off coupon.
- andy800 4y ago
  Very similar experience, I often open the app and it is still hung up on my previous (completed) order and I have to clear out the cart. And like you said, the "offers" are good (actually McD has raised prices quite a bit, now with the offers I'm paying about the same as face value was only a few years ago). I will also say, despite the issues, it's better than most competitors. BK and Wendy's apps are both full of problems as well. I have had multiple accepted and paid orders on the Burger King app, when I got to the store they didn't have the item, weren't accepting mobile orders, or were totally closed.
- toast0 4y ago
  > I’ll have to go in and “cancel” the order. You can do that?? I got an order stuck and did delete and reinstall (clear local data probably would have worked too). Since then, I try to avoid it getting stuck by making sure the app is frontmost with the screen on while I drive through and away. Seriously, are you iOS or Android, and where do you cancel an order either way?
- matthewheath 4y ago
  > Then the next time I use it the previous order won’t have cleared out despite me picking it up, and I’ll have to go in and “cancel” the order. Yes, I have noticed that here in the UK. I have to keep cancelling the previous order even though I picked it up and paid for it.
kaashif 4y ago
> BOGO I always find this phrase funny. Isn't buying one and getting one the normal state of affairs?
- e-clinton 4y ago
  BOGT doesn’t sound as good
  - throwaway292939 4y ago
    should probably be BOGOF - buy one get one _free_
    - smegsicle 4y ago
      but BOGO sounds fun, while BOGOF sounds like an insult, or maybe an alien civilization with terrible poetry
      - toyg 4y ago
        > while BOGOF sounds like an insult That's a feature, not a bug.
  - jackmoore 4y ago
    How about BOGA for buy one, get another
- toyg 4y ago
  In UK we actually use BOGOF, which makes sense. No idea why one would drop the all-important F.
  - rat9988 4y ago
    Not an english speaker, but I can't imagine "get" used for anything non free, especially after a "buy".
tzs 4y ago
> The most annoying one, is that the app always defaults to the closest location "as the bird flies." I've got a similar annoyance with basically every app or website that offers to find things within N miles of me. I live in Western Washington on the other side of Puget Sound from Seattle. Say the first two options they give me for N are 10 miles and 25 miles. 10 miles is too small. I need more than that to include Bremerton, Silverdale, and Poulsbo, which are the three most likely places that I'll find whatever I'm looking for if it exists over here. But 25 miles means the circle reaches past Puget Sound and includes Seattle, Bellevue, and even some of Redmond. For example if I'm searching for Target stores and enter my zip code, their search lists my nearest store first, then 13 stores on the Seattle side (5 in Seattle, 2 in Bellevue, and 1 each in Lynnwood, Everett, Redmond, Renton, Tukwila, and Woodinville) before the store that is actually second closest to me as far as actually driving goes (Gig Harbor).
- withinboredom 4y ago
  I used to sell store locator software and this is always a problem. We worked on allowing “masks” over water that basically added a penalty for any vector that passed over the mask. It’s a hard problem at any kind of scale though and even this solution wasn’t perfect (imagine a river with no bridges or ferries only)
  - initplus 4y ago
    The correct solution is to use an isochrone rather than a basic radius search. Or to simply sort all the shores within the max search radius using a vehicle routing library/api.
    - withinboredom 4y ago
      That doesn’t work at scale unless you have an api with unlimited request throughput or knowledge of where water is (again needing access to the raw map or unlimited api access). In this case, the stores had to mark their own masks on the map.
inkyoto 4y ago
Even the best event / data streaming architecture (or, more generally, a backend architecture) in the universe can be negated by a lousy frontend app / frontend layer architecture. I have never ordered anything from a Macca's… but I surmise that is the consequences that McDonald app users are facing. The article lacks any details material to the event streaming architecture instantiation, and defers the details to a follow-up blog post, so it is hard to draw meaningful conclusions from it.
xattt 4y ago
No concerns about privacy issues? The Canadian iOS version of the app insists on running in background and complains of you disable precise location. This is slimy.
- quickthrowman 4y ago
  You give up location data in exchange for discounts, that’s the bargain you agree to by using the app, whether you realize it or not. I refuse to play this game. When I go to McDonalds I pay in cash and don’t use the app, it’s insulting to be offered 20% off to allow McDonalds to track my precise location, no thanks.
wkjagt 4y ago
> The most annoying one, is that the app always defaults to the closest location "as the bird flies." So many apps do this and it's really annoying. There are quite a lot of commercial activity on the other side of the river from where I live, and every store's site I visit, or app I use, always recommends a couple of locations that are closest "as the bird flies", but require me to take a ferry, or drive an hour and a half, whereas the store that's actually the quickest to get to for me is just 15 minutes away from me in the next town over on my side of the river. It's understandable though, because it's so much easier to calculate straight line distance, and I guess in most cases it gives the right, or close to the right answer. I've just accepted that I live in an edge case area for how the majority of commerces calculates these things.
user3939382 4y ago
MCD drive thru: > Hi do you have a mobile order today? < Yes. > Inexplicable silence for 10-15 seconds > (New voice) How can I help you? < Hi I’m picking up a mobile order (??) > What’s the code? Their process of using the app at the drive through is missing a step and it’s annoying.
- spiffytech 4y ago
  When I worked in fast food forever ago, our drive thru had an automatic greeting that played when a car drove up, regardless of whether a cashier was ready to talk to you. Sometimes the cashier was too busy to catch anything you said to the auto greeting.

