Your food just showed up. Surprise!

At Just Eat Takeaway, I noticed something odd in our customer-facing portal, T-Connect: many orders weren’t being updated through their full delivery lifecycle. That might sound minor — until you realise that these statuses feed directly into what the customer sees in their app.

And according to app reviews, customers were clearly feeling it. The number one complaint? “The food just showed up — I didn’t know it was coming.” Not great if you’re walking the dog. Or in the shower.

T-Connect supported four statuses: new, in kitchen, on the go, and delivered. But in the backend data, the pattern was clear: many restaurants left orders on “new” for way too long, then jumped straight to “delivered” when the food went out the door. From the customer’s perspective, it looked like nothing was happening — until it suddenly was.

I ran some interviews with kitchen staff and quickly uncovered the problem: most users didn’t even know they were supposed to update the order statuses. Technically, there was a button to do that — but it was buried in the order detail screen. And when a new order came in, it printed a physical ticket. That paper became the kitchen’s interface. Nobody opened the digital order view again.

I saw two key flaws: updating a status took effort and wasn’t where users actually worked, and the interface didn’t communicate what should happen, or when.

So, what changed?

I added status buttons directly to the order overview screen — not exactly groundbreaking, but essential. That way, staff could update multiple orders in seconds, right from where they were already looking.

But the real challenge was this: how do you teach busy kitchen workers what to do, in the moment, without being annoying or preachy?

Placeholders. Fun ones. With illustrations.

This idea sparked debate. Some argued it wasn’t professional enough: “It’s a B2B tool.” But if you’ve ever set foot in a restaurant kitchen, you know who works there: young people, juggling ten things at once. They need clarity, not corporate minimalism.

I stood my ground. We added playful illustrations and short, friendly hints about when to update statuses. And guess what? The data flipped.

Previously skipped steps were now being used. Status updates flowed more naturally, and the kitchen experience aligned better with customer expectations. Were there still users caught off guard in the shower? Sure. But far fewer of them.