Doordash: man am I impressed!

This morning, I went downstairs to my kitchen for breakfast. I was really wanting a few eggs over medium.

To my dismay, I looked in the refrigerator, and we were completely out. I had heard about Doordash, but one thing you have to understand is, we're not exactly in a rural area, but it's not exactly urban either. Being I'm on the eastern part of the country, we're usually the last people to get the really cool services in our market, if we even get them at all in the first place. Needless therefore to say, I wasn't very hopeful that Doordash would be available. We don't have Uber Eats yet here. We have Lyft and Uber, but not Uber Eats, so that even more so made me hesitant.

I decided with my iPhone 11 Pro Max to download the Doordash app, create an account anyway, and just see what happened. I figured, the worst that would happen is, it would either say not available altogether, or would tell me nothing near me could be delivered, and I'd be out of luck. Also, I obviously didn't know how accessible with Voiceover the app would be. I'd heard it was pretty good, but you know as well as me, that's subjective. One person's good may not be so great to someone else.

I got the app installed, and the first thing I noticed was the account creation and login process was fantastic as far as accessibility was concerned. Every single thing on the entire sign up screen was labeled flawlessly. I figured that was a good start. I also really really loved the fact that I could sign in with my Apple ID, Google, or even Facebook. I didn't go with any of those methods, and instead elected to just set up my account with an e-mail address and password, however, the fact that it offers that flexability is downright fabulous!

Once in the app on the main screen, I was really really concerned. I figured I'd be in trouble if, like most apps like this, it showed pictures of the food, or some banner of featured items that scrolled in a dynamic marquis or the like.

Sure enough, there were pictures of featured dishes, as well as a list of featured supported franchises near me, however, oh my God alive! Every single one of the items was correctly labeled with alt text, and Voiceover read the items beautifully!

The only two things which were slightly confusing until I had my mother who is sighted look over my shoulder and explain is there are a few buttons near the top of the screen which I presume are for filtering things down to your liking. Those screens could use a little work. It's not that they don't read, as much as they're just not exactly the most intuitive at first glance.

Also, when adding items to your order, it's a little bit wierd in places as you pick the item, then it may say something like, choose your side. You'll then see a button that says, line button. I didn't know what that meant. Basically, when you tap the choice one flick to the right of the so called line button, that line button then changes to say fill button. Basically, if it says fill button, then the next item on the screen one flick to the right is selected. So let's say it wanted to know how I want my eggs cooked. I may see something that says line button, then another flick and I hear sunny side up. I flick again and hear, over medium. So, if I double tapped on over medium, then that line button one flick to the left of the over medium button would then turn from line button to now saying fill button, indicating that over medium is selected. It's kind of confusing, but once you understand what's happening, it's not too bad. I think either standard checkboxes, or even better yet, radio buttons would have worked better. I do plan to put in some feedback to the developers.

Anyway, I had another issue along the way. I'd added the western omelette that my mother wanted for breakfast to the order. I'd already selected that she wanted peasant hashbrown potatoes with the omelette. What I didn't however do was, I didn't realize until after adding to the order that she wanted me to add instructions, which by the way is super super easy to do, stating to please cook the potatoes extra crispy.

My mother was like, "OK, never mind, it's ok. I'll take what I get." I wasn't satisfied with that answer though. I figured, you may, but let's see if I can eventually pull up my cart's order contents, and edit that item, or remove it altogether.

Sure enough, at the bottom of my screen was a cart button displaying 3 items. My order, my mom's order, and my cappuccino. When ordering my cappuccino, I even double tapped on the add instructions specific to that item, and said, if they could do it, please put ice over the drink and make it into an ice cappuccino. I didn't know if that would work, but figured I'd at least try.