tstrimple 4y ago

The one and only time I've used the app was when I thought it would help them during the pandemic when drive thru's were actually slammed with demand while they didn't have enough workers. After waiting in the parking lot for 30 minutes while literally dozens of cars went through the drive through I went in to check on the order and the employees literally couldn't look up the status of my order without an order number which the app didn't give me at the time. An incredibly frustrating experience which turned me off to the concept altogether.

wincy 4y ago

I also use it a lot (I have a disabled kid who went from feeding tube to chicken nuggets and LOST weight, whatever she wants she gets). After you order and drive away, I’ll find the app hours later still tracking me and using GPS. I almost always have to force close the app. Then the next time I use it the previous order won’t have cleared out despite me picking it up, and I’ll have to go in and “cancel” the order. The coupons are good though. For a week or two it was giving 30% off, and almost always has a 20% off coupon.

andy800 4y ago
Very similar experience, I often open the app and it is still hung up on my previous (completed) order and I have to clear out the cart. And like you said, the "offers" are good (actually McD has raised prices quite a bit, now with the offers I'm paying about the same as face value was only a few years ago). I will also say, despite the issues, it's better than most competitors. BK and Wendy's apps are both full of problems as well. I have had multiple accepted and paid orders on the Burger King app, when I got to the store they didn't have the item, weren't accepting mobile orders, or were totally closed.
toast0 4y ago
> I’ll have to go in and “cancel” the order. You can do that?? I got an order stuck and did delete and reinstall (clear local data probably would have worked too). Since then, I try to avoid it getting stuck by making sure the app is frontmost with the screen on while I drive through and away. Seriously, are you iOS or Android, and where do you cancel an order either way?
matthewheath 4y ago
> Then the next time I use it the previous order won’t have cleared out despite me picking it up, and I’ll have to go in and “cancel” the order. Yes, I have noticed that here in the UK. I have to keep cancelling the previous order even though I picked it up and paid for it.

kaashif 4y ago

> BOGO I always find this phrase funny. Isn't buying one and getting one the normal state of affairs?

