World’s First Taco Subscription Service

High Level Result: Taco Lover’s Pass gathered 884 million impressions in the test market alone with 686 pieces of organic coverage.

Product/Design Process

Competitor Analysis

While there were no major fast food chains that offer a subscription service for daily “free food,” Panera Bread offered a subscription to a coffee a day. They also promoted the subscription as its own product instead of grouping it as another “food item” in their menu, and offered a generous three-month long free promotion as a first-time subscriber.

Other industries that offered subscriptions that I looked at were product delivery, entertainment/streaming, and grocery delivery. All industries required users to sign up/in and most offered an automatic charge every month.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• No industry has what we’re initiating – a subscription where a user must redeem the product daily through the app 
• Most subscription services offer an automatic charge but no options to customize the duration of subscription from sign up

User Flow Chart Explorations

Explorations of how users might purchase the pass and redeem their tacos within the existing Taco Bell app ecosystem.

Initial UX Explorations

To maximize efficiency, I started exploring the subscription landing page for Taco Lover’s Pass before the business requirements and product discovery phases were solidified.

Business Requirements for Taco Lover’s Pass

PURCHASING THE PASS

• User must have participating location set to see Taco Lover’s Pass in the menu. 
• User must be logged in to purchase pass. 
• User must be able to purchase other items with their pass.
• User can only have 1 Pass in cart and can only own 1 Pass at a time.
• Taco Lover’s Pass is not automatically renewed.

REDEEMING TACOS WITH THE PASS

• 1 free taco a day, meaning users cannot save up their tacos for 30 tacos all at once.
• User can redeem daily taco nationwide.
• User will have to pay for extra customizations.
• User cannot add more than one free taco to their cart.
• User should be able to see their Pass’s expiration date.

Secondary UX Explorations

Because of tech limitations and the new business requirements, having a subscription landing page no longer made sense since Taco Lover’s Pass is not a “true” subscription (doesn’t offer renewals). Now, Taco Lover’s Pass would be the first item on the Taco Bell menu that is a “digital-only-item,” and it had to be differentiated from the other food items but still had to work seamlessly together in the menu ecosystem. To do this, I created a custom button design with new icons, colors, and copy along with new assets for the menu item.

Possible new entry points and promotions for Taco Lover’s Pass:

Explored custom button design to differentiate Taco Lover’s Pass from other food items:

Continued same explorations for the product detail page:

Copy – Naming Survey

The redeemable daily tacos under the pass appear as $0 items on the menu, so they had to be differentiated from the standard full-priced tacos. I collaborated closely with the copywriter to brainstorm different names and initiated a company-wide survey to gauge interest in the 9 name options.

Icon Explorations

We also created 6 different icon options for Taco Lover’s Pass and conducted another company-wide survey and gathered opinions from stakeholders. The final chosen icon had the most emphasis on the “pass” aspect with a hint of the “lover’s” in the name.

Icons in use for scale reference

Final UX Flows

APP – Buying the Pass

• Taco Lover’s Pass is offered in three menu sections: New, Online Exclusives, and Tacos.
• New promotional image for the pass with custom icon (updated in future release) and updated copy. 
• After user adds a pass to their cart, “add to cart” button is disabled to prevent multiple passes from being added.
• When user has only the pass in their cart, pick up details and option to track order are omitted from checkout/confirmation screen.

APP – Redeeming the Daily Taco

• When user is logged in and owns a pass, new menu section called “Taco Lover’s Pass” is added.
• Taco Lover’s Pass menu section has instructions added to the top banner for easy access.
• Users can customize their daily taco but must pay extra for certain customizations.
• Users can swap to any other taco available under the pass with one tap.
• If user already redeemed their daily taco for the day, all “Add to cart” buttons are disabled and banner copy is updated to notify user.

DESKTOP – Buying the Pass

The overall flow is very similar other than added hover states already existing on desktop interactions.

DESKTOP – Redeeming the Daily Taco

Phase 1 launched with success, but not everything in our design was included

After a successful launch in the test market, there was a big appetite to launch nationally as soon as possible. Because of aggressive deadlines, not every functionality was included in Phase 1, so I collaborated closely with product and development team leads to expedite approval process and streamline the workflow to add the original UX improvements along with some extra global app enhancements.

Phase 2 Enhancements

Error modals were updated to be a seamless change of button color and copy change instead of intrusive error pop up.

Example 1: User cannot add more than one pass to cart, and user cannot own more than one pass at a time.

Example 2: User cannot redeem more than one daily taco in one day.

Visual improvements to modals in the Taco Lover’s Pass ecosystem with fun imagery (when appropriate) to add personality

Example: Locations Error Modal appears when users attempt to change their location during checkout. Also added an option to cancel action to not lose items in cart.

Phase 2 (National Launch) Success!

Taco Lover’s Pass launched nationally for the first time in January 2021. More than a year later, Taco Lover’s Pass returned for one day only on October 4, 2022 to celebrate National Taco Day. 

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Results