Anyway, I went into the cart area by double tapping on that button. I found my mom's omelette, double tapped it, and sure enough! I was right back at the screen as if I was customizing her omelette order. I found the instructions button, double tapped, typed in to make the potatoes on the side extra crispy, and then found and double tapped on the done button which took me back to her omelette customization screen. I then found at the bottom of the screen, a perfectly labeled button to update item. I double tapped that, then was back at my entire cart's order. Just exactly! the way I would have expected and wanted the app to function. Needless to say by this point, I was salivating, and not only because I was starving. LOL! I couldn't believe how ridiculously accessible the app was proving out to be! And more so, there were quite a few places near me, even currently opened that were fully integraded.

Once I was on the cart screen, I found another button completely correctly labeled to checkout. I hit this, and then was prompted to enter my address, and my payment method.

This really really really impressed me! Not only could they do Visa, Mastercard, and American Express, they also had PayPal, and even ApplePay! Heck! You even could just do regular C O D cash! I don't know totally how that would work. I guess the driver pays the restaurant, then you just tip and reimburse the driver. I dono. I'm not much a cash guy. If I can do a card or some digital form of payment, I'll do that any day. Call me weird, but...

Once all this info had been put in, which by the way was totally accessible, I hit place order, held my breath, and waited for confirmation.

Sure enough, the order went through without a hitch, and on the final screen, I was given my driver's name and last initial, a photo of the driver, two buttons: one to text the driver, and one to call him/her, and even a button to view my receipt.

Also, what I really really love is, at the top of the screen is dynamically updating text that tells how long until your meal arrives at your place, and even gives you the status, like, your meal is being prepared, your driver is on the way, your driver has arrived and is waiting for your food, driver has left and is on the way, etc.

Remember me saying before that we live in kind of a weird area? Most, if not all GPS apps I've seen get our place a little bit wrong, and get drivers thoroughly confused. Basically, it takes them down the wrong backroad into our development. If you go that way, you'll never find us, and will totally get turned around cattie wompussed. Usually what I do is, either I'll tell the driver ahead of time what to do when they get to that part of the route, or, I'll just wait, and when they do get confused, usually whoever's coming to visit will just call me and say, um, Chris? I'm lost. Then I will get them back on the right path.

My mother told me that though Voiceover totally skips over it, which I could definitely understand, there is a realtime updated visual map on the screen that shows in realtime where your driver actually is. She kept looking as we wanted to watch him get confused. That way we'd know when to call him and redirect.

All a sudden, my mom's like, "Holy cow! He didn't make the infamous wrong turn! He actually got it correct for once!" Next thing we knew, dingdong! He was at our door. No trouble finding us whatsoever at all.

He even was courteous enough to text me through the Doordash system, and say, "Good morning Chris. I'm here, and your food is right by your front door in frontof the threshold."

Then, he even sent me a text with the picture of my front door showing him sitting down the food.

My mother saw him doing this through our door's peephole, and told me, he even was totally sanatized! He not only had on a 2-layered mask, which was seated proprerly over both his mouth and nose, but he even was wearing latex gloves on top of that!

I couldn't believe how respectful he was to our health concerns! That was incredible!

Even texting me and also sending me that photo, I didn't request that, nor did I mention anywhere in a profile or the like that I was blind. He just did it. I'm not sure if that's policy, or if he was just being very professional at his disgression, but my! Gosh!

We opened up the boxes once we got them inside, and first off, my cappuccino had ice in it as I'd specifically requested. The tobasco was already on my eggs and potatoes as I asked, my mother's omelette, she said was absolutely perfect, and yes. Her potatoes even were crispy as she wanted when I went back and editted that item to ask this accomidation.

Needless to say, I definitely! will be using Doordash again! This had to probably be one of the best experiences I have had with an iOS delivery app in years! I plan to give Doordash a huge shoutout on their social media, and would encourage any of you who have used the service recently to do the same. The more people in the blind community who contact them and give them huge praise for all they're doing, the more willing they'll be to continue making this such a beautiful experience to us, and keeping things so accessible along the way.

I'd be very very interested in you all's thoughts about my experience.