Accessibility of Food panda app with Talkback for blind users
With emerging e-commerce
options everyone is hunting their specific requirement online, it could be high
end mobile phones, laptops, tablets or home appliances like T.V, refrigerators,
washing machines & microwave ovens.
We even have cool options
for fashion, beauty products, furniture & medicines, recently customers
getting attracted towards some interesting options which allow them to order
daily services like electrician, housekeeping, plumber & ordering delicious
food on their door step.
Being a hardcore foodie I have already tried few
leading food delivery apps like Mac delivery, Fasoos, Dominos but none of them are fully accessible for a visually
challenged mobile user, I tried all these options with some sighted help but
was not happy as I couldn’t order my food on my own.
Recently I tried one
leading food delivery app named “Food Panda” & felt really amazed with the experience., First time without
any sighted person’s help, I could order my food without any sighted help,
really a great accessible option.
Food Panda is a leading food delivery service available on internet portal & mobile app, they provide this service in more than 100 countries & India is one of them. With this service you can order food online from your favorite restaurants using many delivery & payment options. You can ask for home delivery & can also choose a pickup.
It has also got multiple
payment options like PayTM, Card and Cash On Delivery for some restaurants.
Food Panda provides this
service free of charge; you just have to pay for your food.
My colleagues suggested
this app couple of months ago, I installed the same into my Android phone [Moto
G gen1] & tried with Talkback screen reader. It worked super smoothly.
Except the main menu
button all user controls are labeled properly so that you can access this app entirely
with the talkback without sighted help.
Initial requirements:
- A smart phone running
Android 4.0 or above
- PayTM wallet account for
payment, it is an optional requirement but recommended due to the cashback
offers & secure payment mode
- Active data connection
or a wifi.
How to install?
Like other applications
you can install this app from google play store, search for “Food Panda”” it might
be the first result, just double tap on it & start the installation by
hitting on “Install” button.
This will pop up the
permission acceptance tab, review the required permissions & proceed
installation by hitting “Accept” button.
This will start the
download & installation of app on your phone.
How to order?
To begin the ordering process
launch app. You will land on home page of the app. Talkback will announce
“Searching for restaurants” and within fraction of seconds screen will be loaded.
You can use your standard
navigation gestures to explore the screen, as stated earlier, at top of the
screen there is a menu button which is unlabeled but no need to worry as except
this one all other controls are labeled.
During navigate from top
of the screen after unlabeled button Food Panda app will show your current
location fetched from your phones GPS, first line will be name of your city
& next line will show the current area, please note this information sequence
can be changed using the menu - address option.
After current location
info there are two buttons “Search” & “Filter” respectively. Next to these
two buttons you will read a number of restaurants open at that particular time,
for e.g. “40 open restaurants”.
Next information that Food
Panda will list is of all the nearest restaurants along with the important details
like food type, delivery time/charge and minimum order amount.
For example below is a text
read out to me from the first listed restaurant in my area for your
understanding.
“Online payment available”,
“Zestoloarparel – fast food, sandwich, delivery Rs. 0, Min order Rs. 150”.
You can see above
information gives us online payment option, name of the restaurant along with area,
type of the food restaurant serves & finally the information about delivery
charge & minimum order.
All the restaurants in the
list display information identical to above example, further information that you
will find is of some number, don’t get confused, it is a count of reviews
available for that place, by tapping on this number you can enter the review
page for that particular restaurant.
Suppose you have “40 open restaurants”
in your area then there will be 80 different lines, first will be the restaurant
detail & next will be the review count.
You can read the complete restaurant
list by scrolling up & down.
Using the “Search” button placed
above this list helps you in finding specific restaurant & “Filter” button
will apply filtering criteria to the restaurant list, for example you can
filter the restaurant which provides free delivery.
Restaurants delivery menu screen:
Now let’s select one of
the listed restaurants & check the delivery menu for order.
You can double tap on the restaurant
name to load a screen for your desire restaurant. I am going to select the joint
called “Marush” from my locality.
As soon as you double tap
on the desired name Food Panda loads the restaurant & talkback will
announce “Downloading restaurant”.
Top of this restaurant screen
there is a text “Delivery menu” & “Search” button to search the specific
delicacy, next to this button there will be a name of the selected restaurant,
below the name there is a list of menu available for delivery.
In my example of “Marush”
I can see below options
“Shawarma-raps Veg”
“Shawarma-rapsNon-Veg”
“Kababbs veg“
“Kababbs non veg“
“Curries“
“Breads“
You can find similar kind
of list in all the restaurants.
On Food Panda app, this
list is identical to the hard copy menu card we get in hotels.
As per your requirement
you can select any of the menus & you will see the delicacy’s under that
category.
Navigation in the app is
really straight forward, if you want to order gravy & roti then you can get
into the related menu item, for rice, beverages, deserts there will be a
specific category.