e-clinton 4y ago
BOGT doesn’t sound as good
- throwaway292939 4y ago
  should probably be BOGOF - buy one get one _free_
  - smegsicle 4y ago
    but BOGO sounds fun, while BOGOF sounds like an insult, or maybe an alien civilization with terrible poetry
    - toyg 4y ago
      > while BOGOF sounds like an insult That's a feature, not a bug.
- jackmoore 4y ago
  How about BOGA for buy one, get another
toyg 4y ago
In UK we actually use BOGOF, which makes sense. No idea why one would drop the all-important F.
- rat9988 4y ago
  Not an english speaker, but I can't imagine "get" used for anything non free, especially after a "buy".

tzs 4y ago

> The most annoying one, is that the app always defaults to the closest location "as the bird flies." I've got a similar annoyance with basically every app or website that offers to find things within N miles of me. I live in Western Washington on the other side of Puget Sound from Seattle. Say the first two options they give me for N are 10 miles and 25 miles. 10 miles is too small. I need more than that to include Bremerton, Silverdale, and Poulsbo, which are the three most likely places that I'll find whatever I'm looking for if it exists over here. But 25 miles means the circle reaches past Puget Sound and includes Seattle, Bellevue, and even some of Redmond. For example if I'm searching for Target stores and enter my zip code, their search lists my nearest store first, then 13 stores on the Seattle side (5 in Seattle, 2 in Bellevue, and 1 each in Lynnwood, Everett, Redmond, Renton, Tukwila, and Woodinville) before the store that is actually second closest to me as far as actually driving goes (Gig Harbor).

withinboredom 4y ago
I used to sell store locator software and this is always a problem. We worked on allowing “masks” over water that basically added a penalty for any vector that passed over the mask. It’s a hard problem at any kind of scale though and even this solution wasn’t perfect (imagine a river with no bridges or ferries only)
- initplus 4y ago
  The correct solution is to use an isochrone rather than a basic radius search. Or to simply sort all the shores within the max search radius using a vehicle routing library/api.
  - withinboredom 4y ago
    That doesn’t work at scale unless you have an api with unlimited request throughput or knowledge of where water is (again needing access to the raw map or unlimited api access). In this case, the stores had to mark their own masks on the map.

inkyoto 4y ago

Even the best event / data streaming architecture (or, more generally, a backend architecture) in the universe can be negated by a lousy frontend app / frontend layer architecture. I have never ordered anything from a Macca's… but I surmise that is the consequences that McDonald app users are facing. The article lacks any details material to the event streaming architecture instantiation, and defers the details to a follow-up blog post, so it is hard to draw meaningful conclusions from it.

xattt 4y ago

No concerns about privacy issues? The Canadian iOS version of the app insists on running in background and complains of you disable precise location. This is slimy.

quickthrowman 4y ago
You give up location data in exchange for discounts, that’s the bargain you agree to by using the app, whether you realize it or not. I refuse to play this game. When I go to McDonalds I pay in cash and don’t use the app, it’s insulting to be offered 20% off to allow McDonalds to track my precise location, no thanks.

wkjagt 4y ago

> The most annoying one, is that the app always defaults to the closest location "as the bird flies." So many apps do this and it's really annoying. There are quite a lot of commercial activity on the other side of the river from where I live, and every store's site I visit, or app I use, always recommends a couple of locations that are closest "as the bird flies", but require me to take a ferry, or drive an hour and a half, whereas the store that's actually the quickest to get to for me is just 15 minutes away from me in the next town over on my side of the river. It's understandable though, because it's so much easier to calculate straight line distance, and I guess in most cases it gives the right, or close to the right answer. I've just accepted that I live in an edge case area for how the majority of commerces calculates these things.

user3939382 4y ago

MCD drive thru: > Hi do you have a mobile order today? < Yes. > Inexplicable silence for 10-15 seconds > (New voice) How can I help you? < Hi I’m picking up a mobile order (??) > What’s the code? Their process of using the app at the drive through is missing a step and it’s annoying.

spiffytech 4y ago
When I worked in fast food forever ago, our drive thru had an automatic greeting that played when a car drove up, regardless of whether a cashier was ready to talk to you. Sometimes the cashier was too busy to catch anything you said to the auto greeting.