MARCO’S PIZZA MOBILE APP
(non-commissioned project done for the Google UX/UI Certificate Courses)
Marco's Pizza is an American chain known for authentic Italian-style pizzas. Marco's uses fresh, daily-made dough, a signature three-cheese blend, and sauce from vine-ripened tomatoes. The menu includes pizzas, pizza bowls, subs, salads, wings, and desserts. Marco's offers delivery, takeout, and some dine-in.
Role: UX Research, UX Design, UI Design, Visual Design
Tools: Figma, FigJam, Various AI Tools
THE PRODUCT
The Marco’s Pizza app offers a convenient way to order authentic Italian-style pizza with a focus on fresh ingredients and bold flavors. Users can easily browse the menu, customize orders, and access store locations and directions. The app allows tracking and managing loyalty points, viewing past orders for quick re-ordering, and discovering exclusive deals and offers.
THE PROBLEM(S)
Despite its user-friendly intent, some customers report issues like login problems, coupon application errors, and glitches, suggesting the app could benefit from further refinement to enhance the ordering experience. Issues that were brought up include but are not limited to:
Cannot view menu without starting an order
Dropdown menu functionality is not very intuitive and would be hard to figure out even for tech-savvy users.
"Hot Deals" section contains no images leaving a lot to the imagination
Design feels very disjointed as most pages (anything in the main nav) and functions (like picking toppings) will appear as pop up modals
Store locator is impossibly slow loading
Items disappear from cart if not logged in.
Saved credit card information always gets denied, but is approved if you retype it all in.
The pizza progress tracker has no indicators to real-time progress.
Lack of customer support
Conduct user research through empathy maps, user personas, user stories, & journey maps.
Create problem and goal statements
Compile a competitive audit report
Create a more functional sitemap and test user flows
Create and convert lo-fi wireframes into hi-fi protoypes
THE TASK
THE SOLUTION
Work through user pain points and inherent problems by balancing the app’s aesthetic with a much more user-centered interface with the end goal being a seamless user experience.
Empathy Map
This empathy map is based on aggregated insights from customer reviews, experiences, and feedback for Marco's Pizza in 2025. It represents a profile of a typical customer-someone who frequently orders pizza for convenience, values quality and service, but encounters inconsistencies.
USER PERSONAS
While conducting interviews I decided to create two user personas.
One is Adam Thompson, a CEO of a small boutique digital agency with a wife and three kids.
The second is Rhiann Martinez, a single mother working two jobs to make ends meet.
USER STORIES
After creating the personas I wanted to give each user a story that will help summarize goals for the app redesign.
ADAM
As a busy owner of a boutique digital agency with a family I want to easily order and pickup pizza so that my family is fed and can relax together more.
RHIANN
As a mother of one working two jobs I want to easily order and have pizza delivered so that I can relieve the stress of having to make dinner but also be cost effective.
USER JOURNEY MAPS
For a deeper understanding of each user’s goals, needs, experiences, and behaviors I plotted a journey map for each which goes through their experiences step by step.
Adam's primary goal is to efficiently order and pick up a customized, reliable pizza dinner for his family using the Marco's Pizza app at the end of a busy workday, minimizing any technical or logistical frustrations to save time and reduce stress.
Rhiann's primary goal is to affordably and efficiently order a simple, budget-friendly pizza dinner for herself and her son via the Marco's Pizza app for delivery at the end of her long workday, maximizing savings through coupons and rewards while avoiding app frustrations that could lead her to switch providers.
USER PROBLEM STATEMENTS
Taking all research into consideration, I could safely boil the users problems down to these statements:
Adam is a CEO of a digital agency who needs a reliably functional and easy to use app to order pizza because his family relies on him to bring dinner home on busy days.
Rhiann is a single mom with two jobs who needs a pizza store app that has great rewards and deals because she lives on a tight budget and schedule.
PROJECT GOAL STATEMENT
After creating the personas I wanted to summarize my goals for the app:
Our redesigned Marco’s Pizza app will let users quickly and easily place an order for pickup or delivery which will affect busy users who are looking for a way to lessen the stress of dinner time by making the app more user-centered, accessible, and easy to use We will measure effectiveness by analyzing user drop off, successful orders, return visits, and reviews.
COMPETITIVE AUDIT REPORT
I identified strategic opportunities for enhancing Marco’s market position by analyzing the strengths, weaknesses, and gaps of key competitors focusing on affordability, digital experience, and delivery efficiency to better meet the needs of budget-conscious, time-strapped customers.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR MARCO’S
Offer more transparent, budget-friendly pricing with guaranteed low or no fee deliveries for loyalty members, appealing to customers cost-consciousness while countering higher delivery fees and inconsistent quality.
They can enhance their app with a streamlined “Hot Deals Hub” featuring daily Hot Deals and coupons addressing customers need for quick deal access.
Implement a chat feature that can act as customer service or as an employee helping you to place an order.
Enhancing its app with faster, more reliable order customization and real-time pickup tracking, addressing customers’ needs for a hassle-free, time-saving solution. By offering loyalty perks like rewards or exclusive weekday discounts, Marco’s can further solidify customers’ preference for quick, dependable service.
USER FLOW
User flows were created to map out each users pathway to success.
Here we focus on how Rhiann will be able to place an order as quickly and efficiently as she can with her busy schedule.
SITEMAP
I wanted to look at the entire app from a bird’s eye point of view and see where we could make positive changes.
I decided to revamp the menu entirely, plus up the homepage with hot deals, an order tracker, rewards, and promotional areas.
The “More” page is where I contained typical user account items and other pages less crucial to the main navigation.
LO-FI WIREFRAMES, USABILITY, & TESTING
Simple wireframes were created for testing purposes without spending the time noodling pixels and images.
After testing and reviewing the lo-fi wires, there were some things to consider:
Can I make ordering even easier?
How can I make customer support better?
Where can I remove extraneous items (additional copy, unnecessary visuals, different functionality, etc.) to make it more elegant and simplified?
Can I simplify the navigation more?
SOLUTIONS
The introduction of Marco AI (I’m not an illustrator, so yes, he does resemble Super Mario quite a bit). Marco AI would be a built-in tool that a user can chat with via text or voice and place a full order, check out how far away your delivery is, find out what Hot Deals are available, or help with any customer support issues.
Completely revamped the menu experience where each category has a more simplified and intuitive experience:
ordering simple things like toppings or sodas only require a quantity click instead of it’s own subpage
menu nav is no longer a dropdown but a horizontal scroller
you can add toppings to just one side
copy has been moved to the items customization page
New bottom navigation system that puts all important buttons right at your fingertips.
Top nav area only concentrates on your current order (delivery/pickup, store location, and cart).
Checkout experience has been reimagined and simplified.
Pizza tracker has been updated and redesigned to show progression.