Menu specific screen:
For this example I will
open the “Shawarma non veg” category.
As soon as we open any
category, Food Panda will list all the delicacies under the same.
On this screen, there will
be a list of available delicacies along with the ingredient details & price.
Next to each item there is
“Add to basket” button which adds specified item into your order, you can read
this complete list by scrolling up & down.
Now I will hit on “Add to basket”
button for the item “Classic chicken shawarma”, as soon as we click on this
“Add to basket” button, app adds the same item into your order, by default this
process adds the selected item with
quantity as 1.
If your selected item
needs some additional variation then app pops up a message box quickly, it is a
list with some radio buttons with proper labels, in this case I got a message
to select the shawarma type “Regular”, “Open” and there is a button at the
bottom which says “Go to additions”.
You will have to tab on
this button to proceed with your selection, this will show you the list of
available toppings, these additional
toppings are always optional, you can choose your desired options or leave them
as it is & hit on “Apply” button to finish your selection, this will take
you back to the item list.
Item which you have added
using “Add to basket” button will now have additional text that is “1X” and the total price, this 1X means
quantity of that item, if you will hit on “Add to basket” button four times
then it will show “4X” & the total price for that quantity.
In my case for “Classic Chicken
Shawarma” talkback says “1x” & Rs. 145.
You can even go back to
the restaurant menu page by navigating up for choosing more items.
Ordering food using Food
Panda app is highly accessible with Talkback as all the controls are labeled &
all important screens are given useful titles, you can follow the same process to
add your desired delicacies.
Opening basket screen:
After adding all the
required item into the basket now it’s a time to open the basket & proceed
with our order, to access your basket scroll towards the end of the screen,
below the last item you will see some number, this number is nothing but a
count of items added to the basket, in this case I can see number 1 at the
bottom.
You just have to tap on
this number to open your basket, as soon as you tap on this number app will
calculate your basket & talkback will report the same.
Title of this new screen
is “Basket”, if you are first time using this app then this screen will have
“Log in” option otherwise it says “Log Out”.
Below this option there is
total amount of your order, if your order amount is less than minimum order
then app will show you a notification here.
This screen also has a
short summary of your order along with the details like “Delivery charge” &
“service tax”.
This basket screen allows
you to edit your order, you can add/remove your items & you can even
increase/decrease the selected quantity.
Also It has a checkbox
which says “Replace my dish with similar one if my first choice is not
available”, you can switch on/off this option as per your requirement &
then tap on “Choose delivery type” button to proceed with your order.
Delivery mode screen:
Now on the next screen,
app will show you 2 options, one is “delivery in 60 minutes” & another is
“pick up ready in 30 mins”, in case of 1st option, you just have to
provide your address, for my order I will opt for 1st option, bottom
of the screen there is a button “Provide your details”, you just have to tap on
it to go to the next step.
Address details screen:
If you are a first time
user then this step will give you the small form to provide your address
otherwise app will load your saved address automatically.
Address form is highly
accessible hence you can fill in your desired address without any difficulty
using talkback.
Bottom of this screen
there is a button which says “Select payment type”. Tap on it to initiate the payment process,
this will take you to the payment option screen.
Payment mode screen:
On this payment screen
there are 3 important options
PayTM wallet
Pay online.
Cash payment.
Please note, this third
option is not available for all the restaurants.
This payment screen has a
text box to enter the voucher code, if you have any voucher then you can put
the same here, app will automatically recalculate the basket & it will show
you the latest total of your order.
Now select your desired
payment mode, for my order, I will go for first option that is “PayTM” as I
observed that Food Panda always has some cash back offers for PayTM users.
After selecting desired
option tap on “Go to online payment” button at the bottom, this process will
open the next screen based on your choice, in my case I got the PayTM wallet
login, I will enter my credentials & complete this payment to Food Panda.
After making the required
payment Food Panda will take you to order status page & app will
automatically refresh the status in a short time interval, immediately we get
the instant SMS from Food Panda regarding our order confirmation & payment.
Food Panda will automatically
popup a notification on this order status screen if agreed delivery time is crossed,
in this notification Food Panda will ask you a question “Has your meal
arrived?”
There will be two options,
“Yes” & “No”, in case of “Yes” Food Panda will ask you to give your
feedback on your meal & for “No” app will automatically raise a complaint
on your behalf & Food Panda team will call you in 10 mins.
There was an incident in
which I had to say “No” for late delivery of my meal & I instantly got a
phone call from Food Panda.
Conclusion:
Above food ordering
process seems lengthy to write down but you won’t believe it takes hardly 3 to
5 minutes as all the screens & controls are highly accessible with
talkback. By following the above steps you can easily order your food using Food
Panda.
I couldn’t cover all
the features of thiss app as its difficult
in a blog but overall it’s an accessible solution for online food delivery.