Review of the iHUT iPhone App from Pizza Hut

Last night, we tried Pizza Hut’s latest iPhone app- iHUT; and here’s how we rate it: Five stars for graphics,two for performance, minus two for flexibility and three for intuitive flow.

Remember the call that you make to order your pizza? Well, iHUT basically replaces that call with a few taps on your iPhone. The advantage of this is that you don’t have to repeat your address or your favorite topping combinations in front of a bored operator; you can- instead- build your pizza via the iHUT app and save those combinations for the future orders as well!

Mouth watering- isn’t it? But wait! Before you get too dreamy, let’s give you the bad news. To start with, you have to sign up on pizza hut “website” before you can do anything with the app. There are three things frustrating about it: 1). You can’t order via the app if you aren’t a member, 2). The app doesn’t handle the sign up process (Why? It’s a 10 MB app! Why is it hogging all that space if it can’t even provide a simple sign up form? My money is on Pizza Hut’s quirk to make you go to their website for probably building brand loyalty 3). You end up trying out the boring iHUT racer game (a complete waste of time) Then, if you happen to choose delivery as your mode of ordering, the app will not let you enter any new location on the app (you can only choose from the locations that you have entered in your account on the Pizza Hut website). Now, before you grimace and blurt out,”What is the big deal?”, this is what it means: in order to get your pizza delivered to a place other than your regular places (e.g., your friend’s place), you will have to go to Pizza Hut’s website, login to your account, add that location, and then order your pizza from the app. Bothersome, cumbersome, unfriendly and all this makes using the app to order pizza POINTLESS! (if I am on the website then I might just order the pizza ON THE WEBSITE!)

After the mode of order, rest of the ordering process seems cool. We loved the option to put various toppings on left, right halves or whole pizza!

The performance of the app mildly disappointed us: three attempts, one crash and one hang up later, when we finally had our virtual pizza ready to order, all the pizza hut outlets were closed ( this was our bad luck though). While we know that it’s only an app, not God, normal apps that are as restrictive as this one, and 10 MB in size, are not supposed to crash. Also, the flow of the app could have been more intuitive.

Note: Do check out the deals section. You can see coupons hung on a simulated fridge image. Pretty cool look. You can click on the coupons to use them. Also, when going through a coupon/deal, the app will clear out the options that are not available with the deal.

Restaurants preparing to follow Pizza Hut should remember that, while building iPhone apps for ordering is something that is becoming a necessity, the usability of the app decides its popularity; and if a user needs a missing manual to understand the app, or, go through multiple restrictions to order food, then you have definitely gone wrong somewhere.