Uber Eats Previous Order Reminder

✋ What is it?

This is a solution found in Uber Eats. When users navigate the menu of a restaurant where they previously ordered, they will see a flag icon and a reminder text under the dishes they ordered before.

🤲 How does this interaction or solution work?

Uber Eats is a popular food delivery service by Uber. The Uber Eats app is a storefront for hundreds of local restaurants that are within driving distance from the user.

Users can navigate the food menus of different restaurants, and in some cases, they can even see descriptions and photos of the food. Uber provides additional context when users are navigating the menu of a restaurant from where they ordered before. In these cases, the app shows an "Order Again" section with a selection of items ordered before. The app also renders a small flag icon and reminder text under the items that were ordered before. This affordance is particularly helpful for users since it allows them to have that information without scrolling back to the "Order Again" section.

In some cases, the app also renders a small "Order History" box that shows the exact date of the last order.

🙌 How does this interaction or solution work?

Recall, Increasing Context

In situations where context is weak (for example when ordering food), adding mechanics to help the user to take a decision can increase the performance of the service/product. In this particular case, Uber Eats is dealing with tens of thousands of hungry users who want to get some food but are not entirely sure what they want. Uber helps them to arrive faster to a decision by increasing the recall of previous orders.

This increased context can help users to narrow down their decisions by giving them a cue to decide if they want to repeat a dish they ate before or not.