When in doubt about what to eat, a sandwich pretty much does the job. It’s quick, satisfying and filling. So while soaking in a bright sunny Sunday, I stepped into ‘Which wich’ on ‘The Ave’ to grab a sandwich. Having made my selection and approaching the payment desk I noticed mini-poster which had a rather large Microsoft tag on it promoting a special offer. It was a partnership with Pirq- a deal and discount mobile application

I whipped out my phone to scan the tag expecting to retrieve a simple mobile discount coupon which I could victoriously waive in front of the cashier. Instead, the tag opened the Pirq web page and from here on began the tap dance. Inching and pinching my way on the screen I tapped the ‘Install for Android’ button. At this point I realised that I was holding up a queue behind me and without intention had also set in motion a small chain of tag scanners. As expected, a couple of them didn’t have Microsoft tag scanner installed on their phones.

Coming back to the tap dance, the installation through the webpage failed for some weird reason and so I attempted downloading it from the Android app store. Post download I had to sign in either using Facebook or with my email id and zip code. I chose the latter hoping that I could finally stake claim to some gastronomically delightful deals. But whoever said success doesn’t come easy was right; at this stage a message popped up informing me that a confirmation link has been sent to my email id….I’m tearing my hair right now….pfff. The latent sense of achievement was now beginning to border on embarrassment and so I paid full price for the sandwich and left the place.

Determined to see this through, on reaching home I completed the email confirmation step and voila!!! …..another hoop…… I now had to choose a password to use the service.

This is a classic case of a sign in system that’s frustrating and broken. A complex process that forced me to self-forfeit a deal and a user experience that only ensured that a sandwich didn’t taste as good as it could have.

Since Pirq had a promotion running at the outlet I would’ve made one simple change to ensure that drop offs from new customers don’t occur due to the experience above. If a user didn’t already have the the Pirq app installed on his phone, on scanning the tag a mobile coupon to redeem the offer instantaneously should have been sent along with a simple app download button and a message stating “Download the Pirq app to avail of more deals like this”. Having tasted success, the user would be positively predisposed to go through the sign in mechanism. Even here, all data input ought to be captured on one form avoiding the tap dance described above.

The app itself is pretty cool. It listed offers from nearly 15 restaurants within a couple of miles from my location with a live counter of how many deals were yet up for grabs at each place. I’ll definitely make use it, but the sign in process could have been far better.