THE AVION
B4 Technology
Buying Food on Campus: Does Tapingo Save You Time?
*William is a doctoral student in the Research in User eXperience (RUX) Lab in the Department of Human Factors and Behavioral Neurobiology. RUX investigates the usability and user experience of technology in our everyday world. This is the first of a regular column that will explore different technologies typically used by Embry-Riddle students. William J. Shelstad Graduate Researcher Tired of waiting in line to order food? Don’t have much time between classes to eat? Tapingo is a mobile app that you can use to order food from one of the locations on campus and pick up. We evaluated Tapingo from a first-time user experience perspective. We wanted to find out how easy is it for someone to download and start using. We assessed the Tapingo user experience with four activities: finding and downloading the Tapingo app, creating an account, placing an order, and picking up your food. Finding and downloading the Tapingo app Finding the Tapingo app is straightforward and easy. Just search for “Tapingo” in the Play Store or App Store. Note that there is a similarly named app called “Tap & Go” by HK - you do not want that. At the time of this review, Tapingo has a 4.2/5 on the App Store and 3.6/5 on the Play Store. In a quick 10-15 seconds, it should download, and you will be ready to go. Creating an account Creating a Tapingo account begins with entering an email address and password and then picking your location. If you are on campus and allow Tapingo to use your phone location, it recognizes the Embry-Riddle campus immediate-
ly. You can then connect Tapingo to your school account by entering your ERAU email and entering the 16-digit card number on the back of your student ID. If you use your ERAU email to create a Tapingo account, you still have to enter in the ERAU email again. Android users also have the option of taking a picture of their credit/debit card to add payment information. Placing an order So, where do you want to eat? The first step is choosing the eating establishment. All locations that provide food on campus are listed including Chick-fil-A, Kebab Stop Food Truck, Qdoba, Refueling Station, and Starbucks. Each of the locations gives the building name/ number, and the approximate time it takes for an order to be completed. For the Refueling Station (the UC cafeteria), each station, such as Saute Your Way and Delicatessen, are individually listed. Depending on which of the locations you choose, there may be similar menu options with some listed as “Use A Meal” or “Use Dollars.” This can be confusing - “Use A Meal” means paying with meal plan while “Use Dollars” means paying with Eagle Dollars, Dining Dollars, Sodexo Bucks, or just using a credit/debit card. Only some of the options include images and nutritional information. Unfortunately, it is not possible to choose food from multiple locations in the same order. So, you can’t order food from Chick-fil-A
and get a latte from Starbucks all at once. Also, orders made through Tapingo have an extra $0.59 service fee added that you would see at checkout. The checkout process can be a little confusing since there is a long list of payment methods, especially if you are connected to your ERAU account. Several of the methods seemed to be duplicated for reasons unknown. Tapingo can save an order in “The Usuals” to cut down making the same order again.
find and setting up an account is straightforward. Ordering can be confusing at first when seeing multiple of the same items and trying to understand the “Use A Meal” vs. “Use Dollars.” Orders through Tapingo will cost a little extra (+ $0.59) as well. Overall, if you don’t mind paying a little extra to skip the line, then Tapingo is worthwhile to use just don’t be too upset if the order is not exactly correct.
Pick up your food Once you order your food, you will see a queue with other Tapingo orders. Your app shows the time it takes to complete your order and will send a notification when your order is done. In our review, we had six people try out the app one day for lunch. Two ordered from Qdoba, and the other four ordered from Chick-fil-A. Each person’s order was ready before they arrived or ready shortly after, allowing them to skip both the order and pick-up lines. Out of the six orders, only two orders were entirely correct, however. Issues with orders included the wrong size order of fries, wrong size order of chicken nuggets, and no lettuce in a salad! Final thoughts Overall, Tapingo can be a useful app if you need to get food quickly or you don’t want to wait in line for food. The app is easy to
Image Courtesy: William J. Shelstad
The long, repetitive list of payment methods on Tapingo with a connected ERAU account.
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An experience map showing the journey someone would go through using Tapingo.
Image Courtesy: William J. Shelstad