Smartwatches are slowly beginning to be woven into the fabric of normal society. It begins with the upper echelons of the tech elite - the first adopters and the tech-y rich, and slowly trickles down as designers figure out how to introduce new paradigms onto a 42mm screen. One place where tablet technologies are just beginning to emerge is within the small restaurants, which makes it fertile ground for smartwatch applications to grow up alongside.
Interviews:
#1 Owner of a few restaurants in Durant Food Court
As an owner, this user spends time both working behind the counter and out on errands. He manages inventory, employee scheduling, and other logistical aspects of the business. Although he does have a smartphone while at work, it generally sits on a counter in the kitchen and doesn't travel with him. He will take work related phone calls and respond to emails, but generally doesn't use it for personal reasons while working. His businesses are using a third party payment platform through a tablet, which both tracks the finances as well as does some basic data analysis. There are still some processes that are analog, which he is interested in finding a digital or automated solution for. In general though, he wouldn't be inclined to buy a smartwatch unless there was some compelling functionality that it offers that his phone couldn't already.
Notables
- Phone is not always in arm's reach
- Uses paper tickets to keep track of food orders
- Needs to communicate with many staff members about scheduling
- Manually checks inventory every night
- Uses Verifone Cloud POS for payments
#2 Owner of a pearl milk tea shop in Durant Food Court
This user is similar to the previous one, except his shop is not as well established. He has fewer employees, and seems to be in the shop throughout the day. He does have his cell phone on him at work, but only uses it for personal reasons. Because he runs a shop that is physically smaller, his needs differs from the previous owner. However, he also uses a tablet for the shop's payment platform.
Notables
- Phone is used for personal tasks
- Uses paper tickets to keep track of food orders
- Has a few timing-specific jobs he needs to manage
- Uses Square for payments
Themes
- Physical tickets are passed around to relay food orders
- Want to check on the store's progress while on the go
- Looking to connect to payment systems on their tablets
Full notes can be found here.
Brainstorming: An app that ...
- notifies the line cooks of the current orders in the queue
- updates when employees can or cannot make their shifts
- keeps track of custom cooking timers
- connects to the video monitoring system of the restaurant
- interfaces with the payment system and supplies updates and summaries
- estimates inventory left over of food and supplies and sends notifications
- displays the status of each table: empty, ordered, eating, etc
- only lets through calls and messages that are work-related
- analyzes selling data and sends notification if extra preparation is needed for the next day's sales.
- connects to a card reader and can accept payments
- tracks phone orders and eta of pickup
- controls kitchen appliances like the stove, oven, microwave, faucet
These ideas were brainstormed in conjunction with Wesley Hsu.
Prototype:
I decided to design an application based off of the first and third ideas, as they seemed to be ideas that are both practically helpful and easy to simplify onto a small screen (1.6" x 1.6").
Feedback:
I was able to test my application with a Front of House Manager who previously worked in the Durant Food Court. With his experience interacting with the managers and cooks, he was able to shed some insights on what would and would not be useful as a smartwatch app.
- Clicking the middle of the timer app should lead to the order specification page
- Cooks will need to rely on arm movements to do some actions if their hands are full
It was not clear what the numbers referred to, so there should be some initial tutorial overlays
The circles on the queue page may be too small to accurately press
Re-ordering the queue page will not be a commonly used feature, although there are cases when it could be necessary
There should be tactile notifications for timers
These are quite relevant and useful for the app, and I think a future iteration of the app will also include tutorial screens in addition to the above suggestions.
Comments