BACKGROUND
In GoFood, users often search for specific restaurants they already know—whether from previous orders, word-of-mouth, or offline familiarity. However, if a restaurant is temporarily unserviceable (e.g., due to being closed, out of delivery range >20km, or paused operations), it is entirely excluded from the search results.
This leads users to falsely believe the restaurant is not on the platform at all, which leads to user confusion, perceived unreliability and merchant invisibility.
This gap in feedback represents a missed opportunity to improve user perception and guide expectations, especially when platforms like GrabFood do show greyed-out or "currently unavailable" merchants. We saw this pattern creating a poor loop: users drop off after failed searches, and merchants lose discoverability for no fault of their own.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
When users search for a specific restaurant that’s currently unavailable (closed, too far, or temporarily paused), they receive no feedback that it exists on GoFood at all. This invisibility creates:
-
A false negative—leading users to think the restaurant isn't on the app.
-
A loss in trust in the search experience and platform coverage.
-
Reduced merchant discoverability, especially for popular or niche vendors outside typical delivery zones.
GOALS
-
Improve user clarity on restaurant availability by making it evident that a restaurant exists but is currently unserviceable.
-
Enhance merchant discoverability, even if the restaurant cannot fulfill orders at that time.
-
Reduce user frustration when searching for specific restaurants.
SUCCESS METRICS
-
Increase conversion of users who enter the search and discovery channel
-
Decrease in user drop-off after unsuccessful search
01
DISCOVERING
UNDERSTANDING USER JOURNEY
User provides a search query which is an exact match or very similar query to a restaurant on GoFood, but the restaurant wasn't on the top 3 shown on the QU (Query Understanding page).
Within this, there are several possibilities:
a. Restaurant is on GoFood, but not shown
➡️ Restaurant is outside of the user's search radius
b. Restaurant isn't available in the system
➡️ Restaurant never onboarded on GoFood
c. Restaurant is inactive / closed (Temporarily or permanently)
👉 Current User Flow
Whenever a user types a specific restaurant name, IF the restaurant falls into one of these three scenario, GoFood will not surface the restaurant within the Top 3 results
👉 Impact
-
User perceives that the Restaurant is not available in GoFood
-
User has a higher likelihood to close the app and try searching the restaurant on another Online Food Delivery platform (Based on research findings).
User Research
Interview with GoFood users, mix of mature and non-mature users based on their spending habit.
n = 7
Research Findings
Industry Landscape
Proposed User Flow
Wireframe (Milestone 1)
Visual Design (Milestone 1)
-
User will have the perception that GoFood merchant assortment is plentiful, so there’s no need to open another OFD app to look for that specific restaurant.
-
And the next time user is nearby, they will remember to open GoFood to order.
-
Also, we’re hoping that users will be encouraged to ‘take action’ when given opportunity to discover more contextual similar restos.