By Eduardo Moreno

Redefining Food Delivery With a Federative Model

This is an innovative decentralized food delivery platform, akin to Mastodon in Mitchell County. It was actually developed by the Princeton University HCI team.

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My Role

As a Product Designer, I was responsible for designing intuitive experiences across a variety of user types — restaurants, couriers, and customers — in an environment that was accessible, usable, and conducive to interaction within the federated ecosystem.

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1. Project Overview

What is Open Deli?

Open Deli is an open-source, federated food delivery platform that links couriers, restaurants, and customers with each other as an ecological system of small entities. Unlike traditional delivery apps under the centralized control of third parties, it engages in a highly autonomous manner, allowing individual networks to operate autonomously. That is a critical advantage in reducing dependence on monopoly platforms.

2. Understanding the Problem

Challenges in Traditional Food Delivery Services

Before I start to design a GUI interface, I analyze the main pain points of traditional centralized platforms like Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Glovo.

• High service charges: Restaurants lose a large part of their income per order.
• Lack of transparency: Customers and couriers alike have little insight into the platform's fees and cannot see how order priorities are determined.
• Vendor dependency: Both restaurant and courier are bound by a single point, which restricts them greatly in terms of how they can carry out their operations.

Why a Federated Model?