Building a delivery app for drivers around the world

Beginning in 2012 Amazon started building a global delivery network to compliment third-party delivery services like FedEx and UPS. In order to make deliveries to customers Amazon needed to build a delivery app to help drivers navigate and make deliveries. I was the lead designer for Amazon’s first in-house delivery app, known as the Driver On-Road Assistant, or DORA. From 2013-2015 the DORA app was used for millions of deliveries world-wide. The DORA app was also the backbone of the Amazon Flex crowdsourced delivery program that launched in 2015, and I led the design of key components of the Amazon Flex app, including driver onboarding, scheduling work, and payments.

Examples of the Amazon Delivery App on professional and consumer devices.

Challenge: Build a last mile delivery app for drivers around the world

The goal for the Amazon DORA delivery app was to build a mobile application for drivers to deliver packages to customers around the world. Starting from a clean slate I had to design the driver pickup experience, on-road navigation, and customer deliveries. I also had to consider how the app would scale to support numerous types of deliveries and the challenges of deliveries in other locations. Amazon’s delivery partners and their drivers include novice users that don’t have experience delivering packages so I also had to ensure the app was simple and easy to use.

Project goals:

Build a mobile delivery app to enable drivers to pickup, navigate and deliver packages to customers.
Create flexibility for multiple delivery programs (including standard parcel, ultrafast, and heavy and bulky deliveries)
Empower novice and professional drivers to deliver packages efficiently, while promoting safety, reducing errors, and ensuring a positive experience for customers.

Research and concept development

Observation and hands-on research

In order to design an efficient delivery app I needed to understand the challenges that delivery drivers face in the real world. I conducted extensive user research interviews, and ride-alongs shadowing delivery drivers throughout their day. I used diagrams, user research postcards, analysis of other delivery tools to document the research and formulate key insights that would guide the architecture, features, and interaction design of the DORA app.

Driver ride-alongs and customer interviews

Early use-case documentation and driver task maps

Concept development and prototyping

Building on the customer research and documentation I developed an outline of the drivers tasks throughout their day. This evolved into a user-flow diagram that was the foundational structure of the DORA app. I worked through low fidelity sketching, and wireframes to validate the concepts with internal operations and tech stakeholders as well as soliciting feedback from professional drivers. After developing a solid foundation for the key screens in the delivery application I created high-fidelity prototypes that were used to explore the visual and interaction design. These prototypes were used to fine-tune the design and served as a roadmap for the technical teams throughout implementation.

Preliminary wireframes from the Amazon Delivery App

Launching the app

Driver On-Road Assistant (DORA)

In 2013 we launched the initial version of the DORA Delivery app. Beginning with just a few pilot stations the app was quickly rolled out to drivers around the world. After the initial launch we documented driver feedback and dove deep into the metrics to develop improvements to the app workflows. We also worked on additional features to support new country launches, and complex delivery programs, like Amazon Fresh, and Amazon Locker.

Launching Amazon Flex

In 2015 Amazon rolled out the crowd-sourced delivery program called Amazon Flex. One of the key challenges for the Amazon Flex app was to expand the core delivery functions of DORA to include the additional features that independent Delivery Partners would need to manage their business. I led the design of key features to enable Amazon Flex Delivery Partners including: onboarding to the program, finding work-blocks, and getting paid through the app. We also worked on a new visual design style and branding for the Amazon Flex app. As the design leader of the DORA app I owned key features of the Amazon Flex app and I helped to build out the Amazon Flex design team.

Screens from the production Amazon delivery app

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Scaling to support Amazon’s global delivery network

Since 2012 Amazon’s delivery network has grown to be one of the largest carriers in the world. Today the Amazon Delivery app is used by thousands of drivers every day, and is the key tool used to deliver billions of packages to customers around the world every year. The app is used by professional drivers employed by Amazon’s Delivery Service Partners (DSPs) as well as independent Amazon Flex Delivery Partners.