Pizza

Last week I ordered a pizza. I want to talk through my experience, as a sort of expressive therapy.

I pulled up the pizza place’s mobile web site and flicked through the menu. It wasn’t easy to navigate (see: below) but I sorted it. One large Supreme. Coolcoolcool. I tapped in my credit card and hit “Order”.

…and then.

“Upgrade”, huh. On its face that sounds cool. …but…well…what am I “upgrading” ?to

If it had said like “we’ll make it 10% moar biggerer” or “we’ll put s’more shit on it” then that might’ve been compelling…but the screen just says “Traditional”. The only place I’ve seen “Traditional” as a term is with respect to the crust. I’d already picked a crust, so…is changing from one crust selection to another really an “Upgrade”? Or is this just asking me whether I want to change my life decisions regarding pizza crust?

Also: on this screen it looks like “Traditional” is a button. So…what happens if I tap it?

Mistake. Now I’m spiraling. I can toggle the “upgrade” to “Traditional” between either Red or Black? What does it mean?

I decided to Phone-a-Friend. His suggestion: “Order two pizzas - one with either option - and see what happens!”

But…I also have to pick Yes or No, right? (Sidebar: The text is fine and the buttons are positioned in the expected places, but…why is “No, Thanks” green and “Yes, Please” red?)

So…I actually have to order four pizzas to satisfy each state of the problem space, right? No/Traditional=Red, No/Traditional=Black, Yes/Traditional=Red, Yes/Traditional=Black

At this point I considered just bailing and calling to place my order.

LOL Just kidding - it’s 2022 nobody calls to order pizza any more, are you kidding me?

I suppose all’s well that ends well; the UX might be a hellscape, but ultimately I picked whatever I picked and some 20 minutes later I had a pizza.