POST-COVID, consumers prioritise and expect service that is personal and efficient. The digitisation of customer interactions across all industries is an opportunity to seek innovative ways that restaurants can interact with customers.
iServe is a food-ordering app that students can use at restaurants to order their food, request services, and personalise interactions with the restaurant staff. iServe's product vision is to allow customers the ability to customise their customer service experience.
iServe is a food-ordering app that students can use at restaurants to order their food, request services, and personalise interactions with the restaurant staff. iServe's product vision is to allow customers the ability to customise their customer service experience.
Prototype link:
https://www.figma.com/proto/XnVGMhWXmCjTJjCbhWYDXG/PIP-iServe?node-id=225-1613&node-type=frame&t=ZPM6fyxGgUNIBQA9-1&scaling=scale-down&content-scaling=fixed&page-id=1%3A2&starting-point-node-id=225%3A1613&show-proto-sidebar=1
My team and I placed 1st in Prodigi's Product Innovation Program, a program that allowed us to work in a cross-functional team to come up with a solution to a real-world problem. Using the Double Diamond design process, we came up with the concept of iServe within the 10-week timeframe we were given.
HERE'S HOW WE DID IT
Prodigi provided us with the following problem brief:
Restaurants are struggling to minimise expenses due to understaffing, increasingly frequent supply issues, and signification inflation increases. This comes at a time when COVID-19 has driven a shift to remote working, decreasing the amount of customers and increasing health measures. Approximately 60% of individuals stated that they still feel uncomfortable about visiting restaurants, pubs and coffee shops. Restaurants are challenged with the task of improving customer service whilst reducing face-to-face interactions with customers.
Restaurants are struggling to minimise expenses due to understaffing, increasingly frequent supply issues, and signification inflation increases. This comes at a time when COVID-19 has driven a shift to remote working, decreasing the amount of customers and increasing health measures. Approximately 60% of individuals stated that they still feel uncomfortable about visiting restaurants, pubs and coffee shops. Restaurants are challenged with the task of improving customer service whilst reducing face-to-face interactions with customers.
Problem statement
How can we better support restaurant operations and improve the customer experience?
How can we better support restaurant operations and improve the customer experience?
Our initial analysis of the market involved desktop research. We found that...
- 67% of diners prefer to order their food digitally
- 77% of above diners cite convenience as the primary reason
- there was a rapid acceleration in the digitisation of customer interactions across all industries, from 19% pre-COVID to 53% post-COVID
- 71% of consumers desire services that are tailored to them
- 67% of diners prefer to order their food digitally
- 77% of above diners cite convenience as the primary reason
- there was a rapid acceleration in the digitisation of customer interactions across all industries, from 19% pre-COVID to 53% post-COVID
- 71% of consumers desire services that are tailored to them
We then conducted a survey to identify consumers' dining habits and preferences when dining out. From 23 participants, aged 18-24, we found that...
- 68% of participants prefer to dine out
- 81% of the above prefer to order through an app or QR code, and
- 72% find that waiting for service is the most frustrating part of dining out
- 68% of participants prefer to dine out
- 81% of the above prefer to order through an app or QR code, and
- 72% find that waiting for service is the most frustrating part of dining out
Some common sentiments from the survey include...
"It can get really difficult and annoying to get a waiter's attention"
"I want to focus my full attention on my company and my meal"
"It's awkward trying to get a waiter to make eye contact with you when it is busy"
Through the problem brief and our research, we identified an opportunity to help customers, in particular university students from the ages 18-24, achieve a dining experience that is comfortable, customisable, and meets changing consumer preferences. From our research, we also created a user persona "Derek", who represents the young, tech-savvy student market who we created iServe for.
The 3 key pain points we identified helped shape the ideation of solutions, and grounded my thinking in what the MVP might look like.
THE FUN PART
I love ideating, and greatly enjoyed mapping out what the experience would look like from a customer that I could relate to so closely. Not pictured are also the endless nights my team and I spent, conflicted between 2 main ideas: a business-focused, money-making social media app that would encourage consumers to dine in more, or a user-centric app benefitting both restaurants and consumers that would actually solve the problem we were exploring. I'll admit I tried to push for a social media app, but unsure of how convincingly it solves the problem brief, my team convinced me to explore ideas for iServe.
Customer Site Map
Waitstaff Site Map
We pitched iServe and presented our research findings to the showcase judges (essentially our stakeholders) halfway through the program. Using the MoSCoW prioritisation method, we prioritised our most important features from our proposal below (Customise and Request), both must-haves that were the biggest pain points from our research.
I mocked up customer and waitstaff site maps, as while the customer uses iServe on their personal device, the restaurant would require a digital experience to receive the customer's requests. Due to time constraints, we decided to focus on the customer experience, with the waitstaff experience as a future consideration.
I also created the user flow below to help my UX/UI colleagues and myself when creating the mock-ups.
Customer Process Flow
THE SECOND ITERATION
I wanted to ensure that our user persona is more data-driven, so I took more insights from our previous research to re-iterate our original user person. Meet Steph, who reflects our target market more precisely and is an amalgamation of the participants we surveyed.
This final user persona fed into the design decisions we made in the hi-fi prototype, such as the look and feel. We attempted to adhere to food- or restaurant-symbolic colours such as green, yellow and orange. I supported the other UX/UI Designers' design decision to update the colour palette to reflect a more 'tech-savvy' and modern look and feel that would attract a customer like Steph.
Original design system
Revised colour palette
As one of the lead UX/UI Designers, I focused on one of the prominent features, 'Service'. I grabbed random UI inspiration from any source to visualise what a common mental model of confirming an action would be on a mobile device. I landed on a sliding button, which would allow the user to backtrack while their finger was still on the button.
Luckily for us UX/UI designers, our lo-fi wireframes were sufficient for us to apply the design system easily.
Furthermore, during usability testing, I found that 20% of participants were uninterested in the 'Do Not Disturb' feature. However, after the colour change to accentuate it, those participants were able to turn on the feature in another round of moderated usability testing.
THE FINAL PITCH
iServe allows the customer to have a more enjoyable dining experience, with no need to wait around to catch the attention of waiters as well as the ability to conversely request no interactions with the waiter. iServe is expected to have a wide-reaching impact across the restaurant industry, including cutting overall labour costs, improving restaurant operations and improving diner satisfaction. Furthermore, iServe is estimated to enhance the experience of students when dining alone or with friends at restaurants located especially near universities.
This project was the first that allowed me to collaborate in a cross-functional squad. I contributed to the end-to-end process of creating the pitch for the product, such as desktop research and showcasing. I could also focus my efforts in the UX/UI design and customer research at the same time. Ideally, iServe would now be handed over to an engineering team to develop and release.
To improve in the future, I intend on using more evidence-driven personas during the initial research, as we were unable to collect from a larger pool of data during the time period. I would create a persona for the restaurant/business experience, one for a food blogger and one for a general audience experience. I found that conducting user research and interviews can also be a heavily iterative process, involving multiple rounds.
To improve in the future, I intend on using more evidence-driven personas during the initial research, as we were unable to collect from a larger pool of data during the time period. I would create a persona for the restaurant/business experience, one for a food blogger and one for a general audience experience. I found that conducting user research and interviews can also be a heavily iterative process, involving multiple rounds.