Previous experience reduced investigation and made expectations more realistic.
iFood · Choice behavior
The good-enough choice.
How five heuristics helped people satisfy an appetite while preserving energy, time and money.
15interviews
7cities
5qualitative heuristics
The question
Ratings were only one part of a broader decision.
Before deciding which signal to emphasize, we needed to understand how people managed resources to get food they actually wanted. The study investigated choice mechanisms, not prevalence.
Mechanism
Appetite determined what was worth spending.
Energy, time and money were distinct resources. The intensity of desire changed tolerance for price, waiting, search and risk. Without enough appetite, saving resources was not sufficient to produce an order.
Five heuristics
Shortcuts ended the search without requiring certainty.
Coupons and free delivery lowered cost and also organized the search.
Distance helped anticipate time, delivery cost and food condition.
Photos and descriptions increased appetite and reduced uncertainty.
Other people’s experience worked as a proxy test.
No heuristic always dominated; context and desire changed the balance.
Implications
Reduce effort
History, favorites and signals of familiarity.
Reduce risk
Distance, time, photos, descriptions and packaging.
Support trust
Relevant reviews, curation and social context.
Contribution and limit
A behavioral lens, not a universal formula.
The study supported appetite as a driver, three negotiated resources and five qualitative heuristics. It did not measure frequency, representativeness or causality for repurchase or retention. Its strength was explaining how people protected scarce resources without abandoning what made an order desirable.